Blacklist vs whitelist cards: How I optimise miles between both

The fastest way to grow your miles balance—after maximising all available sign-up bonuses—is to channel as much of your spending as possible to specialised spending cards that earn bonus miles for specific categories.

It should be obvious why: specialised spending cards offer earn rates of up to 4 mpd, enabling you to earn free flights much faster than general spending cards, which typically offer just 1.2 to 1.6 mpd.

But not all specialised spending cards work the same way. You may have come across the terms “blacklist cards” and “whitelist cards”, and wonder what they mean. 

In short, blacklist cards reward you based on how you spend (i.e. the mode of payment), while whitelist cards reward you based on what you spend on (i.e. the merchant category). Because modes are broader than categories, blacklist cards are more versatile and straightforward solutions.

In this post, we’ll look at the best ways of optimising your spend between blacklist and whitelist cards.

Blacklist cards

💳 Blacklist Cards
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
Citi Rewards Card For Online Trxns Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per s. month Review
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.5K per c. month  Review
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa For Offline Trxns Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.1K per c. month Review
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd*	Min. S$1K, max S$2K per s. month Review
C. month= Calendar month | S. month= Statement month

Let’s first start with blacklist cards, where the rule is very simple:

All transactions earn bonuses, unless they’re on the exclusions list

Citi Rewards Card

The Citi Rewards Card is a hybrid of blacklist and whitelist:

• For online transactions, it’s a blacklist card that awards 4 mpd on all transactions except:
  • In-app mobile wallet transactions (e.g. Kris+)
  • Travel-related transactions
  • Citi’s general exclusion list
• For in-person transactions, it’s a whitelist card (see next section)

DBS Woman’s World Card

The DBS Woman’s World Card awards 4 mpd on all online transactions, except those on the DBS general exclusions list.

UOB Preferred Platinum Visa

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa is also a hybrid of blacklist and whitelist:

• For in-person transactions, it’s a blacklist card that awards 4 mpd on all mobile contactless payments (e.g. Apple, Google, or Samsung Pay), except those on UOB’s general exclusion list
• For online transactions, it’s a whitelist card (see next section)

UOB Visa Signature

The UOB Visa Signature awards 4 mpd on all foreign currency (FCY), contactless and petrol transactions, except those on UOB’s general exclusion list.

This requires a minimum spend of S$1,000 in SGD (to earn 4 mpd on contactless and petrol), or S$1,000 in FCY (to earn 4 mpd on FCY spend). For more on how the minimum spend works, refer to this article.

Whitelist cards

💳 Whitelist Cards
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
Citi Rewards Card For Offline Trxns Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per s. month Review
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month Review
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	3 mpd	No cap. Min. S$800 spend on SIA Group in a m. year Review
OCBC Rewards Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.1K per c. month Review
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month  Review
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Max S$2K per c. month Review
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa For Online Trxns Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.1K per c. month Review
C. month= Calendar month | S. month= Statement month | M. year= Membership year

The rule for whitelist cards is:

Transactions don’t earn bonuses, unless they’re on the inclusions list

Citi Rewards Card

When spending offline, Citi Rewards Cardholders will only earn 4 mpd at department stores, or shops which sell shoes, bags or clothes. 

However, there’s an easy way of circumventing this. By pairing the Citi Rewards Card with Amaze, all transactions become online. You are effectively turning offline spend (whitelist) into online spend (blacklist). 

The catch here is that a 1% admin fee (with a min. of S$0.50) now applies to all SGD transactions charged to Amaze, effective 10 March 2025. If you’re making larger transactions, the fee might still make sense, but you’ll need to weigh the pros and cons carefully. 

Should you still pair the Amaze Card with Citi Rewards?

HSBC Revolution Card

The HSBC Revolution Card earns 4 mpd on shopping, dining and transport, provided you pay online. 

The online restriction is a big bummer, because once upon a time, these bonuses extended to offline spending as well, with a much wider bonus whitelist. 

