Review: UOB Visa Signature Card

Here’s The MileLion’s review of the UOB Visa Signature Card, which this year marks its 18th anniversary.

It’s hard to believe today, but when it debuted back in 2006 (in fetching purple no less), it was positioned as the card for the mass affluent, which at the time required a minimum income of just S$60,000, versus S$120,000 today.

These days, it’s more of a mass market offering, and that’s a good thing. Even though some of its mechanisms are hard to understand, this oldie is definitely a goodie.

UOB Visa Signature
🦁 MileLion Verdict
☑ Take It ☐ Take It Or Leave It ☐ Leave It
What do these ratings mean?
Assuming the pesky minimum spend doesn’t trip you up, the UOB Visa Signature is an easy way to earn 4 mpd on local or overseas spend.
👍 The good	👎 The bad
Easy-to-earn 4 mpd on FCY, contactless and petrol spend, with S$2,000 monthly cap UNI$ pool with other UOB cards	Requires S$1,000 minimum spend to trigger 4 mpd earn rate S$5 earning blocks
💳 Full List of Credit Card Reviews

Overview: UOB Visa Signature

Let’s start this review by looking at the key features of the UOB Visa Signature.

Apply
Income Req.	S$50,000 p.a.	Points Validity	2 years
Annual Fee	S$218 (First Year Free)	Min. Transfer	5,000 UNI$ (10,000 miles)
FCY Fee	3.25%	Transfer Fee	S$25
Local Earn	0.4 mpd	Points Pool?	Yes
FCY Earn	4 mpd	Lounge Access?	No
Special Earn	4 mpd on FCY, contactless payments & petrol	Airport Limo?	No
Cardholder Terms and Conditions

How much must I earn to qualify for a UOB Visa Signature?

The UOB Visa Signature has an unusual S$50,000 annual income requirement; more than the MAS-mandated S$30,000 minimum, but not quite the rarefied air of the S$120,000 segment.

I wouldn’t let this deter you from applying, however, since any income requirement above S$30,000 is essentially arbitrary. There have been many data points of people successfully getting approved in the S$30,000-S$50,000 range, and if you never try, you’ll never know.

How much is the UOB Visa Signature’s annual fee? 

The UOB Visa Signature has an annual fee of S$218, which is waived for the first year. The fee for the first supplementary card is waived in perpetuity, with the second card onwards charged at S$109 per year.

Waivers are fairly easy to get in my experience, but be warned that UOB’s default behaviour is to automatically deduct your UNI$ to cover the annual fee.

How do UOB’s automatic UNI$ deductions for annual fees work?

When the time comes for renewal, you will be charged either:

1. 6,500 UNI$ for a full waiver
2. 3,250 UNI$ + S$109 for a half waiver

If you have at least 6,500 UNI$ in your account, you will be charged (i). If you have less than 6,500 UNI$ but more than 3,250 UNI$, you will be charged (ii). And if you don’t have at least 3,250 UNI$, you’ll be charged the S$218 annual fee in cash.

It’s up to you to monitor your statement and request a fee waiver when this happens. Look at the expiry date on your credit card- the month corresponds to the month your annual fee will be charged. 

For what it’s worth, if UOB subsequently grants you a fee waiver, the reinstated UNI$ will have a fresh 2-year validity, so that’s something I guess!

How many miles do I earn?

Regular SGD/FCY Spending

UOB Visa Signature Cardholders usually earn:

• 1 UNI$ for every S$5 spent in Singapore Dollars
• 1 UNI$ for every S$5 spent in foreign currency (FCY)

1 UNI$ is worth 2 airline miles, so that’s an equivalent earn rate of 0.4 mpd for both.

However, these rates can be increased significantly, as we’ll see in the next section.

Overseas, Petrol and Contactless Spend

UOB Visa Signature Cardholders will earn:

• 10 UNI$ for every S$5 spent overseas 
• 10 UNI$ for every S$5 spent on petrol or via contactless payments 

This is equivalent to 4 mpd for both categories, and subject to the following conditions:

1. Overseas: Spend at least S$1,000 in FCY in a statement month
2. Petrol and contactless: Spend at least S$1,000 in SGD in a statement month

(a) and (b) can be mutually exclusive. You can choose to do just (a), just (b) or (a) + (b).

The combined awarding of UNI$10 per S$5 spend on overseas spend, petrol and
contactless is subject to a shared cap of UNI$4,000 (S$2,000) per statement month. 

Overseas spend

Overseas spend refers to any online or offline spend that is not in SGD, processed through a payment gateway outside of Singapore.

BOC and UOB are the only banks to add the “payment gateway outside of Singapore” clause, and it is rather nebulous. How on earth is the customer supposed to know where the merchant’s payment gateway is?

If it’s any consolation, this will only be an issue with a small number of online transactions, and using your card while physically overseas guarantees you 4 mpd so long as you don’t fall victim to the DCC scam (i.e. always opt to pay in FCY and not in SGD).

