2025 Credit Card Strategy

As 2025 gets under way, it’s a good time to take stock of your credit card miles strategy for the upcoming year.

The credit card landscape is constantly evolving, with new products, promotions, and changes to earn rates. Staying ahead means being proactive in aligning your spending habits with the best cards available.

In this guide, I’ll break down the top strategies for maximising your miles in 2025, from contactless transactions to overseas spending. No matter your spending patterns, there’s a plan to help you achieve your travel goals faster.

Earning miles isn’t just about spending; it’s about spending smart. If there’s one resolution you make this year, let it be this: use specialised spending cards wherever possible. 

Specialised spending cards offer up to 4 miles per S$1 (mpd) on certain categories of spend, like dining or shopping. Contrast that to general spending cards, where you earn 1.2-1.6 mpd at best. 

Unfortunately, far too many people take the easy way out by applying for a single general spending card and using it everywhere. At the risk of stating the obvious, someone who earns at an average rate of 4 mpd will earn their free holiday 3X quicker than someone earning at just 1.2 mpd!

While managing multiple cards is no doubt more complicated than a single card, it doesn’t have to be rocket science. Annual fees can be waived, GIRO arrangements can be set up for payment, and it’s really not that difficult to memorise the best cards to use for a few of your largest expense categories.

In the sections below, I’ll cover some of the most common ones.

“Contactless transactions” does not refer to any specific merchant or category, but rather a mode of payment where you add your card to your mobile wallet and tap your phone to pay in-store.

This is eligible for bonuses with the following cards:

• UOB Preferred Platinum Visa: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,110 per calendar month

• UOB Visa Signature: 4 mpd, capped at S$2,000 per statement month, with a minimum spend of S$1,000 per statement month

Given how ubiquitous contactless payment terminals are these days, it’s an easy way of earning 4 mpd almost everywhere.

Do note, however, that UOB’s standard exclusions list still applies. You will not earn 4 mpd if you use contactless payments at a tuition centre or post office, for example.

Just like contactless transactions, “online transactions” are another big catchall. In fact, the average person probably makes numerous online transactions each day without realising it: taking a Grab ride to work, ordering lunch on Deliveroo, retail therapy on Shopee, renewing their Netflix subscription, and booking plane tickets for an overseas vacation.

For online transactions, either of these cards would earn you 4 mpd:

• Citi Rewards Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,000 per statement month, except on travel-related expenditure like air tickets, cruises, hotels and travel agencies

• DBS Woman’s World Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,500 per calendar month

With the Citi Rewards Card, take care that you don’t make in-app payments with Apple or Google Pay, as even though these are processed online, they’re excluded from earning bonuses.

If you’re a big user of food delivery services or dine out frequently, then you should absolutely have a dedicated card for dining.

For this category, I would recommend:

• DBS yuu Card: 10 mpd, with a minimum spend and cap of S$600 per calendar month (Foodpanda only)

• UOB Lady’s Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month (must choose Dining as your 10X category)

• UOB Lady’s Solitaire: 4 mpd, capped at S$2,000 per calendar month (must choose Dining as your 10X category)

• KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card: 3 mpd, with a minimum spend of S$800 on SIA Group (Singapore Airlines, Scoot, KrisShop) in a membership year, no cap

Of the cards mentioned here, the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card is particularly suited to large spenders, as it does not have a bonus miles cap. If there’s a big family meal or office lunch which you have the “privilege” of paying for, this would be the card!

If you’re shopping on websites like Amazon, Lazada or Shopee, or buying bags, shoes or clothes in fashion boutiques, then the following cards are the right ones to use:

• OCBC Rewards Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,110 per calendar month

• UOB Lady’s Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month (must choose Fashion as your 10X category)

• UOB Lady’s Solitaire: 4 mpd, capped at S$2,000 per calendar month (must choose Fashion as your 10X category)

For the OCBC Rewards Card, there’s even a limited-time promotion till 30 June 2025 that boosts the earn rate to 6 mpd for any transactions coding under MCC 5311 Department Stores. 

Even if you don’t shop at places like Marks & Spencer or Takashimaya, that can still come in handy for buying vouchers through Heymax. The Heymax platform sells vouchers for numerous merchants like Best Denki, Courts, Deliveroo, IKEA, Klook, Pelago and Ryde. These would normally code under a variety of MCCs (merchant category codes), but when bought through Heymax, code as MCC 5311.

