It is wise to use credit card when purchasing big ticket spendings as it offers rewards and a flexible payment options like installments making it easier to manage our finances. Whether you’re going to travel, buy new appliances for your house, reward yourself with luxury items or be up on trend with latest gadgets, utilizing your credit card to earn cashback or miles would be very much rewarding! However, it is wise to choose an option that would fit best your big-ticket spending and consider the reward that you need. General exclusions like insurance, income tax, government services will apply – those payments are not eligible for any cashback or miles.
Also, it is wise to use a credit card with no earning cap or at least a high spending cap! Here’s the list of the best credit card for big purchase:
To Earn Cashback:
From now until 31st Dec 2024, you can get 8% cashback with strategic planning on your big purchases with the HSBC Live+ card at specific merchants like Amazon.sg, Courts, Best Denki via vouchers. Therefore, it sits at the top of the list in terms of cashback. 8% cashback is better than 4 miles per dollar. After 31st Dec 2024, it will be 5% cashback. If you don’t want to think too much and plan your voucher buying strategy, then go with Citi SMRT card.
Cashback Cards | Earn Rate | Minimum Spend | Cashback Cap | Notes |
8% cashback (till 31st Dec); 5% thereafter | S$600 per month per fixed quarter | S$250 per quarter | workaround via heymax | |
5% cashback | S$500 per month | S$600 worth of SMRT$ per year | Only for online purchases. Excludes mobile wallet and travel-related transactions | |
3% cashback for the first $5K spending, thereafter 1.5% cashback | No min spend | no cap | merchant must accept AMEX | |
2% cashback | No min spend required | S$200 cashback per month | ||
2% unlimited cashback | S$1000 per month | no cap | ||
1.7% cashback | No min spend | no cap | ||
1.6% cashback | No min spend | no cap | redemption in blocks of S$10 | |
1.5% cashback | No min spend | no cap |
To Earn Miles:
You can choose any of these entry level cards below and pay at one go for the big purchase to earn unlimited miles. However, some conditions apply.
Cashback Cards | Earn Rate | Minimum Spend | Spend Cap | Notes |
3 miles per dollar | Must have an annual spend of S$800 per year on Singapore Airlines, Scoot or KrisShop. If not, earn rate is 1.2 miles per dollar | no cap | 3 miles per dollar only applies to: dining, food delivery, online shopping and travel, taxi rides, local commuter transport and car rentals. | |
1.3 miles per dollar | No min. spend | no cap | ||
1.3 miles per dollar | No min. spend | no cap | ||
1.2 miles per dollar | No min. spend | no cap |
Conclusion:
In conclusion, it can be a wise financial move to use a credit card for large purchases. It enables you to get the most out of rewards in the form of cashback, miles, or points, which could result in substantial savings on your costly purchase. Overall, my top card would be Citi SMRT because of its high cashback rate of 5% especially on online purchases may it be electronics or furnitures. Also, it has no monthly cap— this is what we don’t want when we are buying big ticket items. You would just need to make sure that on the month that you are spending, you need to hit a minimum S$500 spending to be eligible for cashback. This means, you could spend S$5000 on a washing machine on an online store in Jan, not use the card for Feb and then use the card again in March for S$1000 for an oven. In my review of Citi SMRT card, I also mentioned that many users reported that they did not get their cashback via Courts online as the transaction was likely processed as an offline transaction by Courts. Therefore, i would avoid paying with this card on Courts online. For transactions at Courts, Amazon, or any vouchers that you can buy on heymax, you can use HSBC Live+.
For cashback cards, if you’re planning to buy luxury items like Rolex watches, CIMB World Mastercard would be a good option because of its lifestyle rewards and no spending cap. If you are spending below S$10K per month, DCS Ultimate Platinum Card could be a great option. For earning miles, UOB Krisflyer is pretty great for uncapped 3 miles per dollar for eligible categories if you are able to achieve the minimum spend of S$800 per year on Singapore Airlines, Scoot or KrisShop.
Credit cards change their T&Cs every so often and it is difficult to stay updated. That’s why I created a Telegram Broadcast where you can receive timely bite-sized updates to get the most out of your spending.