That said, MCC 5311 (Department Stores) is a bonus category, and purchases of HeyMax vouchers are coded under MCC 5311. This means you could earn 4 miles per dollar when buying vouchers for a wide range of merchants—such as NTUC FairPrice, Sheng Siong, Klook, Pelago, Courts, IKEA, and more—and use them for both online and offline spending.

KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card

The KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card earns 3 mpd on dining, online shopping, online travel and transport, provided the cardholder spends at least S$800 on Singapore Airlines, Scoot or KrisShop transactions in a membership year. 

The best feature of this card is that the 3 mpd earn rate is uncapped. If you’re a big spender and have fully utilised the bonus caps on 4 mpd cards, this would be a great option for the remainder. 

OCBC Rewards Card

The OCBC Rewards Card earns 4 mpd on shopping at department, apparel and luggage stores, as well as selected whitelisted merchants like Guardian, Lazada and Shopee.

At the time of writing, there is an ongoing promotion that upsizes the earn rate to 6 mpd for MCC 5311 (Department Stores) and Watsons till 30 June 2025. 

So just like the HSBC Revolution Card, you can buy vouchers via HeyMax and earn 6 mpd on your purchases, a great way of getting around the normally restrictive whitelist.

UOB Lady’s Cards

The UOB Lady’s Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card allow cardholders to pick one and two bonus categories respectively from a list of seven options, including beauty & wellness, dining, entertainment, family, fashion and travel.

These can be rotated every calendar quarter, allowing the card to be different things to you at different times. 

Don’t forget that you can earn an extra 2-6 mpd on UOB Lady’s Card spending by opening a UOB Lady’s Savings Account. Refer to this post for more details.

UOB Preferred Platinum Visa

When spending online, the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa earns 4 mpd on selected MCCs only, including shopping, supermarkets, dining, and entertainment.

For the avoidance of doubt, using Apple or Google Pay for in-app transactions is considered an online transaction, and will be subject to the MCC restrictions listed above. Using Apple or Google Pay for in-store transactions (i.e. tapping your phone to pay) is considered an offline transaction, and is not subject to these MCC restrictions (i.e. blacklist card).

Mixing blacklist and whitelist cards

Because of their versatility, blacklist caps are inherently more valuable than whitelist caps.

It doesn’t matter what the MCC is (assuming it’s not on the general exclusions list, of course); so long as you pay via the prescribed method — online, contactless, in foreign currency, as the case may be — you’ll earn your bonuses.

The sum of monthly bonus caps on all blacklist cards comes up to S$5,610 a month. Assuming you’re the sort who regularly maxes out bonus caps, you should aim to preserve your blacklist cards’ more flexible caps by utilising whitelist cards’ caps first. 

For example, if you’re buying something on Shopee, both the HSBC Revolution and DBS Woman’s World Card would earn 4 mpd. But since the HSBC Revolution is a whitelist card, and the DBS Woman’s World Card is a blacklist card, the smarter decision would be to use the former, and save the latter for other situations.

In that sense, whitelist cards’ bonus caps serve as a buffer that can be fully utilised before touching the blacklist cards’ bonus caps. 

Blacklist cards are best used in situations where the merchant does not feature on any whitelist, such as car dealers, car servicing workshops, veterinarians, dentists, health screenings, teleconsultations, phone bills, streaming subscriptions, or furniture stores.

Blacklist cards can also be idiot-proof solutions you can give a spouse or family member who can remember every supporting characters’ name on their favourite Korean drama, but not what card to use at McDonald’s.

Conclusion

If you’re the sort who regularly busts bonus caps, the rule of thumb should be to draft in whitelist cards and utilise their caps first, only then switching to blacklist cards for non-whitelisted categories.

It does take a little more micromanagement, but it keeps you from having to put spend on general spending cards, or worse, a specialised spending card beyond its cap, where a dismal 0.4 mpd awaits.

How do you optimise spending among your whitelist and blacklist cards?