Transaction date vs posting date: Which cards use what?

Here’s something that can feel very unintuitive: it’s the last day of the month. You use your credit card to pay for dinner at a restaurant. When the card statement arrives, you do the sums and realise that the transaction’s points haven’t been credited yet, nor did it count towards the minimum spend necessary to unlock bonus miles.

You’ve just discovered the difference between transaction dates and posting dates. 

On rare occasions, the two can be one and the same. But more often than not, they’re separated by at least a few days — and that can make all the difference to how many miles you earn!

What’s the difference between transaction date and posting date?

Here’s the difference between transaction date and posting date:

• Transaction date: The date the transaction actually takes place
• Posting date: The date the transaction is processed and reflected in your card account

Merchants don’t usually send each individual payment to the bank immediately. Instead, they collect the day’s transactions and submit them in a batch at the close of business. If it happens to be a weekend or public holiday, the batching may be delayed. There may also be further delays due to fraud screening or network issues.

Therefore, the posting date usually comes after the transaction date, with a lag of 1-3 days. There can be instances where the transaction and posting date happen to be the same, but you shouldn’t count on it.

Most of the time, this doesn’t really matter. But if you’re spending towards the end of the month, you might end up with a situation where your transaction date is in Month X, but your posting date is in Month X+1.

This can prove to be costly when it comes to rewards.

Monthly bonus caps

Transactions made in one month but posted in another may count towards the latter’s bonus cap.

For example, if I make a transaction on the UOB Lady’s Card on 30 November which posts on 1 December, that spending will count towards December’s bonus cap and not November’s.

This could result in me underutilising November’s bonus cap, or overutilising December’s.

Minimum spend for bonus miles or welcome offers

Transactions made in one month but posted in another may count towards the latter’s minimum spend.

For example, suppose I have a UOB Visa Signature Card with a statement period ending on the 15th of each month. In the current statement period, I’ve already made S$900 in FCY spend, and on 14 November, I make an additional S$300 FCY transaction.

If this transaction only posts on 16 November, it will count towards the minimum spend for the November-December statement period. As a result, my total FCY spend for the October-November statement period remains at S$900 — below the S$1,000 minimum — and therefore earns only 0.4 mpd. 

Likewise, suppose I sign up for a credit card that offers 10,000 bonus miles with a minimum spend of S$2,000 within 60 days. I’ve already spent S$1,800 so far, and towards the end of the 60-day period, I make a further transaction of S$300.

If that transaction posts after the 60-day period ends, then I won’t receive the bonus miles, because the sum of my posted transactions in the 60-day period is less than S$2,000.

Transaction date vs posting date

Here’s a card by card rundown of how some popular credit cards track their minimum spend and bonus caps.

Card	Feature	Is Based On
Citi Rewards Card Apply	S$1K cap for 4 mpd on online spend	Posting
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	S$1K cap for 4 mpd on online spend	Trxn
DBS yuu Card AMEX Visa	S$800 min. spend for 10 mpd on yuu merchants	Trxn
	S$823 cap for 10 mpd on yuu merchants
HSBC Revolution Apply	S$1K cap for 4 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Apply	S$800 min. spend for 2.8 mpd on FCY and air tickets	Special case – see below
	S$10K cap for 2.8 mpd on air tickets
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	S$4K min. spend for 3.2 mpd on FCY spend	Posting
Maybank World Mastercard Apply	S$800 min. spend for 2.8 mpd on FCY spend	Special case – see below
	S$4K min. spend for 3.2 mpd on FCY spend
Maybank XL Card Apply	S$500 min. spend for 4 mpd on selected MCCs	Special case – see below
	S$1K cap for 4 mpd on selected MCCs
OCBC Rewards Card Apply	S$1.1K cap for 4 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
StanChart Journey Card Apply	S$1K cap for 3 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
StanChart Smart Card Apply	S$800 min. spend for 7.42 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
	S$1.5K min. spend for 9.28 mpd on selected MCCs
StanChart Visa Infinite Apply	S$2K min. spend for 1.4/3 mpd on local/FCY spend	Posting
UOB Lady’s Card  Apply	S$1K cap for 4 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
UOB Lady’s Solitaire  Apply	S$750 cap (per cat.) for 4 mpd on selected MCCs	Posting
UOB Preferred Visa Apply	S$600 cap (per cat.) for 4 mpd on contactless, and selected online MCCs	Posting
UOB Visa Signature Apply	S$1K min. spend (per cat.) for 4 mpd on FCY, contactless and petrol	Posting
	S$1.2K cap (per cat.) for 4 mpd on FCY, contactless and petrol

Basically, every bank except DBS and Maybank tracks spending by posting date. This means you should take care with spending towards the end of the calendar or statement month, because late-posting transactions can “leak” into the following period. 

