CardUp x HeyMax: Pay bills and buy miles from 1.46 cents

Back in June 2026, CardUp announced a major increase in processing fees of up to 36% across all its payment categories. This was brutal, no two ways about it. To put things into perspective, CardUp’s lowest promotional fee today is roughly equivalent to its most expensive promotional fee at the start of the year.

Obviously, CardUp didn’t want to do this. Rather, it was Visa and Mastercard which forced the issue, by hiking their interchange rates for bill payment platforms (there is no collusion in Ba Sing Se).

Thankfully, CardUp has been actively looking for a solution…and it’s actually pretty clever, if you ask me.

CardUp x HeyMax partnership

CardUp and HeyMax have announced a new partnership that allows users to earn Max Miles on selected types of bill payments, with a fee that starts from 1.25%.

Here are the key things to note:

• Codes are valid for condo MCST, insurance, property tax and mortgage payments
• Payment must be scheduled by 31 December 2026
• Payments must be made via PayNow
• A cap of 10,000 Max Miles applies for the promotional rates (across both Standard and Accelerated tiers)
• Codes can be used multiple times until the 10,000 Max Miles cap is reached

The cap is a little tricky and needs some explaining. It doesn’t mean that you’re capped at earning 10,000 Max Miles from CardUp.

Rather, it means that you’re capped at earning 10,000 Max Miles from CardUp at the promotional rates (1.25% for Standard, 5.85% for Accelerated). Once the cap is exceeded, you can still earn Max Miles, but regular rates (1.65% for Standard, 7.65% for Accelerated) apply. 

For example, if I make a S$5,000 payment using the Accelerated tier (4 MMpd), the first S$2,500 is charged at 5.85% (S$146.25), and the next S$2,500 at 7.65% (S$191.25), for a total of S$337.50.

Alternatively, if I make one payment of S$2,000 and another payment of S$3,000 using the Accelerated tier (4 MMpd), the first payment of S$2,000 is charged at 5.85% (S$117), and of the second payment of S$3,000, S$500 is charged at 5.85% (S$29.25) and S$2,500 is charged at 7.65% (S$191.25), for a total of S$337.50.

Basically, the promotional Max Mile cap means that you’d max out the promo rate at S$2,500 for the Accelerated tier, and S$14,286 for the Standard tier. 

This is crucial, because I’m not a buyer at the regular rates of 2.36 cents (Standard) and 1.91 cents (Accelerated). As for the promotional rates, 1.79 cents (Standard) is marginal, while 1.46 cents (Accelerated) is a no-brainer, so long as you can cash out Max Miles at 1.8 cents each via FlyAnywhere. It’s like earning the free spread — there’s no reason not to.

Terms & Conditions and FAQs

• CardUp T&Cs
• HeyMax FAQs

This is a smart solution

This partnership feels a bit toe-in-the-water for now, given the restrictions on the types of payments. 

Still, I think it’s a pretty clever solution to the Mastercard/Visa problem. Most users are agnostic about payment method — they just want to earn rewards. I’d happily ditch all my credit cards and pay with NETS/barter trade/nudes if you told me doing so would result in better earn rates.

So in that case, why not cut Mastercard/Visa out of the picture so that users earn better rewards, and companies pay lower fees? 

What can you do with Max Miles?

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

Get a HeyMax Account

Max Miles can be converted to more than 20 airline and hotel partners, at a 1:1 ratio for most frequent flyer programmes.

As mentioned earlier, you can also cash out Max Miles via FlyAnywhere at 1.8 cents per mile, simply by submitting any air ticket booked in the past 30 days.

1. Book your air tickets whatever way you like: through the airline’s official website, an OTA, or even a traditional brick-and-mortar travel agency
2. Submit a FlyAnywhere redemption request via the HeyMax app
3. Get reimbursed for your flight in cash, via PayNow, at a rate of 1.8 cents per Max Mile

Both commercial and award flights are eligible — in the case of the latter, HeyMax will reimburse you for the cash component of the ticket, i.e. taxes and surcharges.

Conclusion

CardUp has launched a new partnership with HeyMax, which allows users to earn Max Miles on selected bill payments — provided they pay via PayNow.

This obviously precludes the possibility of earning credit card miles, but the recent Visa/Mastercard fee hikes have made this rather unattractive anyway. And the way I see it, the Accelerated tier is hard to lose — at least for the first S$2,500 worth of payments — since you buy Max Miles at 1.46 cents and can cash them out at 1.8 cents.