Using your credit card overseas will entail an additional foreign currency (FCY) transaction fee of around 3.25%, but the miles you earn can make it worthwhile

There are several cards you can consider for this category:

• Maybank Horizon Visa Signature: 2.8 mpd with a minimum spend of S$800 per calendar month, no cap (temporarily upsized to 3.2 mpd until 31 January 2025)

• Maybank World Mastercard: 3.2 mpd with a minimum spend of S$4,000 per calendar month, or 2.8 mpd with a minimum spend of S$800 per calendar month, no cap

• UOB Visa Signature: 4 mpd with a minimum spend of S$1,000 per statement month, capped at S$2,000 per statement month

To illustrate how this works, suppose you use the UOB Visa Signature on a transaction in Japanese yen. You will pay an additional 3.25% on this transaction (plus a little extra due to the Visa spread over mid-market rates), but earn 4 mpd in the process. This makes the cost per mile around 0.81 cents, which most people would find reasonable. 

The HSBC Revolution removed supermarkets as a bonus category in 2024, but there are still a couple of cards you can consider for these transactions:

• DBS yuu Card: 10 mpd, with a minimum spend and cap of S$600 per calendar month (Cold Storage and Giant only)

• UOB Lady’s Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month (must choose Family as your 10X category)

• UOB Lady’s Solitaire: 4 mpd, capped at S$2,000 per calendar month (must choose Family as your 10X category)

Of course, if you’re buying your groceries online through a platform like Redmart you could make use of the cards mentioned under the “online transactions” section.

Petrol is a tricky category to make recommendations for, because the numerous bank tie-ups mean that the best card for discounts may not be the best card for miles.

However, all things equal, my choice would be the Maybank World Mastercard, which earns an uncapped 4 mpd on petrol in Singapore. Do note that this only applies to offline transactions, so if you’re paying with an app like CaltexGo, no bonuses will be earned.

If you want to keep things simple, you could pump petrol at Sinopec stations where the discount offered is the same regardless of which card you use for payment.

For those who don’t drive, fret not- taking public transport can also be rewarding with the right cards.

For bus and MRT rides paid via SimplyGo, the following cards would:

• StanChart Smart Card: 3.71 mpd until 31 March 2025, after which 7.42 mpd with a minimum spend of S$800 per statement month, and 9.28 mpd with a minimum spend of S$1,500 per statement month

• KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card: 3 mpd, with a minimum spend of S$800 on SIA Group (Singapore Airlines, Scoot, KrisShop) in a membership year, no cap

• UOB Lady’s Card: 4 mpd, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month (must choose Transport as your 10X category)

• UOB Lady’s Solitaire: 4 mpd, capped at S$2,000 per calendar month (must choose Transport as your 10X category)

The earn rates on the StanChart Smart Card may look lucrative, but the minimum spends are likely to be a stumbling block. Given the relatively narrow range of bonus categories (fast food, streaming, public transport and EV charging), you might have to spend on non-bonus categories to make up the minimum spend. These earn just 0.46 mpd, which will drag down your overall earn rate.

I know what you’re thinking: that’s a lot of cards to manage!

But the good news is that most people won’t need quite as many, especially if your monthly spending is relatively modest. For example, a simple combination of the DBS Woman’s World Card and UOB Preferred Platinum Visa would already earn 4 mpd on most transactions, up to S$2,610 per month. If that’s not enough, adding the Citi Rewards Card would add a further S$1,000 to the cap, and the UOB Visa Signature a further S$2,000.

As mentioned earlier, all these cards are “category agnostic” in the sense that what matters is the mode of spend rather than the specific category. 

The rest of the cards only come into the picture if you’re spending beyond the bonus caps, or if you want to tap even higher miles rates like with the DBS yuu Card or OCBC Rewards Card.

Because the miles game is so dynamic, with constant changes to earn rates, card features, bonus categories, and other terms and conditions, what worked in the past may no longer be optimal.

That’s why it’s crucial to periodically revisit your miles strategy and update your card portfolio accordingly. Drop cards that no longer align with your spending patterns, pick up new ones that do, and always stay informed about the latest promotions and changes in terms. With the right strategy, that dream holiday can become a reality sooner than you think!