DBS Bank

DBS uses the transaction date as the basis for computing minimum spend and caps. Even if it’s 8 p.m on the last day of the month and you haven’t hit the minimum spend on the DBS yuu Card yet —  there’s still time!

Unfortunately, CSOs often misinform customers that computations are based on posting date, pointing to clauses such as this.

All this is saying is that transactions won’t earn points if they end up not posting (duh!). For example, if you make a pre-authorisation on your card but nothing gets charged in the end, of course you won’t earn any points.

I can assure you, a proper reading of the T&Cs — and numerous real-world data points — shows that transaction date is the correct date to use.

However, there is a potential complication. While DBS tracks spending by transaction date, they do not follow Singapore time. The transaction date is “subject to merchant or their acquirer’s timezone”.

This throws a further spanner into the works, because even if you know the merchant’s timezone, their acquirer may be a different timezone. Unfortunately, there are conflicting reports online — some report their transactions made early in Month X end up reflecting a transaction date in Month X-1, and others report their transactions made late in Month X end up reflecting a transaction date in Month X+1.

You might think that transacting in Singapore would remove all ambiguity, but again, there are reports saying otherwise. If you want to be absolutely safe, it’s better to avoid transactions on the 31st and 1st altogether. 

Maybank

Maybank is a unique case, because it provides some buffer at the start of each month for late-posting transactions.

The Maybank Horizon Visa Signature will consider transactions made in Month X but posted by the 6th day of Month X+1 to be part of Month X’s transactions, both for minimum spending and bonus caps. 

The Maybank World Mastercard will consider transactions made in Month X but posted by the 7th day of Month X+1 to be part of Month X’s transactions, both for minimum spending and bonus caps. 

The Maybank XL Rewards Card will consider transactions made in Month X but posted by the 10th day of Month X+1 to be part of Month X’s transactions, both for minimum spending and bonus caps. 

This policy is particularly customer-friendly, because transactions made at the end of a month have a very good chance of counting towards the minimum spend of that month. I mean, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that transactions take 6/7/10 days to post, but the odds are in your favour.

Feature or bug?

If you know what you’re doing, then you can actually “time-shift” transactions by spending on a card that uses the posting date as the basis for minimum spend and caps.

For example, I recently had a S$682.90 expense with Singapore Airlines that I wanted to charge to my HSBC Revolution for 8 mpd (with the EGA bonus miles). However, this transaction would cause me to exceed its S$1,200 monthly bonus cap.

But since it was the last day of the month, I decided to spend anyway, in the hope that the transaction would end up posting the following month, and count towards the following month’s bonus cap…and indeed it did!

Of course there’s some risk involved here, but what’s life without some adrenaline?

Do any merchants post on the same day?

If it’s almost the end of the month, and you want to sneak in an additional transaction to meet the minimum spend or fully utilise the bonus cap, then the following merchants have reported by the MileChat community to post on the same day.

• 7-Eleven
• Cold Storage
• Food Junction
• Food Republic
• Genki Sushi
• Joyden Seafood
• Singlife (though it doesn’t earn points or count towards minimum spend anyway…)
• Starbucks
• Sushi Tei
• Toastbox
• ToriQ

Keep in mind, I cannot promise it will be the same for you. It could depend on outlet, or even which bank’s credit card you’re using. Search the MileChat for “same day post” to find more examples (or don’t, and get mercilessly abused).

Conclusion

The distinction between transaction and posting dates becomes important when you’re spending towards the end of the month, or close to a welcome bonus deadline.

Transactions that post late — slipping into the next month, or beyond the qualifying period — can end up not counting at all. It may seem counterintuitive, but the date you swipe your card is often not the date your bank recognises the transaction.

Any other merchants you know of that post on the same day?