Head-to-head: UOB Preferred Platinum Visa vs UOB Visa Signature

If you want to accelerate your miles accumulation but can’t be bothered to memorise which card to use when, then the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature are probably the two best options.

Instead of burdening you with a list of bonus-eligible Merchant Category Codes (MCCs), both cards adopt a simple blacklist approach for in-person payments: so long as a given transaction isn’t on the general exclusions list, you’ll earn 4 mpd when paying through contactless, simple as that.

This flexibility makes them a jack-of-all-trades solution. Whether you’re dining out, getting a haircut, shopping for clothes or buying pet food, don’t think; just tap.

On the surface, the two cards have very similar value propositions. However, there are some crucial differences that cardholders should take note of, which we’ll explore in this post.

💳 Summary: UOB Preferred Platinum Visa vs UOB Visa Signature
	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
Min. Income	S$30K p.a.	S$30K p.a.
Annual Fee	S$196.20 (First Year Free)	S$218 (First Year Free)
Contactless Spend	4 mpd	4 mpd
Min. Spend for Contactless Bonus	None	S$1,000 per s. month
Bonus Cap for Contactless	S$600 per c. month	S$1,200 per s. month
Other Bonuses	4 mpd (Selected Online Trxns)	4 mpd (Petrol & FCY)
Min. Spend for Other Bonus	None	S$1,000 per s. month
Bonus Cap for Other Bonus	S$600 per c. month	S$1,200 per s. month
Tracking Period	Calendar Month (posting date)	Statement Month (posting date)
Points Awarding	Base and Bonus Together	Base and Bonus Separate
Rounding	Per transaction	Per month

I’ve also written detailed reviews of both cards, which you can refer to in the links below.

Review: UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Card

Review: UOB Visa Signature Card

Minimum income & annual fee

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
Income Requirement	S$30K p.a.	S$30K p.a.
Annual Fee	S$196.20 (FYF)	S$218 (FYF)

Both the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature have a minimum income requirement of S$30,000 per year, the MAS-mandated minimum (the UOB Visa Signature’s income requirement used to be S$50,000 per year, but was recently lowered).

In terms of annual fees, the UOB Visa Signature is slightly more expensive at S$218 versus S$196.20 for the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, but I wouldn’t worry about it. In my experience, getting an annual fee waiver has never been an issue.

Minimum spend & cap

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
Min. Spend for Bonuses	None	S$1K per statement month
Bonus Cap	S$600 per calendar month	S$1.2K per statement month

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa awards 4 mpd on mobile contactless spending, with no minimum spend required, capped at S$600 per calendar month. 

The UOB Visa Signature awards 4 mpd on contactless spending, with a minimum spend of S$1,000 in SGD per statement month, capped at S$1,200 per statement month. 

Many people have difficulty understanding how the minimum spend for the UOB Visa Signature is computed, so I’ve written a detailed guide explaining how it works.

How does the UOB Visa Signature’s minimum spend requirement work?

Any spend beyond the cap (or below the minimum spend, in the case of the UOB Visa Signature) earns just 0.4 mpd, so it’s very important to monitor your spending closely. 

Definition of contactless spend

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
	✅	✅
	✅	✅
	✅	✅
Tapping physical card	❌	✅

While both the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature award 4 mpd on contactless payments, there is a crucial distinction in definition.

With the UOB Visa Signature, you can either tap the physical card, or digitise it into a mobile wallet (Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay) and tap your phone to pay.

With the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, you must digitise the card into a mobile wallet and tap your phone to pay. Transactions made by tapping the physical card will not earn bonus miles, effective 22 May 2020.

Other bonus categories

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
Other Bonus Categories	Online trxns. on shopping, electronics, supermarkets, food delivery, entertainment	Petrol, foreign currency spending

While 4 mpd on contactless spending is the big draw for both the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature, both cards have a second bonus category that can be equally useful.