Petrol and contactless spend

Petrol spend refers to any transactions at petrol stations (MCC 5541/5542).

Shell and SPC are officially excluded in the T&Cs, but in real life both earn UNI$ nonetheless. I can’t say for sure whether this is a feature or a bug, or whether it’ll still be accurate by the time you read this post, so do it at your own risk.

Contactless spend refers to any transactions made via the following contactless methods:

Payment Method	Eligible?
	✅
	❌
	✅
	✅
Excludes MST	✅
Tapping Physical Card	✅

Contactless spend does not include online or in-app transactions, nor SimplyGo. 

For clarity, here’s a table summarising how various transactions fall into the “overseas” (min. spend S$1,000 in FCY) or “petrol & contactless” (min. spend S$1,000 in SGD) buckets.

An easy rule of thumb is to ask: do you hear a “beep beep” sound when you pay? If not, its not contactless. 

All minimum spending excludes transactions on UOB’s general exclusion list, such as insurance premiums, hospitals, education, charitable donations and prepaid account top-ups.

What if I spend across categories?

Where people tend to get confused is when they make both local and overseas petrol and contactless transactions. How does that affect the calculation of minimum spend?

It’s actually not that complicated, so long as you think about it this way:

• If your petrol and contactless spend is in FCY, it counts towards the overseas minimum spend
• If your petrol and contactless spend is in SGD, it counts towards the petrol and contactless minimum spend

Here’s a few scenarios to illustrate how it works.

Note in particular the last two scenarios, which shows how overseas and local contactless spend do not comingle. Overseas is overseas, local is local. Even if you unlock the overseas 4 mpd earn rate through FCY contactless spending alone, it has no bearing on whether you earn 4 mpd on local contactless spend- that requires a minimum spend of S$1,000 in SGD, period.

Say it with me: Contactless overseas transactions do not double count towards “overseas” and “petrol and contactless”, it will only count towards “overseas”.

While the minimum spend requirement can be annoying to track, the UOB Visa Signature Card’s blacklist policy makes it very versatile. So long as you’re spending in FCY, or in SGD at a contactless payment terminal, you can earn 4 mpd on all your spending. 

For more on managing your whitelist and blacklist cards, refer to the article below.

Blacklist vs whitelist cards: How I optimise between both

Be careful of UOB$ merchants

UOB cardholders (with the exception of UOB PRVI Miles AMEX, which does not participate in the UOB$ scheme) do not earn any base UNI$ at UOB$ merchants.

In the case of cards like the UOB PRVI Miles or UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, this means walking away empty handed. However, the impact is less severe on the UOB Visa Signature Card, because you’ll still earn the bonus UNI$ (3.6 mpd) on such transactions. 

For a full explanation, refer to the post below.

Confirmed: UOB$ merchants qualify for bonus miles with UOB cards

UOB$ merchants include Cold Storage, Crystal Jade, Giant, Guardian, Starbucks and Toast Box.

FCY transaction fee

All FCY transactions on the UOB Visa Signature Card incur a 3.25% FCY transaction fee. This is par the course for the market.

Assuming you’ve hit the minimum spend necessary for the 4 mpd earn rate, using your card overseas is equivalent to buying miles at 0.81 cents each.

When are UNI$ credited? 

Base UNI$ are credited when the transaction posts. Bonus UNI$ will be credited in the following statement period.

How are UNI$ calculated?

Here’s how you can work out the UNI$ earned on your UOB Visa Signature:

While you normally need to watch out for S$5 earning blocks with UOB cards, it’s less of an issue with the UOB Visa Signature than the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa. That’s because all unrounded transactions on the UOB Visa Signature are summed up during the calculation of the 9X bonus. 

Is UOB’s points rounding policy as bad as it seems?

Here’s a simple example. Suppose you have three transactions for the whole month, S$99.99, S$199.99 and S$700.02.

• With the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, each transaction is rounded down to the nearest S$5, so you’ll earn 3,960 miles (S$95*4 + S$195 *4 + S$700*4)
• With the UOB Visa Signature, each transaction is rounded down to the nearest S$5 for the purpose of 1X points (0.4 mpd), but all transactions are summed up for the purpose of 9X points (3.6 mpd). Therefore, you’ll earn 3,996 miles (S$95 * 0.4 + S$195 * 0.4 + S$700 * 0.4 + (S$99.99+ S$199.99+  S$700.02) *3.6)

If you’re an Excel geek, here’s the formulas you need to calculate your points: 

For the full list of formulas that banks use to calculate credit card points, do refer to these articles:

• General Spending Cards
• Specialised Spending Cards

What transactions aren’t eligible for UNI$?

A full list of transactions that do not earn UNI$ can be found in the T&Cs at Point 1(iii).

