Another method to generate KrisFlyer miles through your credit card provider has been announced today, with OCBC enhancing its Voyage Tax Payment Facility. Revamping the feature as the Voyage Payment Facility, it is designed to allow Voyage Visa Infinite cardholders to pay any bill where the recipient does not normally accept credit card payment, such as school fees.
In fact the funds you receive can be for anything whatsoever, as OCBC does not ask for details of why you need the money, or who it it is for. That makes it rather like the UOB PRVI Pay facility, which recently increased its administrative fee for such transactions to 2.1%.
The fee
The fee for using the OCBC Voyage Payment Facility is set at a more competitive 1.95%, reducing slightly to 1.90% for those requesting S$150,100+ in a single transfer, which is likely to be well above what most of our readers will be requesting.
With one OCBC Voyage Mile awarded for every S$1 requested under the facility, this results in an effective cost per mile of 1.95 cents (or 1.90 cents for very large amounts). You can generate as many miles as you wish using this scheme, restricted only by your credit limit.
- S$10,000 – S$150,000: 1.95% fee (1.95 cents per mile)
- S$150,100+: 1.90% fee (1.90 cents per mile)
Funds are transferred into your designated bank account within four business days of making the request.
The smallest total you can request through this facility is S$10,000, which would attract a fee of S$195 and generate 10,000 Voyage Miles. These never expire (provided your Voyage account remains open), until you complete the free 1:1 transfer into KrisFlyer (thereafter, KrisFlyer miles have a 3-year expiry window).
Full terms and conditions for the Voyage Payment Facility are available here.
Remember if you are using this facility simply to generate miles, without a specific payment to make, do use the funds to pay off your OCBC Voyage statement in full at the end of the month as usual to avoid significant additional interest charges.
Income tax payments are still possible
OCBC has not done away with the income tax payment option, retaining the 1.90% administrative fee for such requests, provided they are supported by your latest Notice of Assessment, which must accompany your application as in previous years.
Remember that’s not the same as this new 1.95% / 1.90% ‘All Other Payments’ option, where no such supporting information is required.
Unfortunately both the tax payment and ‘other payment’ options still have to be requested by downloading, printing and mailing the relevant form to OCBC, downloadable from the OCBC Voyage Visa Infinite card landing page.
Comparison
If you have a UOB PRVI Miles card, you may have used the PRVI Pay facility before. In essence this Voyage Payment Facility is a very similar concept, but at a slightly more competitive rate.
Crucially this new OCBC option involves ‘buying’ KrisFlyer miles less than 2 cents each, our upper limit to buy, while the PRVI Pay option is now slightly more expensive than that (2.1 cents per mile).
On the Citi side, if you hold the Prestige, PremierMiles or ULTIMA card, the Citi PayAll facility allows you to generate miles at 1.25 to 1.67 cents each, but is currently restricted to Rental and Education payments.
If you’re one of the lucky ‘chosen ones’ by Citi for a 1.5% processing fee (like Eddie is), you can generate miles for payments like this at a fantastic rate of 0.94 to 1.25 cents each, depending on the card used.
Note: The Shutterwhale mentioned today that the Citi PayAll function has been extended through the app to allow payments for tax, condo management fees and electricity bills, however my PayAll options remain restricted to Rent and Education, and the same for Eddie.
Summary
The credit card companies are certainly flighting back against the rising popularity of payment options like CardUp, with OCBC now allowing you to ‘pay any bill’ with a relatively competitive fee for generating KrisFlyer miles.
OCBC Voyage customers have previously had to pay a large annual fee at sign-up (in some cases also offered at renewal) to do the same thing for a slightly higher price (150,000 miles for an optional first year S$3,210 fee – 2.14 cents per mile, or 500,000 miles for an optional first year S$10,000 fee – 2.00 cents per mile, though discontinued since August 2018).
This additional option is a welcome one for OCBC Voyage customers, especially those who find themselves say 10,000 KrisFlyer miles short of a redemption level. A $195 fee in that example to ‘get you over the line’ within a few days is certainly worth considering.
We’ve updated our full review of the OCBC Voyage card to include details of this latest feature, alongside all the other essentials you need to know.
What do you think of this new facility and will you use it yourself? Let us know in the comments section below.
Which credit offers most competitive rate for income tax payment?
Standard Chartered Visa Infinite. 1.4mpd for a 1.6% fee, provided you spend S$2k+ in the same statement month on other transactions. Works out at 1.14 cents per mile.
And in case you missed it, we wrote in detail about this in an article yesterday.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the write up. Previously you mentioned that you do not hold this card, has that changed?
I am still on the fence for this card and sway more towards that his card is still not attractive enough. Thank you.
Nothing has swayed us to get this card yet. It’s still too light on benefits and has a poor earn rate for a card in such a high income category.
That doesn’t mean it’s not good for some people, like OCBC Premiers who get a 1.6mpd local earn rate on all transactions, and those making use of all those airport limo transfers.
Thanks Andrew for your detailed reply! There seems to be some form of benefit in terms of using VMs for revenue tickets to some locations, but the exchange rate (VMs to revenue tickets) still seem very poor. Thanks for pointing it out that its still too light on benefits as well!
Look forward to more write up from Mainly Miles.