Having looked at the various ways you can earn miles through credit card spend, sign up and renewal bonuses, as well as buying frequent flyer miles direct, there are even more ways in which you can boost your miles accumulation rate, and you can do this through miscellaneous payments.
What then are miscellaneous payments? Do you find that you are making payments for things, whether is it through credit card or GIRO, routine or one-time, that give you absolutely no miles? Some examples that you may find familiar include income tax, insurance premiums, or even rentals. To me, these constitute miscellaneous payments as they are usually not on demand, and more often than not may appear to you as “background” transactions. In my first post, I mentioned that you should make every dollar spent count towards earning your miles, and such miscellaneous payments that could potentially go unnoticed could potentially cost you a lot of miles.
In this post, I will be introducing to you the various ways you can make such miscellaneous payments and still earn miles from them.
Cardup: Big payments, made rewarding
Cardup is essentially an online platform that enables you to make payments using your credit card while earning miles at the same time. Some of the payments that you can make through Cardup include rent, rental deposit, tuition fees, condo fees, insurance, and income tax. Now as you can see, you can probably spot a few big ticket items on the list, which could potentially give a decent boost to your miles balance sheet.
Before Cardup, I had opted to make payments for insurance and income tax through the usual GIRO deduction, since I found it convenient to do so. But guess what, when I first started using Cardup, I not only found it to be more convenient than GIRO payments, but more importantly, I realised that I could finally earn miles from all those miscellaneous payments that I’ve been making through GIRO all these years.
So how does Cardup work? It’s simple! Just register with Cardup via a quick and easy registration process. Then, select the type of payment you wish to make, be it your income tax or insurance premiums. You can schedule your payments far in advance, choose to make a one off payment, or even schedule recurring ones. Choose to pay with any credit card. Five business days prior to the payment due date, Cardup will charge you card for the specified amount, plus a small processing fee. The recipient will receive payment by bank transfer from Cardup on the payment due date. All you need to do is to sit back and wait for the notification once the payment is complete!
After using Cardup for a year, I have encountered no problems with my payments. Moreover, should you require any support from Cardup, they are usually very responsive and will respond to you within a day or two.
Which credit card should you then use for payments made via Cardup? Previously, I used the UOB PPV for all my Cardup payments as I was earning 4 mpd on all transactions. However, since 3 Jul 2017, UOB has since amended the T&Cs to exclude Cardup payments from the list of merchants that are eligible for 4 mpd. To the best of my knowledge, the best card to use is the UOB PRVI Miles Visa (since Amex is still not accepted), which will earn you 1.4 mpd for all transactions on Cardup. This beats not earning a single mile at all from your miscellaneous payments.
Edit: With the introduction of the BOC Elite Miles World Mastercard, you can earn 2 mpd from now until 31 Dec 2018 for all payments on Cardup. From 1 Jan 2019 onwards, the earn rate will revert to 1.5 mpd post-promotion. Cardup has verified that the BOC Elite Miles World Mastercard will allow you to earn miles according to the aforementioned rates, as per the email below:
So give Cardup a go! Use my referral code AARONC44 to get up to S$20 off your first Cardup payment!
UOB PRVI Pay
Introducing UOB PRVI Pay, which UOB is marketing as a new way to earn miles. This is one other way in which you can make your miscellaneous payments and still get miles, 1mpd to be exact. You must be thinking, is it even worth the effort to go down this path just to get 1 mpd? The answer is a resounding yes! Unlike Cardup, where you must actually designate a recipient for your payments (insurance company, IRAS etc.), the UOB PRVI Pay facility doesn’t require this.
As long as you are holding a UOB PRVI Miles card, you can apply for this payment facility for an admin fee of 2%. So, for example if you require S$12000 urgently, just simply fill in the application form, and upon approval from UOB, your UOB PRVI Miles card will be charged S$12000 plus the 2% admin fee, and the funds will be transferred to your designated bank account, and you will receive 12000 miles in total. Bear in mind that the total requested amount, together with spending on your UOB PRVI Miles card(s), must not exceed your credit limit, otherwise only a lower amount may be approved.
Now, as I’ve mentioned above, what makes this payment facility so appealing is that you do not actually have a need to make a payment to anyone to have it approved. You can essentially “buy” miles through the 2% admin fee, or S$0.02 per mile to be exact. In the above example, for a request of S$12000, you will be effectively paying S$240 for 12000 miles. But of course, if you do actually have any miscellaneous payments to make, why not use this facility where you can get some miles out of it.
There you go, another way to accumulate more miles! Up next: More ways to earn miles through miscellaneous payments.