No one gets ex-static about paying electricity bills, but seeing as how they keep the lights on, it doesn’t hertz to know watt card you can use to earn miles.
Now, you could take the path of least resistance by paying through GIRO, but I’m of the opinion that anyone who ohmits to earn miles on this should be grounded.
I have no volt in the matter, sadly.
| 💳 What’s the Best Card for… |
| This guide forms part of the “best card” series. Check out other category specific guides below, or the overall guide here. |
| 💗 Charitable Donations | 🏫 Education | 🥡 Food Delivery | 🏥 Hospital Bills | ☂️ Insurance | ⛽ Petrol | 🚍 Public Transport| 🚰 Utilities Bills |
What’s the MCC for utilities payments?
There are two ways an electricity retailer can bill you:
- Direct
- via SP Group
If the electricity retailer bills you direct, you’ll receive two utilities bills- one from your electricity retailer, and one from SP Group (for water and waste).
If the electricity retailer bills you via SP Group, you’ll receive one utility bill that covers electricity, water, and waste.
Regardless of whether you pay direct or via SP Group, the transaction will code as MCC 4900: Utilities- Electric, Gas, Heating Oil, Sanitary, Water
What payment methods can I use?
It used to be that those who wanted to pay their SP bills via credit card would have to trek down to the customer service centre and pay in person (they could pay via Masterpass on AXS, but no points would be earned).
It was only in 2017 that the SP Utilities app started accepting credit card payments, and even then, only from DBS. We had to wait till 2019 (!) for the app to accept credit cards from all other banks.
Here’s a summary of the payment methods available for each retailer.
| Visa | MC | AMEX | |
| SP Group* | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Geneco | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| PacificLight Energy | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Senoko Energy | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sembcorp Power | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Diamond Electric | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Keppel Electric | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Sunseap Energy | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Union Power | ✓ | ✓ | |
| *Also handles billing for Tuas Power | |||
What cards should I use for utilities payments?
One unfortunate trend we’re seeing is the progressive exclusion of rewards points for utilities transactions.
Citibank and OCBC have long excluded utilities, and in recent years we’ve seen American Express, Bank of China, DBS and HSBC follow suit. UOB added utilities to its exclusion list from August 2022 (except for the UOB Reserve), which leaves only Maybank and Standard Chartered.
| Card | Earn Rate |
 Maybank Manchester United Card | 2.0 mpd + 3% cashback (on days where Man Utd win) 0.4 mpd + 1% cashback (otherwise) |
 UOB Reserve | 1.6 mpd |
 SCB Visa Infinite | 1.4 mpd (With min S$2K spend per statement month, otherwise 1 mpd) |
 SCB Journey Card | 1.2 mpd |
 Maybank Visa Infinite | 1.2 mpd |
 Maybank Horizon Visa Signature | 0.4 mpd |
 Maybank World Mastercard | 0.4 mpd |
 SCB Rewards+ | 0.29 mpd |
All other cards will not earn points for utilities payments (note: the UOB One and UOB Absolute Cashback Card continue to earn cashback for utilities, but we’ll ignore that since they’re cashback cards)
Other ways to earn miles on utilities bills
While it used to be possible to top-up a GrabPay account with an AMEX HighFlyer Card and then use the GrabPay Mastercard to pay your utilities bill, that avenue was shut in April 2023.
This means the only other way of earning miles on utilities bills is to use a bill payment service, which involves an admin fee.
| Provider | Fee | Cost Per Mile* |
 AXS Pay+Earn | 2.5% | 1.52-2.03 |
 | 2.25% (code: GET225) S$30 off first payment with code: MILELION | 1.38-1.83 |
 | 2.2% | 1 cent^ (with current promo) |
| ^Min. spend of S$8,000 required on all Citi PayAll transactions during promo period *Based on general spending cards with earn rates of 1.2 to 1.6 mpd. For more information about what cards to use with CardUp, refer to this post | ||
Is it worth paying the admin fee? It all depends on how much you value miles.
Each of the above methods has its advantages and drawbacks. CardUp is open to cardholders from any bank, but does not support payments to SP Utilities. Citi PayAll is requires a hefty minimum spend of S$8,000 to trigger its promotional rate, but offers the cheapest miles you’ll find anywhere. AXS Pay+Earn has the highest admin fee, but doesn’t require any minimum spend, and supports payments to SP Utilities.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, utilities is likely to go the way of education and insurance soon, as more and more banks add it to their exclusions list. It’s not the end of the story yet though, if you have a Maybank or StanChart card.
I hope this post brings some enlightenment on the options available to you. I’ll pull the plug on the electricity puns before I get charged.
