Review: Chocolate Visa Card

Here’s The MileLion’s review of the Chocolate Visa Card, which upended the miles game when it teamed up with HeyMax to offer 2 Max Miles per S$1 on virtually everything — even charitable donations, education, hospitals, insurance premiums, utilities, and AXS payments.

Naturally, that didn’t last very long, as people started doing…shall we say, creative things with their cards (earn rates dropped to 0.4 mpd after the first S$1,000, but 0.4 times a lot is still a lot). Chocolate quickly yanked support for AXS — not exactly their finest moment — and eventually nerfed the earn rates, while adding caps on certain categories that amounted to de facto exclusions.

So where does that leave us? In limbo, kind of, because the Chocolate Visa Card is neither great nor terrible. There are certainly cases where it can come in handy, but most of the time it’ll be hanging out in your sock drawer.

Chocolate Visa Card
🦁 MileLion Verdict
☐ Take It ☑ Take It Or Leave It ☐ Leave It
What do these ratings mean?
The Chocolate Visa offers fee-free FCY transactions, and miles for donations and education, but its low earn rates are a significant drawback.
👍 The good	👎 The bad
No FCY transaction fees Earns miles on donations and education Max Miles are extremely versatile	Only earns 1 mpd capped at S$1,000 per month, and 0.4 mpd after Cap of 100 miles per month for bill payments

Overview: Chocolate Visa Card

Apply
Income Req.	N/A	Points Validity	No expiry
Annual Fee	None	Min. Transfer	1,000 miles
Miles with Annual Fee	None	Transfer Partners	21
FCY Fee	None	Transfer Fee	None
Local Earn	1 mpd on first S$1K, 0.4 mpd after	Points Pool?	N/A
FCY Earn		Lounge Access?	N/A
Special Earn	N/A	Airport Limo?	N/A
Cardholder Terms and Conditions

The Chocolate Visa Card is the companion card of the Chocolate Account, so yes, you will need to open an account before you can get a card.

Balances in Chocolate earn up to 2% p.a. for SGD and 4.1% p.a. for USD, at the time of writing.

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether these rates are attractive enough, but in any case, there’s nothing stopping you from using this card as a passthrough, i.e. only topping up funds before spending and otherwise keeping nothing inside. That’s a lot less convenient, obviously, but it is an option…

Perhaps the most important thing to know about the Chocolate Visa Card is that it’s a debit card, not a credit card.

You should therefore take additional precautions, because any fraudulent transactions will be immediately debited from your account balance (compared to a credit card where the bill is only due later, giving you time to spot and report the transaction).

There is, of course, a proper fraud reporting process to get such transactions reversed from your account, but you’ll be out of pocket during the investigation period. Mind you, these concerns aren’t unique to the Chocolate Visa; it’s the same for any debit card. 

So even though the experts advise against freezing Chocolate, you’re going to want to do exactly that whenever it’s not in use. This can be done easily via the app with a few taps.

How much must I earn to qualify for a Chocolate Visa Card?

The Chocolate Visa Card has no minimum income requirement.

How much is the Chocolate Visa Card’s annual fee?

The Chocolate Visa Card has no annual fee.

Link your card before spending!

Get 200 Max Miles when you open an account and complete your first transaction

Get a HeyMax Account

Before you spend a single dollar on your Chocolate Visa Card, you’ll need to create a HeyMax account and pair the Chocolate Visa Card under Your Cards > Add Card. A test transaction of S$0.01 will be charged and refunded. 

You will not earn any Max Miles for spending done before linking your card, so don’t forget!

Each Chocolate Visa Card can only be linked to a single HeyMax account, and vice versa.

How many miles do I earn?

The Chocolate Visa Card earns:

• 1 Max Mile per S$1 on the first S$1,000 per calendar month
• 0.4 Max Miles per S$1 on all spend above S$1,000

There is no cap on the miles that can be earned, though obviously the earn rate is a lot less lucrative after the first S$1,000.

However, do note that there is a spending limit of S$1,000 per transaction and S$20,000 per day on the Chocolate Visa Card.

While I understand the need for backstops in case of fraud, I do find it a little odd that users don’t have the option of adjusting the limits themselves. I mean, this is the first case I can think of where a debit card restricts how much of your own money you can spend.

Cap on miles for bill payments

Cardholders are capped at earning a maximum of 100 Max Miles per calendar month from so-called “bill payments”.

Bill payments are defined as transactions with the following MCCs (for the avoidance of doubt, the 100 Max Miles cap is shared among all categories).

This basically works like a de facto exclusions list, and one annoying thing is that MCC 7399 is included. While this is used by CardUp, it’s also used by a lot of merchants which aren’t remotely connected to bill payments.

For example, Points.com transactions code as MCC 7399, which means that you’re capped at 100 Max Miles when buying miles or points from Aeroplan, Alaska, Flying Blue, GHA, Hilton, IHG, Marriott, Qatar Airways, United and any other airline or hotel which uses the platform.

MCC 7399 can also pop up in unexpected places, like when you’re making cash + points bookings with IHG, or even Shopee.

Because of this, if there’s even a shadow of a doubt about the MCC, you should make a point of looking it up before swiping the Chocolate Visa Card.

