We haven’t spoken much about ipaymy lately. That’s because for a while now the payment provider has only been allowing new sign-ups for its business accounts, not personal ones.
That changed at the weekend when the company once again opened new signups for personal users.
That’s great news for our readers, many of whom have been restricted to CardUp for payments like rent and income tax. Why is it so good? Because the ipaymy transaction fee, which leads to that all important ‘cost per mile’, is more competitive than CardUp in many cases.
What is ipaymy?
Most of our readers don’t need too much of an introduction to ipaymy. Like CardUp, who we first wrote about back in December 2017, ipaymy allows you to pay for expenses where credit cards wouldn’t normally be accepted, like rental payments and income tax.
In turn you pay them a small fee, but accumulate the normal credit card miles earning rate for the transaction. You also get the benefit of actually paying for the service around a month later than usual, when your credit card statement becomes due.
As with CardUp it’s important to do the maths to calculate the ‘cost per mile’ earned when using such a service (since it’s not free), and ensure you’re comfortable with that before proceeding.
Transaction fees
The following table shows a comparison of the standard transaction fees applicable to charges made on your credit card through both ipaymy and CardUp.
 |
 |
|
| Singapore issued cards | ||
 |
2.25% | 2.60% |
 |
2.25% | 2.60% |
 |
3.30% | 2.60% |
| International cards | ||
| (All) | 3.30% | 3.30% |
As you can see with the exception of locally issued American Express cards, ipaymy offers a superior standard fee.
Edit 7th May 2019: CardUp does in fact allow credit cards registered outside Singapore to be used for payments, for a 3.3% fee (except for payments of $1,000 or less, where a minimum fee of $33 will apply). We have amended the table above to reflect this.
Note that ipaymy currently has a 2.59% fee offer for any American Express transaction, using code AMEX259, however this ends on 30th April 2019 (midnight tomorrow). We’ll update you if another Amex offer is launched next month.
They also offer the only option to use an overseas issued card for payments, though at a rather unattractive 3.3% fee (unless you are getting a fantastic miles earning rate for overseas spend on a foreign card, as you would also have to account for the FCY fee).
1.99% fee for income tax payments
Even better news is an ongoing offer for a one-time payment using your Singapore issued Visa or Mastercard to settle an IRAS tax bill through ipaymy – at just 1.99% fee.
Simply use the promo code TAX2019 at the checkout stage.
This is a one time use promo code, so to maximise the value you should pay your annual tax as a single lump sum where possible.
Since we did not include the ipaymy option using the promo code for income tax payment in our article yesterday on earning miles when paying your IRAS bill, we have fully updated the analysis.
Indeed some of the options are now much better value than the CardUp alternatives, like the BOC Elite Miles card coming in at a cost of 1.30 cents per mile (vs. 1.69 cents per mile under CardUp).
How this affects our miles for income tax payments analysis
Many of you will recall yesterday we updated our annual guide on how to earn frequent flyer miles by paying your income tax in Singapore using your credit card.
Unfortunately that article had been in draft for a little while, and at the time we started writing it ipaymy still wasn’t accepting new personal account sign-ups. For that reason we didn’t mention the option, given that a large proportion of our readers may not have a personal account (from the days they were available) and wouldn’t be able to sign up for one.
Anyway these things happen. However we have fully updated our income tax credit card payment analysis for 2019, and hopefully with NOAs being issued between now and September many of you can now take advantage of the ipaymy TAX2019 promo code, if that gets you the best cost per mile for your card.
Click here to read our updated analysis for earning miles paying your 2019 income tax bill using your credit card
Summary
It’s great to see ipaymy opening up new personal account sign-ups again, since for some time it looked as though the platform was gearing itself permanently towards credit card transactions purely for businesses.
Alongside a generous 1.99% fee for IRAS payments this tax season, over 20% less than the CardUp fee, it has opened up some great value options for settling your income tax with IRAS. Bear in mind it’s a single use code, so you’ll want to settle the whole bill in one go if possible.
In a few cases it’s actually resulting in a better deal than the card issuers offer themselves through their own tax payment schemes, but we’re not going to give the game away – check out our updated article to see if the ipaymy income tax payment promo code works for you.
Thank you very much! Would HSBC Revo work here?
I believe only at 0.4mpd therefore not a good deal sadly.
They will pay IRAS directly ？
Yes that’s correct.
Hi, thanks for sharing. Can I check if Citbank Premiermiles Visa Card is eligible for the miles using ipaymy?
I just made a tax payment and the transaction has shown up online as unbilled transaction (instead of pending). However, the miles to-date earned balance was still the same as before the transaction was posted. Has there been a change in the rules? Thanks!