Best Hotel Booking Miles/Cashback Credit Cards in Singapore (September 2024)

The card advertises “up to 15% cashback” on your chosen spending category:

• Dining (e.g. restaurants, bakeries, food deliveries)
• Shopping (e.g. department, clothing, watch stores)
• Travel (e.g. airlines, hotels, travel agencies)
• Wellness (e.g. beauty shops, spas, gyms, pharmacies)
• Transport (e.g. ride-hailing, car rental, petrol)
• Entertainment (e.g. bars, movies, streaming services)

However, this is quite misleading, as the cashback cap is a lot lower than the minimum spending requirement. Examples here.

To summarize the complicated cashback mechanics:

To receive “15% cashback” on the chosen category, one would need to spend at least $2,000 per month, for 3 consecutive months in a quarter, for a total of at least $6,000. The cardholder would then be credited with $250 in cashback; that is, IF he/she had spent an average of at least $555 per month, on the chosen category.

This also means that, to unlock the “15% cashback” on $555 worth of spending, one would need to spend $1,445 per month on other things, and only earn 1% cashback on them. So, there’s an opportunity cost of not using other superior cards on this amount.

I would treat it as a card with 2 use cases:

1. Earn about 4 or 4.9% in nett cashback on preferred category, when spending $1,000 or $2,000 per month, for 3 consecutive months in a quarter
2. Get 1 – 1.5% cashback on foreign currency spending on non-preferred categories, with no foreign currency fees

The existence of this card also means that the opportunity cost of using Miles cards for foreign currency spending is now over 4%.

Cardholders can choose their preferred bonus category in the Trust mobile app.

💸 Annual fee
No annual fee, ever

💼 Income requirement
$30,000/year

🤑 Foreign currency fee
No foreign currency fee

📜 Terms & conditions