2025 Edition: Best Credit Cards for Dining

Dining out is likely one of the biggest spending categories for many Singaporeans — and fortunately, there’s no shortage of credit cards that offer bonus miles for spending at restaurants and eateries.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that you’re dining at a Singapore restaurant. If you’re dining overseas, refer to my post on the best cards for overseas spending instead. I also have a separate article for the best cards for food delivery. 

What MCC does dining code as?

Restaurants and eateries can code under any of the following MCCs:

That’s quite a wide range, and it’s not always straightforward. For example, will eating in a hotel restaurant code as a hotel, or a restaurant?

Fortunately, it’s possible to check the MCC before spending through any of the methods below.

The exact MCC only matters if you’re paying with a card that uses a whitelist policy. If you’re using a card with a blacklist policy, things are much simpler.

In the next section, I’ll cover both whitelist and blacklist options for dining.

What cards should I use for dining?

When spending at restaurants and eateries, the following credit cards will earn you 3-8 mpd, subject to the conditions shown below.

🍽️ Best Cards for Dining
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category Review
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Max S$2K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category Review
UOB Visa Signature Apply	4 mpd	Min S$1K, max S$2K in SGD per s. month. Must be contactless Review
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.1K per c. month Review
Amaze x Citi Rewards Apply	4 mpd	Max $1K per s. month. SGD transactions incur a 1% fee Review
KrisFlyer UOB Card Apply	3 mpd	No cap. Min S$800 spend on SIA Group in m. year Review
C. Month= Calendar Month | S. Month= Statement Month | M. Year= Membership Year

Let’s start with the blacklist cards, because they’re more straightforward:

Amaze x Citi Rewards will earn 4 mpd on all dining transactions, since Amaze converts all offline transactions into online ones. This is capped at S$1,000 per statement month, and do note that a 1% admin fee applies to all transactions in SGD, effective 10 March 2025.

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa will earn 4 mpd on all dining transactions, so long as you use mobile contactless payment (i.e. tap your phone to pay). This is capped at S$1,110 per calendar month. 

The UOB Visa Signature will earn 4 mpd on all dining transactions, so long as you use contactless payment (i.e. tap your physical card or phone to pay). This is subject to a minimum spend of S$1,000 in SGD per statement month, and a cap of S$2,000 per statement month applies.

With whitelist cards, you’ll need to check whether the MCC falls under the bank’s definition of dining. Be careful, because each bank defines dining differently!

🍽️ Dining Card MCC Coverage
	UOB Lady’s Cards	KF UOB
5811	✅
5812	✅	✅
5813		✅
5814	✅	✅
5441
5462
5499	✅
Earn Rate	4 mpd	3 mpd
Monthly Cap	S$1K (Lady’s) or S$2K (Lady’s Solitaire)	No cap

The UOB Lady’s Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card offer 4 mpd on up to S$1,000 and S$2,000 of dining spend per month, provided that Dining is selected as the quarterly bonus category. This can be further buffed with an extra 2-6 mpd from the UOB Lady’s Savings Account. 

The KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card has a narrower definition of dining, but offers an uncapped 3 mpd provided cardholders spend at least S$800 on Singapore Airlines, Scoot or KrisShop in a membership year.

What if the restaurant uses QR-code ordering and payment?

Many restaurants now use QR-code menus, and some require customers to pay for their meals via their phones before submitting orders.

This is conceptually similar to food delivery, and  you can use the following credit cards to maximise your miles.

🍽️ Best Cards for Dining (With Online Payment)
Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
Citi Rewards Apply	4 mpd	Max $1K per s. month Review
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	4 mpd	Max $1.5K per c. month Review
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month Review
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category Review
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd	Max S$2K per c. month. Must choose Dining as bonus category Review
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	4 mpd	Max S$1.1K per c. month Review
KrisFlyer UOB Card Apply	3 mpd	No cap. Min S$800 spend on SIA Group in m. year Review
StanChart Journey Card Apply	3 mpd	Max S$1K per s. month. SGD only Review
C. Month= Calendar Month | S. Month= Statement Month | M. Year= Membership Year

The main difference for blacklist cards is that you can’t use the UOB Visa Signature Card anymore, as it does not offer bonuses for online spend (unless that spending is in FCY, in which case the FCY bonus kicks in). 

