This morning UOB launched a deal for PRVI Miles cardholders to earn up to 10 miles per dollar on flight and hotel bookings with Agoda, Expedia and through the UOB Travel portal between now and 31st March 2019.
The Agoda deal
The Agoda offer is for hotel bookings made through the agoda.com/prvimiles link. Earn 10 miles per dollar for bookings made between 15th January 2019 and 31st March 2019.
As you may be aware, the usual rate for Agoda using the UOB PRVI Miles cards is 6 miles per dollar. This 10 miles per dollar bonus is for stays until 30th June 2019 and is capped at S$1,500 spend. After that you revert back to 6 miles per dollar for any additional qualifying amount spent, which is the usual UOB / Agoda deal.
For example if you make a qualifying charge of S$2,000 in the offer period using your UOB PRVI Miles card, you’ll earn:
- 10 x S$1,500 = 15,000 miles
- 6 x S$500 = 3,000 miles
- Total 18,000 miles
That means the additional miles earned for using your UOB PRVI Miles card for a qualifying Agoda transaction actually come in two ‘batches’. The first is the ‘bonus miles’, which tops us your local or overseas spend to an equivalent of 6 miles per dollar.
These bonus UNI$ will be credited to Cardmember’s account within three months from departure from hotel.
The next element is the promotional miles from this offer, the additional 4 miles per dollar which top up your transaction to 10 miles per dollar.
These promo UNI$ will be credited to the Cardmember’s account by 31st August 2019.
That means for a stay ending in late June 2019 you might actually receive the promo miles (4mpd) before the bonus miles you would have received anyway (the difference between what you get for regular spend and 6mpd). Unnecessarily confusing and potentially very difficult to keep track of.
Note: As usual, the Agoda terms and conditions page has not been updated to reflect the current offer, and instead only displays the terms for the regular 6 miles per dollar offer when using the UOB PRVI Miles cards, without any mention of the 10 miles per dollar offer.
The Expedia deal
Much like the Agoda offer, Expedia bookings must be made through the expedia.com.sg/prvimiles link. Earn 10 miles per dollar for bookings made between 15th January 2019 and 31st March 2019.
This 10 miles per dollar bonus is for stays until 31st July 2019 and is capped at S$3,000 spend. Both of those things are different to the Agoda deal, so don’t get confused between the two.
With Expedia one benefit is that you can earn the bonus miles for hotel bookings, flight and hotel combination bookings, or flight-only bookings.
The 19 participating airlines are:
|
|
There’s nothing too interesting in that group, with the possible exception of Finnair, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines.
Unfortunately it appears the usual swathe of hotel chains is excluded under the “Eligible Hotels” definition for this offer, check this list here. We have contacted UOB to clarify this, as it’s not made very clear at all in the T&Cs.
Edit 16 Jan 16:47: UOB told us there are no exclusions to the hotels bookable under this offer, provided the booking is made through the expedia.com.sg/prvimiles link. The Marketing Department has since confirmed this with us.
The UOB Travel offer
UOB has its own travel division, and here the PRVI Miles card will earn 10 miles per dollar spent for bookings made through UOBTravel.com/prvimiles between 15th January 2019 and 31st March 2019. That’s instead of the usual 6 miles per dollar rate, which applies for the rest of the year.
This particular promotion does not mention a travel period or stay period, so it looks like provided you book (and pay) by the end of March the trip itself can be anytime in the future.
The cap for this one is S$3,000 spend, with bonus miles credited by 31st May 2019.
On the flight booking side, the 21 participating airlines are:
|
|
A wider choice including some more useful airlines like Cathay Emirates, Etihad and Qantas. The catch here is that travel must be originating in Singapore.
The Kaligo deal continues
Your usual year-round offer of 10 miles per dollar on hotels booked through Kaligo, with no cap, is still running throughout 2019. Kaligo isn’t always the cheapest way to book a hotel (though we’ve seen it actually match or beat best rates occasionally), so be sure to check you’re getting a good deal before you commit.
Terms and conditions
We’ve outlined the basic rules for each offer above, but you can check the full terms and conditions for all of these offers with the UOB PRVI Miles card are here.
We’ve also updated our review of the UOB PRVI Miles card.
Summary
10 miles per dollar is a generous offer, though there are a number of restrictions in each case. The caps are different, date ranges don’t match between providers, inclusions and exclusions aren’t the same and finally reconciling your bonus miles (whatever order they credit to your account in) might not be easy.
It’s a minefield really, but if have travel plans coming up and you’re willing to make the effort to ensure you qualify for the bonus miles then you could do quite well out of this deal.
I just bought my ticket from Expedia with China Eastern sadly.
Can I do a booking on Expedia (3k) and a seperate booking on UOB travel (3k) and still get the 10x miles on all the spend?
Good question! For the Agoda, Expedia and UOB Travel 10mpd offers the terms of each promotion state that they “cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount, promotions, discounted items and fixed price items (unless specified).”
So I would say no – you can pick one and that’s it. The Kaligo offer on the other hand is more of a year-round deal and doesn’t mention any such restriction. So does that mean you can use one of these offers plus unlimited Kaligo? Or is Kaligo a ‘promotion’ too, and therefore triggers the terms of the other three offers rendering them null and void if you’ve booked any Kaligo @ 10mpd?
A question for UOB I think. I’ve asked them enough questions today!
hmm, from what i’m reading, you can earn max $3k on expedia, $3k on uob travel & $1.5k on agoda.
the t&c liner where you cannot combine w other promo is talking about your shopback rebate, % discount or promo codes, etc.
Confirmed with the UOB Marketing Department today by phone that you’re right – each of the promotions operates in isolation so you can go to the limit on one (e.g. $3k with Expedia) then you still get $1.5k with Agoda etc… on top of that.
I read the fine print and it says i must key in my nric no. At the agoda payment page? Is that true? I overlooked that because that is not a built in field. Argh.
huuuuuh, amazing article, thanks for sharing this type of useful article