Hi friends!
It’s me again, The MileLion, and in this post I’d like to share a very cool hack I discovered recently!
Most of us will have bills to pay. Rent. Renovations. Tree felling for your B&W bungalow.
Sadly, these bills cannot normally be paid by credit card. And even though there are a few bill payment services like CardUp and Citi PayAll that accept cards, all they offer in return are boring things like miles or cashback.
Miles? Cashback? Can eat one? No right?
I’m here today to tell you about an awesome service called AXS Pay Any Bills, which lets you avoid both miles and cashback in favour of something much, much better: KFC!
I first learned about Pay Any Bills through Facebook (where I get most of my information about vaccines).
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a minute, the post says that Pay Any Bills will earn credit card rewards like miles, points or cashback. I thought I could get KFC?”
Relax! Here’s what you do.
Download the AXS m-station app, tap on Pay Any Bills, and choose rental payments. Make a rental payment of S$300 (the min. required) to your landlord (I’m assuming you rent, because which millennial can afford housing now?).
An admin fee of 1.7% will be charged (discounted from the usual 2.6%), which means you’ll pay S$305.10 in total.
Now enter your card details, and make sure you pay with any of the following credit cards:
- OCBC
- Standard Chartered
- UOB
After that, wait a few days for the transaction to post to your card statement.
You may notice that despite all the repeated threats that you will earn credit card rewards, your points balance didn’t increase at all. Phew!
Now pay close attention because here’s the hack: Call up AXS customer service and say you’re very, very upset that you didn’t earn credit card rewards on AXS Pay Any Bills. Maybe stomp your feet a little for dramatic effect; it works for parliamentarians.
My conversation went something like this:
Me: I used my Standard Chartered credit card to pay via AXS Pay Any Bills because your app and website told me I would earn credit card rewards. Since I didn’t earn any rewards, I would like a refund of the admin fee.
AXS: We cannot offer a refund because the transaction has already been processed.
Me: That’s not acceptable! -stomp stomp-
AXS: As a token of goodwill, we would like to extend to you a KFC voucher.
Me: DEAL!
After a few days of waiting, I received by mail not one but two KFC vouchers! Each voucher is good for a 2 piece chicken meal, with 1 regular whipped potato, 1 regular coleslaw and 1 regular Cola, which normally costs S$9.30.
So let’s recap. I paid a S$5.10 admin fee, and in return received 2x 2 piece chicken meal vouchers, worth S$18.60 in total. AWESOME.
So you see, when AXS Pay Any Bills advertises the ability to earn credit card rewards on your bill payments, what they really mean is you can get cheap KFC.
For more great hacks such as turning one ply toilet paper into two ply, and keeping your clandestine affairs clandestine by not having a romantic dinner in full view of the public, don’t forget to like, subscribe and share!
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Note: Since AXS launched Pay Any Bills in 2021, it has been advertising the service as a way of earning credit card rewards on bill payments.
As experienced miles collectors, most of us know to take such claims with a pinch of salt, because banks typically exclude AXS transactions from rewards. However, the vast majority of credit card users have no reason to be suspicious, especially since AXS has never bothered to caveat the claim in its marketing materials or website. Here’s the thing though: based on my personal testing and community-sourced data points, at least three banks — OCBC, Standard Chartered and UOB — do not earn any rewards for AXS Pay Any Bills. It should also be noted that AXS Pay Any Bills transactions code as MCC 6513, which is on the rewards exclusion list of every bank except DBS and Maybank. If rewards are not granted, this means the cardholder is essentially paying an admin fee for nothing more than AXS (or more accurately SGeBIZ, the entity processing these payments) performing a bank transfer on their behalf. Some may argue that other transactions such as insurance premiums and tuition fees don’t earn credit card rewards, and insurers and schools don’t disclose this on their websites either. But that’s a false analogy which misses the point. The entire purpose of a service like AXS Pay Any Bills is to earn credit card rewards. It’s the only thing that justifies the admin fee. It was only after I lodged a complaint in July 2023 that AXS updated its website and app to add the following disclaimer: “Card issuing banks reserve the right to update eligible transactions for rewards issuance from time to time. AXS makes no warranties on points rewarded by banks, cardholders should check with card issuing bank for details”
While it’s good that they’ve finally done this (it only took two years), customers who acted in reliance on the original wording were not offered any refund of their admin fee, nor compensation beyond KFC vouchers. There will, in all likelihood, be others out there who charged much larger sums to their cards and paid much higher admin fees than I did, based on the promise of rewards. I can only hope they enjoy their KFC. |
Haha… that’s a finger lickin’ good hack!
This is better than a single KFC on BA
Sounds like the Milelion had been lapping up too much of the free champagne in a lounge again before writing this article – serious LOLs, thanks for brightening my evening!
But I did get the miles when I paid for my S&CC bill using my UOB PRVI miles card though. Sad no KFC for me.
that’s because you used Pay+Earn, which is different from Pay Any Bills. Pay+Earn codes as 7399 and works fine. Pay Any Bills codes as 6513 and does not.
The ad that is displayed in this article is “Healthier.sg” by the Ministry of Health. Gahmen doesn’t let you have any fun.
This is so lame, the “hack” is already dead. Milelion must be too free…
And you were free enough to comment after reading
I am not sure what would amuse me more: the notion that this “compensation” scheme was improvised by an enterprising customer service officer, or the notion that it is official AXS policy to compensate aggrieved customers with KFC vouchers.
Macca’s included ? Seems like a load of effort and explaining for free fried chicken, would pursue for Nasi Lemak burger