2024 Edition: Best Cards for Car Rentals

Singaporean drivers are known for being well-mannered, considerate, and not-at-all-impatient on the road, and it’s always great to share our driving culture with the rest of the world on holiday.

If you’re planning to rent a car for your next trip, here’s the credit cards that will earn you the most miles, as well as some pitfalls to watch out for.

How do car rentals code?

The MCC for car rentals depends on how you make your booking, but in general will be:

• For direct bookings: MCC 3300-3499 for the larger agencies or MCC 7512 for the smaller ones
• For OTA bookings: MCC 4722 

In case you’re uncertain about the MCC, there’s three ways of looking it up before making a purchase:

Booked directly

Most major rental car companies will code in the MCC 3300-3499 range. For example, Sixt is MCC 3355, Hertz is MCC 3357 and Avis is MCC 3389. Those interested in seeing the full list of rental car MCCs can consult this document.

However, there’s also the possibility of it coding under MCC 7512 if it’s a smaller or non-traditional agency, like Centauro, Omegao Car Rentals, or Turo (where pre-authorisations code as MCC 4789 but final bills code as 7512).

For rental car bookings made directly with the agency, you can use any of the following cards.

🚗 Best Cards for Rental Cars (Direct)
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
DBS WWMC Apply	4 mpd Online only	Max S$1.5K per c. month Review
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd*	Max S$1K per c. month. Excludes MCC 7512 Review
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd FCY only	Min S$1K max S$2K FCY spend per s. month Review
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	3.2 mpd (till 31 Aug 24) FCY only	No cap Review
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Apply	3.2 mpd (till 30 Jun 24) FCY only	Min. retail spend of S$800 per c. month. No cap. Review
*Online only from 15 July 2024. No longer applicable from 1 January 2025. Read more here.

Notice how the HSBC Revolution is the only card to explicitly whitelist rental car MCCs (and even then, not MCC 7512). All the other cards earn bonuses by virtue of the transaction being charged online (which is only the case for prepaid rates), or in FCY. 

Booked via OTA

If you’re booking your rental car through an online travel agent (OTA) like Expedia or Trip.com, the transaction will code as MCC 4722.

In that case you can use the following cards to maximise your miles.

🚗 Best Cards for Rental Cars (OTAs)
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category Review
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Max S$2K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category Review
DBS WWMC Apply	4 mpd Online only	Max S$1.5K per c. month Review
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd FCY only	Min S$1K max S$2K FCY spend per s. month Review
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	3.2 mpd (till 31 Aug 24) FCY only	No cap Review
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Apply	3.2 mpd (till 30 Jun 24) FCY only	Min. retail spend of S$800 per c. month. No cap Review
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	3 mpd Online only	Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia, Traveloka, Trip.com, UOB Travel Review

Be careful with Amaze!

When collecting your car, you’ll often need to provide a credit card as a guarantee against any damage. This is not the right time to provide your Amaze. 

Amaze, you’ll recall, is actually a debit card (even if it passes transactions through to a credit card). When the rental car company puts an authorisation hold on Amaze, that becomes an actual transaction billed to your credit card. When the hold is later released, the amount credited may not be the same as the amount debited due to FX charges and movements (it really boils down to how the reversal is done).

I’ve written about this problem in the article below.

PSA: The pitfalls of using Amaze for hotels or rental cars

It’s always better to provide a credit card at the time of rental, and then provide your Amaze when the rental is over for final billing. This will mean you need to visit the counter after dropping off your car, however, and may not be an option for after-hour drops or contactless drop-offs. 

Beware of DCC!

Rental car companies are fond of DCC scams, and I’ve been hit more than a few times. 

Googling “rental car automatic DCC” will turn up plenty of reports of companies automatically opting customers into DCC, hiding the option to opt-out in the fine print or making it overly complicated to do so. Why? It makes the money, of course. The rates offered via DCC are vastly inflated over what you’d pay through your bank.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do about this, except to be extra vigilant or use an American Express card for rentals because AMEX does not support DCC. On the flip side, you won’t earn quite as many miles with AMEX cards; the best option would be the UOB PRVI Miles AMEX at 2.4 mpd.

Alternatively, you can consider booking your rental car through an OTA and paying at the time of booking, so the rental car company has no further charges to make.

What about car rental insurance?

Unfortunately, unlike credit cards in the USA, cards in Singapore do not offer automatic rental car coverage. 

Given how expensive it can be to purchase insurance from the car rental company itself, I often look at getting third party insurance from a company like Worldwide Insure or Allianz. I’ve never had to make a claim before, however, so I can’t vouch as to how smooth the process is.

I’ve written a separate post on the best cards to use for insurance.

Conclusion

While the HSBC Revolution is the only card which explicitly rewards rental car transactions (and even that will be nerfed from 2025), you can take advantage of the fact that they’re usually in FCY to earn up to 4 mpd with several other cards too. 

Just be careful about the ever-present DCC scam, as well as authorisation holds if you’re using Amaze (or any other debit card for that matter, including Revolut and YouTrip).