UOB Preferred Platinum Visa: Selected online transactions

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa earns 4 mpd on the following transactions, provided they are made online.

This includes Amazon, Lazada, Redmart, FairPrice, Golden Village, SISTIC, Foodpanda, Deliveroo and GrabFood. You could also expand this to many other categories like electronics, travel agencies, ride-hailing and petrol by buying vouchers through HeyMax (MCC 5311).

This bonus is capped at S$600 per calendar month.

UOB Visa Signature: Petrol & foreign currency spending

The UOB Visa Signature earns 4 mpd on petrol and foreign currency spending, provided the following conditions are met:

• Petrol: Minimum SGD spend of S$1,000 per statement month
• Foreign Currency Spend: Minimum foreign currency spend of S$1,000 per statement month

Petrol shares the same bonus cap as contactless spending (and while you would probably be paying for petrol via contactless anyway, this could cover situations where you pay through an online app like Kris+ at Esso), but foreign currency spend has its own bonus cap of S$1,200 per statement month. 

Tracking period

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
Tracks By	Calendar month	Statement month

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa tracks its bonus cap based on the calendar month, so once you’ve exhausted the limit, you’ll need to wait until the 1st of the following month to spend again.

The UOB Visa Signature tracks its bonus cap (and minimum spend) based on the statement month, which will differ from cardholder to cardholder. To check your statement date, generate your eStatement and look for the statement date at the top right hand corner. 

The statement date is the last day of your statement month, so in the example above, the bonus cap will reset on the 13th of each month.

However, both the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature use the posting date rather than the transaction date for tracking bonus caps (and minimum spend, in the case of the latter).

• For example, if I transact with my UOB Preferred Platinum Visa on 30th June and the transaction posts on 2nd July, that amount will count towards July’s bonus cap, not June’s
• Likewise, if my statement month ends on the 12th, and I transact with my UOB Visa Signature on 11th June and the transaction posts on 13th June, that amount will count towards the latter month’s (Jun-Jul) bonus cap.

Posting may take up to three days from transaction date, but could also be on the same day- it’s impossible to tell. Be careful with transactions made towards the end of the calendar or statement month!

Points awarding and rounding

	UOB PPV	UOB Visa Signature
1X Base Points	Awarded at time of trxn.	Awarded at time of trxn.
9X Bonus Points	Awarded at time of trxn.	Awarded the following month

UOB rounds transactions down to the nearest S$5 before awarding points, which can lead to lost points on every transaction. A S$9.99 transaction earns the same number of points as a S$5 transaction, and a S$4.99 transaction earns no points at all!

But the impact on the two cards is not the same.

With the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, both the base 1X points and bonus 9X points are awarded at the time the transaction posts. 

With the UOB Visa Signature, the base 1X points are awarded at the time the transaction posts, and the bonus 9X points are awarded the following statement period.

When calculating the bonus to award, all unrounded eligible transactions will be summed up. The consolidated figure is then rounded down once to the nearest S$5 before the 9X points are calculated. This means less “wastage”, because rounding only takes place once with the UOB Visa Signature, as opposed to on each transaction with the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa.

In other words, the effect of rounding is more benign for the UOB Visa Signature, compared to the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa.

For more details on this quirk, refer to the article below.

What you should know about UOB’s points rounding policy

Conclusion

Even though the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and UOB Visa Signature have overlapping use cases, there are important differences where minimum spend, contactless definitions, points calculation and other bonus categories are concerned.

If you’re a small spender, the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa is probably the better option due to its lack of a minimum spend requirement. Bigger spenders will benefit more from the UOB Visa Signature and its higher monthly 4 mpd cap. 

But of course, there’s nothing stopping you from using both. In that case, I’d highly recommend spending on the UOB Visa Signature first, before switching to the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa. The last thing you want is to hit the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa’s cap, only to realise you have insufficient spending left to trigger the minimum spend on the UOB Visa Signature.

UOB Preferred Platinum Visa vs UOB Visa Signature: Which do you prefer?