2025 Edition: Best Credit Cards for Weddings

For those planning a wedding, perhaps the only question more important than who you’re marrying is what cards you’re using to pay. I mean, if your future spouse insists on putting everything on a cashback card, that’s about as red a flag as red flags get.

I distinctly remember heading down to the Grand Hyatt armed with a loaner Samsung phone to make MST payments for my banquet, back when the OCBC Titanium Rewards offered 4 mpd on such transactions. But that’s nothing compared to those who had the good fortune to get married during the insane Citi x Apple Pay promotion, where an uncapped 8 mpd was up for grabs!

That era is long over, sadly, but the good news is that unlike your wedding night, your miles haul doesn’t have to be disappointing.

In this post, I’ll walk you through a proposed miles strategy for the biggest expense of any wedding: the banquet. That’s likely to be a five-digit expense for most people, or even six digits in some cases. And to the extent that you can recoup some or most of that through hongbaos, it’s an opportunity to mint some miles for your honeymoon.

Premarital text

For this article, I’m going to make several assumptions.

1. Your banquet venue allows you to split the expense onto different cards (and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t, really)
2. Your banquet venue allows you to pay in instalments, which is the standard practice in most places. This is crucial for optimising the monthly caps on specialised spending cards
3. Your banquet venue accepts in-person, contactless payments. The vast majority of places should by now, but it’s never a given

You might be concerned that some of the cards mentioned below have elevated income requirements. The key thing to remember, however, is that anything above the MAS-mandated S$30,000 is essentially arbitrary (it might affect the credit limit that can be granted, but not approval for a card per se).

It means there’s no harm submitting an application anyway, especially for cards which are known for not enforcing their official income requirements (e.g. UOB Visa Signature). The worst they can say is no.

Max out your sign-up bonuses

A wedding banquet will be a big ticket expenditure, which presents an opportunity to clock some sign-up bonuses.

Sign-up bonuses regularly change, so there’s not much point copying and pasting a static table that will quickly go out of date. Instead, do visit the Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses page, or look out for the monthly sign-up bonus roundup for all the latest.

But just in case you were wondering, at the time of writing, a couple who qualified for every sign-up bonus could generate about 865,000 miles from S$35,000 of spending. That’s enough for four round-trip Business Class tickets between Singapore and the USA (people bring their in-laws on their honeymoon, right?).

A few general points to know about sign-up bonuses:

• Most sign-up bonuses will only be available to new-to-bank customers. However, some banks also offer sign-up bonuses (usually smaller) to existing customers too
• “New-to-bank” typically means that you do not hold any principal credit cards with a given bank, and have not cancelled any in the past 12 months. The exact definition will vary from bank to bank
• If you apply for two cards from the same bank at the same time, you’ll only enjoy the bonus on the first approved card

Therefore, part of your pre-marriage prep should be doing a credit card audit and cancelling any unused cards, especially if it’s the only card you have with a given bank. This will then start the clock on resetting your new-to-bank status, which will hopefully refresh in time for the actual payments.

You should also look at your expected total outlay, and decide whether it’s better for you and your partner to each sign up for a card, or for one of you to sign up and then give the other a supplementary card.

• If you’re confident that you and your partner can both hit the spending threshold, get one card each so you can enjoy the same bonus twice
• If you think you’ll have difficulty hitting the spending threshold, then get your partner a supplementary card so that his/her spending will pool with yours

Max out your category bonuses

After the sign-up bonuses are exhausted, you can then focus on maxing out the category bonuses offered by your cards. Unlike sign-up bonuses, which are one-time, category bonuses are evergreen features that can be enjoyed month after month.

The most important thing to do is confirm the MCC of your banquet venue. While I doubt your wedding coordinator will be able to answer this question, you can look up the MCC of a given merchant using any of the methods below:

Given that this is a big-ticket item, I highly recommend using the Instarem or DBS digibot method to be extra sure.