Instead, you can use the DBS Woman’s World Card, which earns 4 mpd on all online transactions capped at S$1,500 per calendar month. Also, there’s no need to pair the Citi Rewards Card with Amaze, because the transaction is already online. 

Whitelist options include the HSBC Revolution Card, which earns 4 mpd on online dining, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month (though it does exclude fast food outlets, so be careful!). Alternatively, you can use the StanChart Journey Card, which earns 3 mpd on local online dining capped at S$1,000 per statement month. 

Here’s how MCC coverage differs between the two cards.

🍽️ Dining Card MCC Coverage
	SC Journey	HSBC Revo
5811	✅	✅
5812	✅	✅
5813		✅
5814	✅
5441		✅
5462		✅
5499
Earn Rate	3 mpd	4 mpd
Monthly Cap	S$1K	S$1K

What if I want to pay with 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

Kris+ is great way of racking up additional miles on dining, on top of what you earn from your credit cards. There’s a few hundred dining partners offering an extra 1-9 mpd, and it doesn’t cost you anything extra to use.

In general, Kris+ preserves the MCC of the merchant, so if you’re at a restaurant, you should use the same card you’d otherwise use for dining. 

For a guide to the best cards to pair with Kris+, refer to the article below.

What’s the best card to use for Kris+?

Other options for dining

Here are two more cards that are worth a mention when we talk about dining, though I decided not to feature them in the tables above because their appeal is rather niche. 

StanChart Beyond Card

The StanChart Beyond Card offers cardholders an uncapped 8 mpd on overseas dining, with no minimum spend necessary.

This sounds incredible, but the catch is that it’s for Priority Private customers only. This requires you to have a minimum AUM of S$1.5M with the bank, so safe to say it won’t be for everyone.

Dining is defined as MCCs 5811, 5812, 5813 and 5814. 

StanChart Smart Card

The StanChart Smart Card offers cardholders up to 9.28 mpd on fast food, streaming, public transport and EV charging. 

However, fast food is not defined by MCC, but rather covers the following specific chains:

• Burger King
• KFC
• McDonald’s
• Subway
• Toast Box
• Ya Kun Kaya Toast
• Starbucks
• The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
• Pizza Hut
• Domino’s Pizza

An uncapped 9.28 mpd would be amazing, but that minimum spend is going to be an issue. Unless you can somehow spend at least S$1,500 in a month on fast food, streaming, public transport and EV charging, you’ll have to make up the difference with non-bonus spend that is rewarded at a much lower rate. 

A lower tier of 7.42 mpd is available with a minimum spend of S$800, but even that is a significant amount of spending to hit on bonus categories alone. If you’re eating that much junk food, you might want to get a credit card that offers bonuses on hospital bills too!

Other ways of saving on dining

While this article is meant to focus on miles earning, here’s a quick reminder that there are credit cards which offer special dining privileges that can take a bite out of the bill:

• AMEX Platinum Charge, Platinum Reserve and Platinum Credit Card members have access to the Love Dining programme, which offers up to 50% off food at selected hotels and restaurants
• AMEX HighFlyer Card and DBS Vantage Card members get a complimentary Accor Plus membership, which offers up to 50% off food at participating hotels
• All HSBC Card members get a complimentary copy of The Entertainer with HSBC, which offers more than 200 1-for-1 dining offers

Alternatively, $120K cards like the Citi Prestige and OCBC VOYAGE sometimes offer special discounted dining experiences. You’ll need to opt in to receive marketing materials from the bank to get a heads up when they’re released.

Conclusion

Dining out is one category that banks are happy to reward, as seen from the wide variety of cards offering bonuses. 

If you’re using a whitelist card to pay, however, you’ll want to be careful about MCC because each bank defines dining differently. The simplest approach is to use a blacklist card, but some may prefer to save those bonus caps for other categories of spending instead.