Back in August last year we wrote about another extension to the Standard Chartered / Grab 15% cashback promotion. Rather than have a year-round offer, these 3-month extensions appear to be the new norm for this deal, which has been extended to 31st March 2019.
The deal
Not as good as the days of Uber, when Standard Chartered credit card customers got a 20% rebate on rides capped at S$50 cashback per month, the Grab deal remains a bit more lacklustre with 15% cashback capped at S$30 per month. This includes Grab rides taken in Singapore and overseas, such as in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
The minimum spend on your Standard Chartered card to trigger the discount remains S$900 in the same calendar month (on any retail transaction, including Grab rides themselves).
Should you do it?
This may not be a good enough reason to get a Standard Chartered credit card, but if you already have one and you use Grab you should almost certainly take advantage of this offer. For the first S$200 of monthly spending on Grab rides you’ll get 15% off, and that’s better than any miles earning rate you can otherwise achieve.
If like me you’re still churning through the Grab rides after the first S$200 spend in the same month you may want to switch to a card with a higher miles earning rate (my Amex KrisFlyer Blue card gets 3.1 miles per dollar spent on Grab for another S$200 per calendar month, equivalent to about 6% cashback in our book).
Remember if you’re using the Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card you should also be earning 1.4 miles per dollar spent locally, but you must spend a minimum of S$2,000 per statement cycle (not calendar month) on the card to trigger that higher earning rate, otherwise it’s just 1 mile per dollar. See our review for more details on that card.
CLICK HERE for our full review
Terms and conditions
Take note of the following list of excluded transactions that don’t count towards your monthly S$900 spend on your Standard Chartered credit card in relation to the Grab offer:
- Insurance premiums, including premiums for investment-linked policies, charged to the Card;
- Bill payments (examples of bill payment merchants include but are not limited to Telecommunications and utilities providers such as Starhub, Singtel and M1, Singapore Power);
- Any payment via AXS network;
- Any payment via SAM network;
- Payments to government agencies which include but are not limited to the Land Transport Authority, Housing Development Board, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Public Utilities Board, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority and the Ministry of Manpower;
- Income tax payments;
- EZ Link cards transactions;
- Transit Link transactions;
- Any transactions pertaining to Merchant Category Codes 6211 (Security Brokers/Dealers) and 7995 (Gambling/Lotto);
- Balance transfers, cash advances from the card, purchases via NETS and ongoing instalment payments;
- Any fees and charges (including annual fees, interest charges, cheque processing fees, administrative fees, cash advance fees, finance charges and/or late payment charges and other miscellaneous fees and charges) charged to the Card;
- Any amount charged to the Card during the Promotion Period that is subsequently cancelled, voided or reversed; and
- Balance owing on the Card account from other months.
Full details including terms and conditions for the Grab cashback offer can be found here.