Charitable donations and education are not defined as bill payments, and therefore aren’t subject to the 100 Max Miles cap.

Miles Multiplier

The Miles Multiplier feature awards bonus Max Miles based on the monthly average balance (MAB) in your Chocolate account.

Customers will earn a 5% multiplier for every S$5,000 MAB with Chocolate, capped at S$100,000 or 100%. The Miles Multiplier applies to all spending on the Chocolate Visa Card, not just the first S$1,000.

For example, if John has a S$50,000 MAB and spends S$1,300 on his Chocolate Visa Card during the month, he will receive 1,120 base Max Miles (S$1,000 x 1 mpd + S$300 x 0.4 mpd) and 560 bonus Max Miles (50% x 1,120).

What is the FCY fee?

One big advantage of the Chocolate Visa Card is that it has no FCY transaction fees.

Foreign currency transactions will be converted into SGD at the prevailing Visa rate, with no further markup. You can use the official Visa calculator here to check how much you’ll pay (set the bank fee at 0%).

This means that one of the best uses for the Chocolate Visa Card is for overseas spending.

	Chocolate Visa Card	HSBC TravelOne Card
FCY Earn Rate	1 mpd	2.4 mpd
FCY Transaction Fee	0%	3.25%

For example, if your alternative option is a general spending card like the HSBC TravelOne Card, then spending on the Chocolate Visa Card makes more sense — at least for the first S$1,000 per month — because paying a 3.25% fee to earn an extra 1.4 mpd means buying miles at 2.32 cents each, way above what you should be paying.

However, if your alternative option is a specialised spending card like the UOB Visa Signature, then the math makes more sense — paying a 3.25% fee to earn an extra 3 mpd means 1.08 cents per mile, which is a lot more reasonable. 

	Chocolate Visa Card	UOB Visa Signature
FCY Earn Rate	1 mpd	4 mpd
FCY Transaction Fee	0%	3.25%

Of course, I’d sooner use Amaze + Citi Rewards/Maybank XL Rewards for 4 mpd with a 2% fee, but assuming you’ve exhausted those limits already, or just want to earn miles at the lowest possible cost, then the Chocolate Visa Card would be the answer. 

Transaction date or posting date?

The Chocolate Visa Card tracks spending based on the transaction date, not posting date.

For example, if you make a S$100 transaction on 31 July and it posts on 1 August, the S$100 spend will count against July’s spending cap.

When are Max Miles credited?

Max Miles are awarded once the transaction posts, which usually takes 1-3 days. 

Max Miles awarded from the Miles Multiplier are credited in a lump sum within the first week of the following month. 

How are Max Miles calculated?

Here’s how you can work out the Max Miles earned on your Chocolate Visa Card.

You must spend at least S$0.50 on a transaction to earn Max Miles, and Max Miles are awarded in minimum increments of 0.1. For example, a transaction of S$10.13 would earn 10.2 Max Miles.

If you’re an Excel geek, here are the formulas you need to calculate points: 

For the full list of formulas that banks use to calculate credit card points, do refer to these articles:

• General Spending Cards
• Specialised Spending Cards

What transactions aren’t eligible for Max Miles?

Transactions with the following MCCs will be ineligible to earn Max Miles. These are mostly related to money transfers and prepaid account top-ups, like GrabPay and YouTrip.

However, do remember that the monthly cap of 100 Max Miles on bill payments such as government services, hospitals, insurance premiums and utilities makes these effectively exclusions, once you’ve spent more than S$100.

What do I need to know about Max Miles?

Expiry

Max Miles do not expire.

Pooling

All Max Miles earned on the Chocolate Visa Card will be credited directly to your HeyMax account, where they will pool with miles earned from all other sources.

Transfer Partners & Fees

Max Miles can be converted to the following airline and hotel programmes. Most airline transfers are at a 1:1 ratio, and a minimum transfer of 1,000 Max Miles is required (subsequent conversions can be in blocks of 1 or 100 Max Miles, depending on programme).

You might see older articles on this website mentioning partners such as Air Canada Aeroplan, Emirates Skywards and World of Hyatt. These were available under the Cash For Miles programme, where HeyMax would issue a prepaid debit card for customers to purchase the miles/points directly from the programme itself. Unfortunately, Cash For Miles was retired on 1 June 2026.

All conversions are free of charge.

Transfer Times

While HeyMax quotes one business day for transfers, you can usually expect them to be completed instantly.

The following programmes are exceptions:

• Air India Maharaja Club: 3 business days
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles: 3 business days
• Philippine Airlines Mabuhay Miles: 5 business days

Other things to know

Here are a few more important things to know about the Chocolate Visa Card:

• You cannot withdraw money from ATMs using your Chocolate Visa Card
• The card can be digitised and added to Google Pay or Samsung Pay, but not Apple Pay
• The Chocolate Visa belongs to the Visa Platinum tier

Conclusion

Apply

The Chocolate Visa Card started with a bang, but then it flew too close to the sun — and that rarely ends well for confectionery. 

Today, its use cases are far more limited. It’s definitely useful for earning miles on charitable donations or education, and if you hate FCY fees, then this is one way of avoiding them without giving up miles. Otherwise, there aren’t a lot of scenarios where I could see myself using it over other, higher-earning cards.