EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
UOB has a miles earning deal for holders of its PRVI Miles American Express card running from today (8th November 2019) until the end of the year, with a 4.4 miles per dollar earning rate on contactless grocery payments at the likes of Cold Storage, Fairprice and Giant.
There’s no registration required so you can get started right away, with a cap of S$1,000 spend per primary cardholder account during the promotion.
The deal is good for up to 4,400 miles, 3,000 of which are ‘bonus’ miles on top of your regular earn rate, when tapping or waving this card at grocery stores in Singapore.
The offer
No need to register for this one – if you’re a UOB PRVI Miles American Express cardholder you’re automatically eligible to earn 11 UNI$ per whole S$5 spent on all groceries transactions which are successfully charged to your card via contactless payment.
That’s equivalent to 4.4 miles per dollar, and comprises:
- the usual rate of UNI$3.5 per S$5 spend locally (equivalent to 1.4 miles per S$1); and
- a bonus rate of UNI$7.5 per S$5 spend (equivalent to 3 miles per S$1).
Remember this offer applies only to contactless payments at grocery stores, so you won’t earn the bonus rate if your card’s magnetic stripe or magnetic chip is used. Be sure to tap or wave your card in order for the transaction to be eligible.
The offer is capped once you’ve reached S$1,000 of eligible spending in the contactless grocery category between now and 31st December 2019. Once you continue to spend above the cap, the usual 1.4 miles per dollar rate applies with no additional bonus.
Qualifying spend on any supplementary cards does count for the promotion, but the upper cap of S$1,000 spend applies per principal cardholder.
In other words your supplementary cardholders can assist you with the promotion, but don’t get a dedicated cap of their own.
When does the bonus credit?
Initially these transactions will earn at the regular earn rate, equivalent to 1.4 miles per S$1 spent.
The bonus miles, paid as UNI$, will be credited to your account by 31st March 2020. That’s a 3-month wait for the additional miles, so hopefully you don’t need them in a hurry.
Which merchants?
This promotion is restricted to contactless transactions at Merchant Category Code (MCC) 5411 retailers in Singapore – in other words Grocery Stores and Supermarkets.
There is no formal (publicly available) MCC code database for merchants in Singapore, but we know that the following do fall under the MCC 5411 code:
- Cold Storage
- Giant
- Jasons Marketplace
- Fairprice
- Fairprice Finest
- Fairprice Express
- Shen Siong
- AEON Supermarket
Do bear in mind that if you make a contactless payment with your UOB PRVI Miles Amex card at grocery stores and/or supermarkets which are not classified under MCC 5411, you will not receive any bonus miles.
T&Cs
Full terms and conditions for the deal can be found on the UOB website here.
Sign-up bonus
You may recall that UOB is currently running a 10,000 miles sign-up bonus for its PRVI Miles cards, and the American Express version gets the best deal of all.
That’s not because the bonus itself is any higher, simply that it’s guaranteed provided you successfully charge a total of at least S$6,000 in eligible transactions to your card within the first 90 calendar days from the your card approval date.
For the Visa and Mastercard cards the same deal is limited to the first 300 applicants, and in true UOB style they won’t tell you if the promotion has already been exhausted when you apply.
Spending on any supplementary cards is counted towards the minimum spend for the Amex deal, and grocery transactions are eligible for the sign-up bonus.
That means you could see yourself with a 10,000 miles bonus from the sign-up and a 3,000 miles bonus from this promotion if you apply now, provided you don’t hold another UOB credit card and haven’t had one for the last six months.
The Amex version also boasts a 20,000 miles annual bonus when you spend at least S$50,000 on the card each year, and up to 8 complimentary airport transfers per year (max 2 per quarter with a minimum $1,000 foreign spend on the card in the same quarter). See our review for details.
Summary
Most of us have a decent spend on groceries each month, especially in the run up to the festive season.
If you currently hold (or sign up for) the UOB PRVI Miles American Express card this offer will likely eclipse all others, paying you up to 4,400 miles for S$1,000 of contactless transactions in the groceries / supermarket category between now and the end of 2019.
If you don’t currently hold the card but are interested, it’s worth noting that the UOB PRVI Miles Amex is the only one of the trio in the pack with an unconditional 10,000 miles sign-up bonus.
No need to worry about UOB $SMART at Dairy Farm affiliates?
hmmm. UOB Krisflyer AMEX does not support ApplePay?
Sorry. PRVI AMEX does not support ApplePay?
This is confusing. Doesn’t Cold Storage, Giant, Jason’s, Marketplace etc. all not earn UNI$ but the dreadful Smart$ rebates?
Another important lesson in the miles game. Generalizations are bad. The details matter. The exceptions matter. These are where the arbitrage opportunities lie. There is apparently a list of UOB cards that do not participate in SMART$.