I’ve highlighted a few noteworthy categories below:

• Charitable Donations
• Education
• Government Services 
• Insurance
• Prepaid account top-ups (e.g. GrabPay, YouTrip)
• Real Estate Agents & Managers
• Utilities

UNI$ will be awarded for CardUp, but not ipaymy. However, the UOB Visa Signature will only earn 0.4 mpd on such transactions, so you’re much better off using the UOB PRVI Miles or another general spending card instead.

What do I need to know about UNI$?

Expiry

UNI$ expire 2 years from the last day of each periodic quarter in which the UNI$ was earned.

Each UNI$ period is calculated commencing from January to December of each calendar year. Expired UNI$ cannot be replaced or reinstated.

Pooling

UNI$ pool across cards. If you have 10,000 UNI$ on the UOB Lady’s Card, and 5,000 UNI$ on the UOB Visa Signature, you can redeem 15,000 UNI$ at one shot and pay a single conversion fee.

It also means that you don’t need to transfer your UNI$ out before cancelling the UOB Visa Signature, assuming it’s not your last UNI$-earning card. 

Transfer Partners & Fees

UNI$ can be transferred to KrisFlyer or Asia Miles with a minimum transfer block of 5,000 UNI$ (let’s ignore AirAsia, because converting points there is like throwing them away):

Frequent Flyer Programme	Conversion Ratio (UNI$: Partner)
	5,000: 10,000
	5,000: 10,000
	2,500: 4,500

Transfers cost S$25 per programme, regardless of how many points are transferred.

UOB also has an auto-conversion option for KrisFlyer, which costs S$50 per year. UNI$ will be automatically converted on the last day of the calendar month, in blocks of UNI$2,500 (half the regular conversion block).

FAQs

T&Cs

Read Point 53-55

However, you’ll need to keep a minimum balance of UNI$15,000 (30,000 miles) in your account at all times. This is a hefty working capital balance! Make what you will of UOB’s reason for this policy…

Cardmembers who wish to make ad-hoc conversions can still do so, subject to the payment of the usual S$25 fee per conversion, in standard blocks of 5,000 UNI$ (10,000 miles).

Here’s the pros and cons of the automatic transfer scheme: 

Pros

• Pay a single fee for 12 automatic conversions a year
• Reduces the minimum conversion block from 5,000 UNI$ (10,000 KrisFlyer miles) to 2,500 UNI$ (5,000 KrisFlyer miles)

Cons

• The 3-year expiry on your KrisFlyer miles starts as soon as they are converted. Had you kept your UNI$ on the UOB side, you’d enjoy two extra years of validity
• Ad-hoc conversions still cost you S$25
• Only balances in excess of 15,000 UNI$ are converted
• Effectively locks you into KrisFlyer, as opposed to UOB’s other transfer partners (you can still make ad-hoc conversions to Asia Miles between quarters, but it’s likely you’ll need to end participation in the automatic conversion programme to acquire a critical mass)

Transfer Times

UOB transfers to KrisFlyer are typically completed within 48 hours.

If you need your points credited instantly, you can do so via Kris+. 1,000 UNI$ can be transferred to 1,700 KrisPay miles, which can then be transferred to KrisFlyer miles at a 1:1 ratio with no fees. 

S$5 for new Kris+ Users

Get S$5 (in the form of 750 KrisPay miles) when you sign-up with code W644363 and make your first transaction

However, those 1,000 UNI$ would normally have earned you 2,000 KrisFlyer miles, so you effectively take a 15% haircut. Therefore I wouldn’t recommend taking this option, unless you need a small top-up to redeem a flight, or have an orphan UNI$ balance (<5,000 points). 

If you choose to do so nonetheless, do remember that it’s a two-step process:

1. Transfer UNI$ to KrisPay miles
2. Transfer KrisPay miles to KrisFlyer miles

Do not forget the second step! If you wait more than seven days, or spend any of the converted KrisPay miles via Kris+, the entire balance will be stuck in the Kris+ app. KrisPay miles expire after six months, and can only be spent at a poor ratio of 150 miles = S$1. 

Summary Review: UOB Visa Signature

Apply

The UOB Visa Signature is a versatile solution that allows you to earn 4 mpd both in Singapore (via contactless) and overseas, giving you an easy 96,000 miles a year from just S$2,000 monthly spend.

It’s especially useful for those who regularly bust the 4 mpd cap on the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa (S$1,110), and an ideal choice for those who struggle to memorise which card to use where.

Add the fact that UOB pools points, and you can see how the UOB Visa Signature could easily slot into a card portfolio also featuring the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, UOB Lady’s Card and UOB PRVI Miles.

The main drawback is the S$1,000 minimum spend required to trigger the 4 mpd bonus rate, which can be potentially confusing for first-timers. But it’s not rocket science, and once you figure it out, the UOB Visa Signature will be a worthy addition to your wallet.