UOB has made an unannounced change to its terms and conditions for the UOB One card.
What made UOB One a good credit card?
UOB One Visa credit card has been my favourite cashback credit card in Singapore for many years now because it awards up to 5% cashback for almost all spending categories like dining, online, travel and even general offline shopping.
What is changing?
Cardholders will no longer earn 5% cashback when spending at least $2,000 every month. This change will be effective from your next qualifying quarter.
Click here for the frequently asked questions regarding this change to the UOB One card.
Here are the new tiers to earn cashback with the UOB One card:
| Tier | Min. spend per statement month (of respective quarter) | Min. number of transactions | Quarterly cashback (fixed) | Cashback rate* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | at least $500 | 5 | $50 | 3.33% |
| 2 | at least $1,000 | 5 | $100 | 3.33% |
| 3 | at least $2,000 | 5 | $200 | 3.33% |
* If you spend exactly the minimum amount required; see quarterly cashback.
More cashback for public transport spending
SimplyGo transactions will earn 5% to 6.67% in additional cashback, depending on your spending tier. This goes along with the bonus cashback awarded for spending with selected merchants like Dairy Farm, Grab and Shopee.
Remember: Get 20% cashback when you use Revolut card for public transport spending till 30 June 2022.
How bad is this change?
UOB could have sent cardholders an email to inform them about this change.
If you’ve not been spending more than $2,000 consistently every month and prefer cashback over miles, nothing much has changed.
Otherwise, you may want to rethink your credit card strategy.
I personally only used my UOB One card when I have maxed out my specialized Miles cards because of the 5% cashback. This is because, to oversimplify things, I value a one-way Business Class flight to Europe more than $850 worth of cashback and I do not like having a minimum spending amount to meet every month.
Bottom line
UOB One card is slashing cashback rate for Tier 3 spending from 5% to 3.33% and could have communicated better regarding this change.
Tier 1 and 2 spenders will continue to earn the same cashback rate of 3.33%.
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This is the uppity but totally disingenuous message received by SMS: “UOB One Credit Card: Wef from 1 May ’22, get up to 10% cashback on your bus and train rides with SimplyGo (new), Dairy Farm International, Grab, Shopee Singapore and SP transactions. T&Cs apply. Your UOB One Credit Card cashback for minimum S$2,000 spend will also be revised to up to 3.33% (S$200 quarterly cashback) with effect from the statement month of July 2022 (i.e. your spending in June).”
No decency to mention that people who spend minimum S$2000 will be receiving S$100 less!! They think customers are idiots.