Best Large Purchase Miles/Cashback Credit Cards in Singapore (September 2024)

Last updated on 28 August 2024

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What are the Best Cards in Singapore for Big-Ticket Items?

These cards have great earn rates and high annual limits. If you have used up the limits of these cards, the next best options are general spending cards. Cardholders can also receive high rewards through credit cards’ sign-up bonuses.

How are these cards chosen and ranked?

These cards are picked and ranked based on how they compare against other cards, based on these key factors:

1) Earn rates (miles/cashback)
2) Ease of use (spending/income requirements)
3) Miles/Points flexibility (total transfer partners)
4) Miles/Points expiry term
5) Annual fee
6) Other additional benefits

Citi SMRT	5% cashback ^{• Online only (non-travel related) • Min. spend $500 per statement month • Up to $12,000 per card membership year}
Maybank Horizon	2.8 mpd ^{• Foreign Currency (uncapped) • Flights (up to $10k per calendar month) • Min. spend $800 per calendar month}
Trust Cashback	1% cashback + no foreign currency fee ^{• Foreign Currency only • No annual fee, ever}
KrisFlyer UOB	3 mpd ^{• Singapore Airlines, Scoot, Expedia only • Min. spend $800 per card membership year with Singapore Airlines Group, to earn 3 mpd on dining and online shopping}

💡Click on the + Card Summary buttons below to instantly view the key details of each card!

Citi SMRT

Get 5% cashback on online spending, groceries and transportation

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🎁 Sign-up bonus

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Citi SMRT Visa Card

Suitesmile rating:

✍️ Short summary
This card gives you 5% cashback on Online (except travel-related), Groceries, Ride-hailing and Public Transport spending upon meeting the minimum spend of $500 per statement month.

Cashback is capped at $600 per card membership year. This annual limit gives you the opportunity to get 5% cashback on $12,000 worth of eligible spending, making this card fantastic for large purchases!

Get just 0.3% cashback for all other spending categories.

💸 Annual fee
$196.20
(First 2 years waived)

💼 Income requirement
$30,000/year

🤑 Foreign currency fee
3.25%

❓How cashback is credited
Cash rebates are credited in the form of SMRT$. Cardholders are required to redeem them via SMS (min. $10).

📜 Terms & conditions

Maybank Horizon

Earn 2.8 mpd on flights and foreign currency spending

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🎁 Sign-up bonus

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Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Card

Suitesmile rating:

✍️ Short summary
Cardholders can receive an uncapped earn rate of 2.8 miles per dollar on foreign currency transactions, when spending at least $800 per calendar month.

On top of that, cardholders can also receive 2.8 miles per dollar on flight bookings, when spending at least $800 per calendar month. However, this bonus earn rate is capped at $10,000 per calendar month.

Other whitelisted transactions in SGD earn 1.2 mpd, and non-whitelisted ones just 0.24 mpd.

Miles earned on this card expire after just 1 year, and can only be transferred to 3 Frequent Flyer Programs. Because of its poor flexibility and minimum spending requirement, I recommend using this card only for school fees in foreign currency and more-expensive flight bookings in Singapore Dollars.

💸 Annual fee
$180
(First 3 years waived)

💼 Income requirement
$30,000/year

🤑 Foreign currency fee
3.25%

⏰ Points expiry
1 year from transaction

🫱‍🫲 Transfer partners
Krisflyer, Asia Miles and Enrich

💯 Transfer ratio
2.5 points = 1 mile

🧮 Transfer blocks
KrisFlyer: 12,500 points (5,000 miles)
Asia Miles: 5,000 (2,000 miles)
Enrich: 2,500 (1,000 miles)

💲Transfer fee
$27 per transfer

🤗 Points pooling
Points from this card can be combined with those from other Maybank cards and transferred out together at once.

❓How points are credited
Earn 5 base point per $5 dollar spent, plus 45 bonus points for eligible online transactions (equivalent to 3.2 mpd in total).

📜 Terms & conditions

Trust Cashback

Get unlimited 1% cashback and no foreign currency fees

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🎁 Sign-up bonus

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Trust Cashback Visa Card

Suitesmile rating:

✍️ Short summary
This card gives you unlimited 1% cashback, great foreign exchange rates and no foreign currency fees; and it does not come with an annual fee!

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:

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
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

KrisFlyer UOB

Earn 3 mpd on dining, online shopping and selected travel spending

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🎁 Sign-up bonus

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KrisFlyer UOB Mastercard

Suitesmile rating:

✍️ Short summary
This card gives you an uncapped 3 mpd earn rate on Singapore Airlines, Scoot, KrisShop and Kris+, as well as travel spending made on selected websites like airbnb.com, booking.com and expedia.com.

Cardholders can also receive the same uncapped 3 mpd earn rate (1.2 base + 1.8 bonus) on everyday spending categories like dining, online shopping, online food delivery, ride-hailing and public transport, when they spend at least S$800 on Singapore Airlines, Scoot or KrisShop collectively in a card membership year.

All other transactions earn 1.2 mpd, including foreign currency spending (very poor!).

On top of that, cardholders can also get priority check-in and boarding, free standard seat selection and one-time booking flexibility waiver on Scoot bookings made through flyscoot.com/KrisFlyerUOB.

While this card makes all the right headlines, cardholders should know that bonus miles (1.8 mpd) are only credited within 2 months, at the end of the card membership year. This can be a dealbreaker for many who do not want to wait up to 14 months to receive the bonus miles! The delayed miles crediting can also force you into paying the annual fee (instead of cancelling the card), if a waiver is not granted.

Another obvious point to note is that the miles earned on this card can only be transferred to KrisFlyer, albeit with no transfer fee.

Flexibility is very important in the Miles Game and unfortunately, this card offers very little of that. I recommend maximizing the limits of other 4 mpd cards first, before using this one.

💸 Annual fee
$196.20
(First year waived, get 10,000 miles with subsequent annual fee payments)

💼 Income requirement
$30,000/year

🤑 Foreign currency fee
3.25%
(Avoid this fee by linking this card to Amaze!)

⏰ Miles expiry
3 years from the time they are credited into KrisFlyer account.

🫱‍🫲 Transfer partner
KrisFlyer only

🧮 Transfer block
N/A

💲 Transfer fee
No transfer fee

🤗 Miles/Points pooling
Miles earned from this card cannot be combined with those from other UOB cards and can only be transferred out separately.

❓ How/When miles are credited
Earn 6 base miles per $5 dollar spent, plus 9 bonus miles for eligible transactions (equivalent to 3 mpd in total). Base miles are credited into your KrisFlyer account at the end of each calendar month; bonus miles up to 2 months after the end of card membership year (up to 14 months).

📜 Terms & conditions