What’s the minimum spend required to earn miles?

While we commonly use the term “miles per dollar” (mpd) when referring to earn rates, it tends to oversimplify the calculations that go on behind the scenes. 

Not every card awards miles per dollar, in fact, most of them don’t. For example, the UOB PRVI Miles Card may advertise a local earn rate of 1.4 mpd, but it actually awards 3.5 UNI$ (7 miles) for every S$5 spending block.

So if you charged a transaction of S$9.99, it would first be rounded down to S$5, which earns 3.5 UNI$. But since UOB doesn’t award partial UNI$, this is further rounded down to 3 UNI$, equivalent to 6 miles— an effective earn rate of just 0.6 mpd (6 miles / S$9.99).

It’s an extreme example, and the effect of rounding will diminish as the transaction size increases. However, it goes to show that points calculations are not a simple matter of spend x mpd, and that rounding can quietly chip away at your earnings.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the minimum spend required to earn points with various miles and points cards, so you know how to better handle smaller transactions.

S$10: Amaze card

To pre-empt any confusion, I am not referring to card-linked transactions where you pair Amaze with a credit card, e.g. the Amaze x Citi Rewards pairing. In those cases, the minimum spend to earn points will depend on what card you’ve paired. 

Instead, I’m referring to earning InstaPoints on wallet-linked transactions. You must spend at least S$10 (or its foreign currency equivalent) to earn InstaPoints, though the earning block after the first S$10 reduces to S$1.

S$5: Maybank, OCBC, UOB cards

Card	SGD	FCY
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	S$5	S$5
OCBC 90°N Card Apply	S$5	S$5
OCBC Premier Visa Infinite Apply	S$5	S$5
OCBC VOYAGE Card Apply	S$5	S$5
OCBC Rewards Card Apply	S$5	S$5
UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Apply	S$5	S$5
UOB PRVI Miles Card Apply	S$5	S$5
UOB Visa Infinite Metal Card Apply	S$5	S$5

If you have a Maybank, OCBC or UOB card, get used to spending in S$5 blocks, because all transactions are rounded down to the nearest S$5 before points are awarded.

For example, a S$9.99 transaction would earn the same number of points as a S$5 transaction, and a S$4.99 transaction would earn no points at all!

However, there are exceptions.

The following UOB cards award 1X UNI$ (0.4 mpd) at the time a transaction is made, which is indeed rounded down to the nearest S$5.

• UOB Lady’s Solitaire Metal Card
• UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card
• UOB Lady’s Card
• UOB Visa Signature

However, the remaining 9X UNI$ (3.6 mpd) will only be credited the following month. To derive this figure, UOB will sum up all eligible transactions — including cents — and then round down once to the nearest S$5 before awarding UNI$.

To put it another way, with the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, you could lose a maximum of 20 miles per transaction. With the UOB Lady’s Card, Lady’s Solitaire and Visa Signature, you would lose a maximum of 20 miles per bonus period (from the bonus component; as mentioned the base 1X is still subject to transaction-level rounding).

The same applies to selected Maybank cards, namely:

• Maybank Horizon Visa Signature (for FCY spending and air tickets)
• Maybank World Mastercard (for FCY spending)

In both cases, the base points are rounded down to the nearest S$5, but when calculating bonus points, all eligible transactions including cents are summed up before rounding down once to the nearest S$5.

S$1: Citi and BOC cards

Card	SGD	FCY
BOC Elite Miles Card Apply	S$1	S$1
Citi PremierMiles Card Apply	S$1	S$1
Citi Prestige Card Apply	S$1	S$1
Citi Rewards Card Apply	S$1	S$1

Citi and BOC cards round transactions down to the nearest S$1 before awarding points, so you can basically drop all the cents from your calculations.

Varies: AMEX, DBS, HSBC, StanChart cards

Card	SGD	FCY
AMEX Platinum Charge Apply	S$1.60	S$1.60
AMEX Platinum Reserve Apply	S$1.60	S$1.60
AMEX Platinum Credit Card Apply	S$1.60	S$1.60
DBS Altitude Card Apply	S$1.54	S$0.91
DBS Vantage Card Apply	S$1.34	S$0.91
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	S$0.56	S$0.72
HSBC Revolution Card Apply	S$0.50	S$0.50
AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card Apply	S$0.46	S$0.46
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend Apply	S$0.42	S$0.42
HSBC TravelOne Card Apply	S$0.25	S$0.10
StanChart Visa Infinite Apply	S$0.20	S$0.20
StanChart Journey Card Apply	S$0.17	S$0.17
HSBC Premier Mastercard Apply	S$0.16	S$0.09
StanChart Beyond Card Apply	S$0.14	S$0.07

If you have an AMEX, DBS, HSBC, or StanChart credit card, the minimum spend to earn points really boils down to:

• which specific card you have
• which currency you’re spending in
• what type of spend you’re making (in the case of cards that also offer bonus categories, like the StanChart Journey Card)

One important thing to highlight is that contrary to popular belief, DBS cards do not have S$5 earning blocks. Instead, transactions are divided by 5, multiplied by the relevant number of DBS Points, then rounded down to the nearest whole number. 

For the HSBC Revolution, transactions are rounded off to the nearest S$1 when awarding base points, so any spend S$0.50 or more will earn base points. For bonus points, all eligible transactions including cents are summed up, rounded down to the nearest dollar, then multiplied by 9.

S$0.01: DBS yuu Card

Card	SGD	FCY
DBS yuu Card Apply	S$0.01	S$0.01

The DBS yuu Card awards points right down to the cent. You can see on the app that yuu Points are awarded to two decimal points.

Conclusion

Depending on the card you use, you might earn points on every transaction no matter the size, or only on transactions as large as S$10! 

It can be extremely confusing to keep track of everything, but some heuristics can help e.g. try to hit S$5 blocks with Maybank, OCBC and UOB cards (unless you’re using a card with delayed bonuses), Citi is always per S$1, and the DBS yuu Card gives you miles by the cent.

Any other data points for minimum spends necessary?