Best Cards for Renovations, MCST, donations, Tax, Rent

Every credit card has a list of exclusions. This list tells you which payments won’t earn you cashback, miles, or other rewards. Common exclusions include government fees, insurance premiums, and income taxes. However, there are a few ways to earn miles on these commonly excluded items.

There are two methods:

Direct Payment
Indirect Payment

1. Direct Payment via AXS Bills

I shared about the Chocolate Visa Debit Card in this Youtube video below.

For avoidance of doubt, you will not be able to use this card to pay for loans or credit card bills via AXS to earn miles.

Chocolate Visa Debit Card

Earn up to 2 miles per dollar on almost everything, including Insurance, Charity Donations & Hospital Bills

2. Indirect Payment – Use CardUp/iPayMy to Earn Rewards

Even though you should always use the Choc Visa Debit Card first, you can only spend up to S$1,000 per calendar month to earn 2 miles per dollar. This is where we need this method.

CardUp/iPayMy, a third-party service, is one such service that allows you to pay anything that is usually excluded like renovation payments, income tax etc with your credit card and earn rewards like cashback or miles by paying a small fee.

Who is this for:

- Those who want to claim business class flights because it may not be worthwhile for economy flights

Here’s how it works:

- CardUp charges your credit card for the tax amount + a fee.

- They handle the bank transfer to the company’s business account for you.

Sample Computation:

Say, you pay for a S$1,000 transaction, if there is a 2% admin fee charged by Cardup, and you are using the OCBC 90N Visa with earn rate of 1.3 miles per dollar.

To get the cost per mile:

(amount x admin fee)

amount x (1 + admin fee) x earn rate

S$1,000 x 0.02 = S$20 service fee

S$1,000 x (1+0.02) x 1.3 miles per dollar = 1,326 miles

= 20/1,326 = 0.015 cost per mile

You will be getting 1,326 miles with a S$20 service fee payment, on top of your original S$1,000 transaction.

Beyond 1.50 cents per mile, it might not be worth using Cardup, in my humble opinion.

How to maximise your rewards as a first time user:

Maximise your first transaction with these promo codes:

For example, if your transaction is S$3,000, break the payment into two via each platform.

Cardup: Use IJTLFREE for S$30 off your first payment (optimal payment: S$1154)
iPayMy: Sign up with www.lobangsis.com/ipaymy for an account to get S$30 off (optimal payment: S$1,285)

Afterwhich, you can leverage on the existing time-sensitive promotions which i will share in my telegram channel if there is a good deal.

Update:

- Effective November 1, 2024, CardUp will impose restrictions on certain loan repayments. UnionPay cards will no longer be accepted for both personal and business loan repayments, including mortgages, car loans, and education loans. Visa cards, on the other hand, will only be restricted for business loan repayments.

UOB PRVI Card

Earn 1.4 miles per dollar on local spend and up to 3 miles per dollar on foreign currency spend

4 Priority Pass visits per calendar year

Citi Prestige Card

Earn 1.3 miles per dollar on local spend and 2 miles per dollar on foreign currency spend

Unlimited Priority Pass visits + one guest per membership year

DBS Vantage Card

Earn 1.5 miles per dollar (or 1.5% cashback) on local spend, 2.2 miles per dollar (or 2.2% cashback) on foreign currency spend

10 Priority Pass visits per membership year

DBS Altitude Card

Earn 1.3 miles per dollar on local spend and 2.2 miles per dollar on foreign currency spend

2 Priority Pass visits per membership year (Visa version only)

Citi PremierMiles Card

Earn 1.2 miles per dollar on local spend and 2.2 miles per dollar on foreign currency spend

2 Priority Pass visits per calendar year

OCBC 90N Card

Earn 1.3 miles per dollar on local spend and 2.1 miles per dollar on foreign currency spend

How to pay your payments with your credit card:

Sign Up for an account

2. Schedule a payment by selecting the relevant category

3. Select the recipient, you have two options:

pre-loaded providers – if your merchant is on the list, click them directly
add new recipient – if your merchant is not listed

4. Fill out details such as payment amount, choose the card and select “Standard payment”

5. Make a monthly recurring payment or one-time payment.

6. Key in your policy reference number, enter promo code below and click “Continue“

For new users, use IJTLFREE for S$30 off your first payment to maximise your rewards before using the below codes.

For existing users, see above

7. Submit your documents to verify payment

After all that, you’re good to go!

*Some photos and Information are from cardup.co

Final Thoughts:

If you are a miles chaser, you can go for the UOB Priv Miles Card via CardUp for recurring payments because this is an entry level miles card with the lowest cost per mile at the moment. However, the miles do expire. Alternatively, for one-off payments, you could go with OCBC 90N Visa or Mastercard.

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.