There are two main possibilities:

• Your banquet venue codes as a hotel (MCC 3500-3999, 7011)
• Your banquet venue codes as a restaurant (MCC 5812)

If the venue codes as a hotel

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1.1K per c. month. Must use mobile contactless
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd	Min. S$1K, max S$2K per s. month. Must use contactless
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$2K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category
c. month= calendar month, s. month= statement month

If the venue codes as a restaurant

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	2.4 mpd	Min. S$1K spend *on SIA Group in m. year, no cap
Citi Rewards + Amaze Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1K per s. month. 1% admin fee for SGD transactions
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1.1K per c. month. Must use mobile contactless.
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd	Min. S$1K, max S$2K per s. month. Must use contactless
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$2K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category
c. month= calendar month, s. month= statement month, m. year= membership year
*Min SIA Group spend of S$800 per year if your membership year ends before 1 November 2025

Regardless of whether your banquet is in a hotel or restaurant, here’s a few common points to note:

• All of the cards above offer first year fee waivers
• Don’t let the income requirements deter you; as mentioned earlier, income requirements may not be strictly enforced
• You can only get either the UOB Lady’s Card or UOB Lady’s Solitaire, and will need to select a bonus category (one for Lady’s, two for Lady’s Solitaire). If your banquet is in a hotel, choose “Travel”; if it’s in a restaurant, choose “Dining”
• The UOB Visa Signature and UOB Preferred Platinum Visa all require you to pay via contactless to earn the bonus:
  • For the UOB Visa Signature, you can either tap the physical card or add it to your mobile wallet and tap your phone to pay
  • For the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, you must add the card to your mobile wallet and tap your phone to pay
• You can’t use the Citi Rewards Card with hotels because the MCC falls under the general exclusion for travel

Breaking it up

In an ideal situation, both you and your spouse-to-be will get all the cards above, and then make lump sum payments each month towards your banquet expense.

For example, if your wedding is in a hotel, the monthly payment plan would look something like this.

🧾 Monthly Banquet Payments
	🤵 Him	👰 Her
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Apply	S$1,110 4,440 miles	S$1,110 4,440 miles
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	S$2,000 8,000 miles	S$2,000 8,000 miles
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	S$2,000 8,000 miles	S$2,000 8,000 miles
Total Spend	S$5,110	S$5,110
Total Miles	20,400 miles	20,400 miles

You’d be looking at 40,880 miles for spending S$10,220 each month, which is a very tidy return.

If your wedding is in a restaurant, the main difference is that you can add the Citi Rewards + Amaze pairing, though remember, there’s a 1% fee for all SGD-denominated transactions from 10 March 2025.

Alternatively, you can also utilise the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card. By spending at least S$1,000 on Singapore Airlines, Scoot and KrisShop in a membership year, you will get an uncapped 2.4 mpd on dining. However, only 1.2 mpd is awarded upfront; you’ll need to wait up to two months after the end of the membership year for the remaining 1.2 mpd to be credited.

How does the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card’s Accelerated Miles feature work?

In that sense, it might be “better” (from a miles-earning perspective at least!) to have your wedding banquet in a restaurant, since you can tap an uncapped 2.4 mpd with the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card instead of dealing with the monthly limits you’ll encounter with hotel venues. 

What if you can pay online?

If your banquet venue provides you with an online payment link, the first thing to do is to check the MCC by making a dummy transaction with a blocked Amaze/DBS card. Do not assume that an online payment link provided by a hotel/restaurant will code as a hotel/restaurant transaction!

If the MCC is correct, you can utilise the following cards.

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
Citi Rewards Card Apply	4 mpd Restaurants	Cap S$1K per s. month
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd Restaurants	Cap S$1K per c. month
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Apply	4 mpd Restaurants	Cap S$1.1K per c. month
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd Restaurants Hotels	Cap S$1K per c. month. Select Dining or Travel as bonus category
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	4 mpd Restaurants Hotels	Cap S$1.5K per c. month*
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd Restaurants Hotels	Cap S$2K per c. month. Select Dining or Travel as bonus category
*Max S$1K per c. month from 1 August 2025

Bonus miles from Kris+

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

If you’ve been considering the PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering as your wedding venue, you might like to know that Kris+ users can earn an extra 9 mpd from Kris+ for wedding banquet payments, on top of credit card miles.

PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering
Earn Rate	9 mpd
Payment by	31 Dec 2025
Payment Cap	S$20,000
Wedding by	Not stated

Andaz Singapore used to offer wedding payments via Kris+ too, but it’s since been discontinued.

Conclusion

A wedding banquet will be a hefty expense, but it can also be a great source of miles. Therefore, it’s well worth taking the time to sit down and strategise. How much do you expect to spend overall? When will those payments need to be made? Which cards are you eligible for sign-up bonuses with? Which cards do you need for category bonuses? Should each of you apply for your own set of cards?

Fumbled wedding nights are forgivable. Fumbled miles strategies, less so.