EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
Note: RentHero now has a 1.75% fee offer for all users, replacing our previous reader offers.
Most of our readers will be familiar with RentHero, which joined the Singapore card payments scene in 2018 specifically to tap into the growing market for paying rent to your landlord using a credit card, enabling you to earn thousands of frequent flyer miles a year in the process.
Back in February 2019 the team began offering Mainly Miles readers a preferential 1.9% fee on these payments instead of the usual 2.25%, but from July 2019 they improved the offer even further to a 1.85% fee.
That’s a fantastic 18% discount on the usual charge you’ll pay each month to settle your rent this way, and means you can ‘buy’ miles from as little as 1.14 cents each using the right credit card.
Many of our readers have already signed up with the payment service, taking advantage of this great way to boost their annual miles total at a competitive ‘cost per mile’.
Offer extended to 30th June 2020
RentHero customers making rental payments and applying promotion code MAINLYMILES185 will now enjoy a discounted fee of 1.85% for payments until 30th June 2020.
Successful payments using RentHero with our promotion code pay MainlyMiles an affiliate commission.
Supported cards
RentHero currently supports eight major miles earning credit cards in Singapore.
Here’s how the cost per mile looks for the various payment options at the 1.85% transaction fee – good for rental payments until 30th June 2020.
| Card | Miles per S$1 | Cost per mile (1.85% fee) |
 BOC Elite Miles |
1.5 | 1.21¢ |
 DBS Altitude Visa |
1.2 | 1.51¢ |
 HSBC Visa Infinite |
1.25 | 1.45¢ |
 Standard Chartered Priority Banking Visa Infinite |
1.2 | 1.51¢ |
 Standard Chartered Visa Infinite |
1.4 | 1.30¢ |
 UOB PRVI Miles (Visa & Mastercard) |
1.4 | 1.30¢ |
 UOB Reserve |
1.6 | 1.14¢ |
 UOB Visa Infinite |
1.4 | 1.30¢ |
The UOB Reserve Visa offers the best deal, with the highest miles earning rate for local transactions of 1.6 miles per dollar it’s the equivalent of buying miles at 1.14 cents each. After that, the more accessible BOC Elite Miles card (see our review) comes in at a similarly competitive 1.21 cents per mile.
Even at the upper end, 1.51 cents per mile with cards like the DBS Altitude Visa are justifiable miles purchase rates for most of our readers. We value KrisFlyer miles at 1.9 cents each, in terms of our ‘upper limit to buy’, and these rates all fall comfortably below this.
We actually achieve 2.4 cents per KrisFlyer mile when we redeem in Business Class, based on over 1.7 million miles used over the last few years, assuming current redemption rates, and while making some rather pessimistic valuation assumptions.
You’ll notice a couple of popular credit cards are missing from RentHero’s list. That’s due to the nature of RentHero being a rental payments only facility, with that payment category except from miles earning in the terms and conditions of certain cards like the Citi PremierMiles Visa and OCBC Voyage.
Alternatives for those cards
If you don’t have one of RentHero’s supported credit cards, you can consider ipaymy’s current offer at 1.89% fee for rental payments with a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard, or CardUp‘s marginally more expensive 1.9% fee offer for rental payments.
CardUp’s offer runs to the 30th June 2020, like our RentHero promo now does, but ipaymy’s promotion ends in a few days on 31st December 2019. Hopefully they will come up with a new offer for 2020 to remain competitive in the rental payments market.
You can also consider Citi PayAll for rental payments at a flat 2% fee if you have a Citi credit card, though remember in the cost per mile calculation you won’t earn miles for paying the fee itself in the Citi PayAll case, slightly increasing the cost for the same earn rate compared with the table above.
For example, using a Citi PremierMiles Visa card to pay your rent through PayAll at a 2% fee results in an equivalent cost per mile of 1.67 cents.
Miles earned example
Let’s say your monthly rental payment is S$5,150. Using the BOC Elite Miles World Mastercard at RentHero’s standard 2.25% payment fee over the next six months (January to June 2020) would normally look like this:
- Total Spend: S$30,900
- RentHero’s Fee (2.25%): S$695
- Total Spent: S$31,595
- Miles Earned: 47,392
- Cost per Mile: 1.47 cents
Using promo code MAINLYMILES185 instead for these transactions would look like this:
- Total Spend: S$30,900
- RentHero’s Fee (1.85%): S$572
- Total Spent: S$31,472
- Miles Earned: 47,208
- Cost per Mile: 1.21 cents
You may notice you’ll actually earn fewer miles using our promo code. That’s because the fee is lower, and since the fee is also charged to your credit card, it is also eligible for miles earning.
The key here is the rate at which you’re buying the miles. With this promotional 1.85% fee, assuming you are using the BOC Elite Miles card, the miles ‘purchase’ rate is 1.21 cents each (S$572 / 47,208), 18% cheaper than the usual RentHero rate.
That’s enough KrisFlyer miles in the above example (47,000) to fly Singapore Airlines’ new Regional Business Class to Japan, in flat-bed comfort, and it has only cost you S$572.
A one-way Business Class ticket on Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Osaka in April 2020 costs S$2,849.
Terms and conditions
The following terms and conditions apply to this offer:
- Promo code MAINLYMILES185 must be applied at the review stage to get the 1.85% service fee instead of 2.25%.
- Any payment on and before 30th June 2020 will be affected by this promo code.
- Minimum payment of $500 per transaction.
- Standard website terms and conditions apply.
- RentHero only accept rental payments with valid tenancy agreements.
How it works
The process is fairly simple.
- Let RentHero know your monthly rental amount.
- Decide whether you wish to make a one-time or recurring payment (you can cancel recurring payments any time).
- Provide your landlord details and a copy of your tenancy agreement.
- Provide your eligible payment card details.
- Review and sign up (this is where you’ll enter promo code MAINLYMILES185).
- The discount is applied at the final stage.
Successful payments using RentHero with our promotion code pay MainlyMiles an affiliate commission.
Don’t forget to apply the promo code MAINLYMILES185 at the ‘review payment’ stage when setting up your payment to generate the 1.85% service fee. Clicking the sign up link alone will not automatically trigger the discount.
For further information about RentHero and a list of frequently asked questions, click here.
(Cover Photo: Timur Saglambilek)