The best things in life are free and some credit card companies in the country are giving you the chance to travel without having to spend anything! Believe it or not, you can book your next flight to a once-in-a-lifetime getaway by just dining out or shopping online. Earning airmiles will never be that hard again as you check out Citi, UOB, HSBC and Standard Chartered banks offers to their loyal customers.
Citibank PremierMiles Visa: Most versatile air miles card
With Citi, you can weave your own story with every free mile you travel. It’s obvious that you need to charge a fair bit to your card to accumulate air miles for free travels. Now, how about getting some money back while you’re at it? For that reason, we’re tagging Citibank’s PremierMiles Visa card as the most versatile piece of plastic that complements your lifestyle needs.
Here’s how it works:
That can almost buy you a free one-way passage to the likes of Tokyo and Seoul just within three months. For 2017, Citi is offering 50% more miles over long weekends spent overseas. A minimum spend of S$1000 can qualify any member for this generous offer. Hurry! Book a trip to your much-coveted destination until December 25, 2017.
Worthy mentions:
- Up to 10 Citi Miles per $1 spend on online travel booking.
- 10,000 Citi Miles on renewal of card membership and payment of Annual Fee of $192.60.
- Citi Miles never expire.
- $25 administration fee chargeable per redemption of mile.
HSBC Visa Infinite: Best dollar to air mile rates for overseas spending
The HSBC Visa Infinite is the hidden gem of all frequent flyer cards. New members can instantly avail of 35,000 air miles considered as welcome gift. This can be redeemable from over 30 leading airlines. Arguably the star attraction of the card, you can earn up to 2.5 miles per dollar spent overseas. Notice we said ‘up to’, because as you would have probably expected, there is a catch. And that catch is the welcome gift comes in the form of 87,500 HSBC rewards which can only be converted if you pay S$42.80 (incl. GST) annual fee to be automatically enrolled into the HSBC Mileage Programme.
The card allows you to have unlimited access to more than 700 VIP airport lounges, enjoy (limousine transfer and have one expedited clearance from the immigration) one complimentary limousine transfer and expedited immigration clearance with every $2,000 spend if you make $2,000 purchases in one month.
The perks don’t end there as every card member will be entitled to automatic travel insurance with benefits up to US$2,000,000.
Standard Chartered Visa Infinite: Fastest air mile accumulation
It’s a super uber card to supercharge your air miles. Just by settling the $588.50 annual fee, you pocket 35,000 air miles straight up. That’s more than enough to jet off to Phuket on a whim, so feel free to make your booking as soon as you get your card. You can opt for either that or 25,000 air miles plus $100 worth of Uber credits broken down into four complimentary rides of $25 each.
Do note that the miles are credited in the form of Rewards Points. 87,500 and 62,500 rewards points for 35000 and 25000 miles respectively.
Need more points to make up the shortfall for more exotic destinations? Take advantage of Standard Chartered’s competitive conversion rates: every dollar earns 1.4 miles for local spending and 3 miles for overseas ones. The Rewards Points never expire!
Long, uncomfortable layovers are also a thing of the past; you get enjoy up to 6 annual complimentary VIP access to airport lounges for a round of pre-flight pampering. But hold your horses — the super uber annual fee aside, Priority/Private Banking and Non-Priority/Private Banking members have to be earning an annual income of at least $30,000 and $150,000 respectively to be eligible. Unlike what financial product marketing collaterals love to preach, the best things in life don’t come cheap.
4. UOB PRVI Miles Platinum: Best dollars to air miles rates for local spending
UOB PRVI Miles Platinum offers 1.4 miles for every S$1 spent. The overseas rates are at 2.4 miles per S$1. Considering that you don’t have to wait a certain amount of time to earn those rates, this card would put you on a fast track to that free flight you’ve been swiping hard for.
If you were to charge ticket bookings on participating airlines through Expedia (valid till 31 Mar 2018) or UOB Travel (valid till 31 Dec 2017), you earn a whopping 6 miles per dollar. Forget the Mile High Club; this card is bound to give you smooth, easy access to the High Miles Club instead.
Here’s the zinger: with air miles rates like that, we figured it only makes sense for this card to charge one of the highest annual fees on this list, at $256.80 per annum. Conversion fee of $25 applies for each UNI$ conversion to miles.
PS: We must put a caveat forward: only spend if you can afford to. Spending money you don’t have just to redeem a FOC air ticket is an asinine financial move that just doesn’t, well, fly with us.
This article is proudly sponsored by GoBear and first appeared here.
Choosing insurance and financial products was once a complicated and dull process. It was filled with tricks and different terms and conditions. Andre Hesselink didn’t think that was fair. He thought comparing insurance and financial products should be simple, straight forward and transparent. So, with the help of like-minded people, they solved this problem, leading us to GoBear.
