A number of UOB PRVI Miles cardholders in Singapore have been targeted for a discounted transaction fee for the card’s PRVI Pay facility, allowing you to pay any bill you like (even if you don’t actually have a bill to pay) by requesting an amount to be transferred to your bank account for a one-time fee.
As we wrote in February this year, UOB increased the transaction fee charged for using PRVI Pay from 2% to 2.1% from 15th March 2019, increasing the cost of ‘generating’ miles using this process from 2 cents per mile (already on the high side) to 2.1 cents per mile.
For us, that would only be a consideration if you had a very specific good value redemption in mind, needed the miles relatively quickly, and had exhausted cheaper means of accruing them.
How PRVI Pay works
Here’s how PRVI Pay works for a typical payment:
- $5,000 income tax bill arrives
- Apply for $5,000 from your PRVI Miles Payment Facility
- UOB transfers $5,000 to your bank account
- UOB charges $5,105 to your credit card ($5,000 + 2.1% fee)
- UOB credits 2,500 UNI$ to your reward account (5,000 KrisFlyer miles)
- Effective purchase rate $105/5,000 = 2.1 cents per mile
You can also transfer UNI$ to Asia Miles at the same rate.
Thing is, you don’t even need to have an income tax bill to pay, or even produce. Provided you have a sufficient credit limit, UOB will do this “no questions asked”.
The targeted promotion
UOB is currently offering selected PRVI Miles cardholders the option to take advantage of a discounted 1.8% fee when using the PRVI Pay facility. That’s about a 15% discount on the usual 2.1% fee, and means the ability to generate ‘unlimited’ miles for a much more reasonable 1.8 cents each.
This is a one-time promotion and you must complete and return the form mailed to you as part of the deal. The form specifically shows the 1.8% fee rather than the standard form showing the 2.1% fee – be careful to ensure you use the right one.
For example, assuming you have been targeted for the promotion:
- $5,000 income tax bill arrives
- Apply for $5,000 from your PRVI Miles Payment Facility
- UOB transfers $5,000 to your bank account
- UOB charges $5,090 to your credit card ($5,000 + 1.8% fee)
- UOB credits 2,500 UNI$ to your reward account (5,000 KrisFlyer miles)
- Effective purchase rate $90/5,000 = 1.8 cents per mile
While this promotion is targeted, several of our readers have contacted us saying they have been selected and received the promotional mailer, so it does seem to be quite widely offered.
For those targeted, the promotion is valid until 31st July 2019. Here are the full terms and conditions applicable for this promotion.
Remember there are still cheaper options to accrue miles for large payments like income tax, rent and home renovation bills for example, such as through CardUp, ipaymy and Citi PayAll.
Some of these currently charge a higher fee (e.g. 1.99%) but allow the full miles accrual rate on your card (e.g. 1.4 miles per dollar), rather than the 1 mile per dollar being offered through PRVI Pay. This often leads to a much lower cost per mile, so do the maths before jumping in even on this promotional offer.
The main benefit of PRVI Pay of course is if you’re just looking to top up your miles balance without necessarily having a bill to pay. Since you will not be asked to provide any reason for needing the money, you can just use it to settle your credit card bill the following month and consider the fee your cost for ‘buying’ the miles.
If you don’t currently hold a UOB PRVI Miles card, you probably won’t be able to take part in this promotion as it’s unlikely you would be targeted having just signed up. Nevertheless we have a full review here on the site outlining all the details and features.
CLICK HERE for our full review