Review: UOB Visa Signature Card

Here’s The MileLion’s review of the UOB Visa Signature Card, which this year marks its 17th anniversary. Veterans may remember it originally came in purple and was positioned as a mass affluent card- though that only required an annual income of S$60,000 in 2006, instead of S$120,000 now!

Old it may be, but sometimes old is gold. Even if you’re not a fan of the usual UOB shenanigans, this is one card you’ll still want to have.

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 a great way to earn 4 mpd almost everywhere.
👍 The good	👎 The bad
4 mpd on contactless, FCY and petrol spend, with S$2,000 monthly cap	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$216 (First Year Free)	Min. Transfer	5,000 UNI$ (10,000 miles)
Miles with Annual Fee	None	Transfer Partners	SIA Cathay Pacific Air Asia
FCY Fee	3.25%	Transfer Fee	S$25
Local Earn	0.4 mpd	Points Pool?	Yes
FCY Earn	4.0 mpd	Lounge Access?	No
Special Earn	4.0 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 a slightly 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$30,000-50,000 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$216, 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$108 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. When the time comes for renewal, you will either be charged:

1. 6,500 UNI$ for a full waiver
2. 3,250 UNI$ + S$108 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$216 annual fee in cash.

It’s up to you to monitor your statement and request a 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. 

How many miles do I earn?

Regular SGD/FCY Spending

The UOB Visa Signature normally earns:

• 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.

A 3.25% fee applies to all foreign currency transactions.

Overseas, Petrol and Contactless Spend

UOB Visa Signature Cardholders will earn 10X UNI$ per S$5 (equivalent to 4 mpd) on overseas spend, petrol and contactless, subject to the following conditions:

1. Overseas spend: Spend at least S$1,000 in foreign currency in a statement month
2. Petrol and contactless: Spend at least S$1,000 in local currency in a statement month

(a) and (b) can be mutually exclusive. That’s to say, you can choose to satisfy 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 per statement month. This is equivalent to S$2,000 per statement month. 

Overseas spend refers to any online or in-person spend that is not in SGD.

This excludes foreign currency transactions made at merchants with payment gateways in Singapore. I realise that’s a bit 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 handful 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 the overseas currency and not in SGD).

Petrol and contactless refers to any spend at petrol stations (MCC 5541/5542, excluding Shell and SPC [that’s the official stance, but both Shell and SPC appear to earn UNI$ nonetheless]), or via the following contactless methods:

Payment Method	Eligible?
	✔
	✗
	✔
	✔
Excludes MST	✔
Tapping physical card	✔

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

The table below summarises how various transactions fall into the “overseas” or “petrol & contactless” buckets.

The S$1,000 minimum local currency spend for petrol and contactless can include non-petrol, non-contactless spend (but really, there’s no reason why you’d do that).

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. The question is how that affects 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 foreign currency, it counts towards the overseas minimum spend
• If your petrol and contactless spend is in local currency, 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 foreign currency 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 local currency, period.

I say again: 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, it does make the UOB Visa Signature a jack-of-all-trades solution. So long as there’s a contactless payment terminal, it’s a potential 4 mpd opportunity.

The exception is UOB$ merchants, where transactions will earn a slightly lower 3.6 mpd. That’s because UOB$ merchants do not earn any base UNI$ (i.e. 0.4 mpd) on the UOB Visa Signature. Fortunately, the bonus component (3.6 mpd) still gets credited just fine. 

You can read a full explanation via 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. For the full list, refer to this link.

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.

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

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$ transfer to frequent flyer programs at the following ratios, 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). 

However, you’ll need to keep a minimum balance of UNI$15,000 (30,000 miles) in your account at all times, for reasons I don’t quite understand. UOB provides the following explanation, for what it’s worth.

This is to give card members the flexibility to convert the UNI$ to other items from UOB Rewards Catalogue. Card members can still choose to convert this UNI$15,000 to KrisFlyer miles by the one time miles redemption process through UOB Rewards Catalogue, subjected to S$25 conversion fee and must be in blocks of 10,000 miles.

You can enroll for the automatic conversion programme here.

Transfer Times

Based on my experience, most points transfers are 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. No conversion fees apply.

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

Transfers are immediate, but 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). 

Summary Review: UOB Visa Signature

Apply

If you’re someone who regularly busts the 4 mpd cap on the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa (S$1,000), then the UOB Visa Signature is an excellent tool to add to your arsenal. So long as there’s a contactless terminal, you’re guaranteed 4 mpd (provided it’s not an excluded transaction or UOB$ merchant). 

This makes it an ideal choice for those who struggle to memorise which card to use where. Assuming you max out the 4 mpd cap each month, you’re looking at 96,000 miles per year- just shy of a return Business Class ticket to Japan or South Korea.

The fact that UOB pools points makes the UOB Visa Signature even more useful. It could be paired with the UOB PRVI Miles, UOB Lady’s Card, or UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, creating a card portfolio that earns 4 mpd on a large proportion of your overall spending.