Goodbye UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, hello UOB Preferred Visa

If you opened your mobile wallet this morning, you might have noticed that your trusty old UOB Preferred Platinum Visa is looking a little different.

Don’t panic. UOB has simply carried out a rebranding exercise, and the venerable PPV will henceforth be known as the PV— the UOB Preferred Visa. 

The rebrand also comes with a refreshed card design, new travel insurance benefits, and a Visa Signature badge upgrade.

Now, I know there’s always a certain degree of trepidation whenever changes are made to a beloved card, but the good news is that nothing bad is happening. The key benefits of 4 mpd on mobile contactless and online spending remain untouched, and just as well — I don’t think we’d be able to stomach another nerf so soon after the introduction of sub-caps in October 2025!

Details: UOB Preferred Visa

From 10 March 2026, the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa has been renamed as the UOB Preferred Visa.

The new card design will be sent out to cardmembers progressively, upon card renewal or replacement. If you really can’t wait, I suppose you could always report your existing card as lost— though the replacement card would have a different card number and CVV, so you’d need to update all the apps and websites where it’s stored.

If you’re still seeing the old card design in your mobile wallet, you may need to re-tokenise your card (i.e. delete it and add it back again). Take care, however, if you have the card on more than one phone, because recently-introduced anti-fraud measures make doing so a little trickier than before.

Existing UOB Preferred Platinum Visa cards will continue to work normally, while enjoying the new UOB Preferred Visa benefits. Official FAQs about the rebranding can be found here.

New travel insurance benefit

From 10 March 2026, UOB Preferred Visa cardmembers will enjoy complimentary travel insurance coverage of up to S$500,000.

The full policy wording and benefits can be found here.

To activate coverage, cardmembers must:

• Charge the corresponding travel fare to their card, and
• Opt-in via this page, before the commencement of the trip

Additional coverage is great, but here’s the thing: I see no reason to use the UOB Preferred Visa for travel fares in the first place. Air tickets and cruises are not covered under the online spending bonus, so you’ll earn just 0.4 mpd

In theory, you could buy tickets from a brick-and-mortar travel agency and make in-person payment via mobile contactless for 4 mpd and complimentary insurance coverage. However, the S$600 monthly bonus cap is rather restrictive.

New Visa Signature benefits

UOB has not mentioned this explicitly, but the new UOB Preferred Visa belongs to the Visa Signature tier (hence the removal of “Platinum” from the name).

Again, this isn’t a particularly exciting development, because the main incremental benefits of Visa Signature status are:

• A fast-track to Avis President’s Circle status
• Access to the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection, which includes additional benefits like complimentary breakfast and room upgrades

Moreover, you probably have a Visa Signature card in your wallet already, perhaps in the form of the DBS Altitude Visa, Maybank Horizon Visa Signature or UOB Visa Signature. When it first launched in 2006, Visa Signature was a mass-affluent tier aimed at those earning at least S$60,000 per year, but these days it’s available on many entry-level cards.

No change to core benefits

Apart from the new name, new design and additional travel insurance/Visa Signature benefits, the rest of the features and fees remain the same.

UOB Preferred Visa cardmembers continue to earn 4 mpd on mobile contactless and selected online transactions, subject to a cap of S$600 per category, per calendar month.

Mobile contactless transactions are defined as in-store payments made with Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay, and do not include tapping the physical card.

Selected online transactions refer to online or in-app transactions with the following MCCs.

A full review of the UOB Preferred Visa can be found below (I’ll update it with the new card name when I get around to doing the 2026 edition).

Review: UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Card

Conclusion

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa has been rebranded as the UOB Preferred Visa, with new travel insurance and Visa Signature benefits.

There isn’t much to get excited about here — or worried, for that matter. It’s quite unlikely that you’ll be using this card to pay for air tickets or cruise fares in the first place, and you probably already had Visa Signature benefits through another card. On the plus side, the core benefit of 4 mpd on mobile contactless and selected online transactions remains untouched. 

I must say, I really like the new card design. Just a pity you’ll almost never be using the physical card!