Earlier this month UOB launched an offer for up to 3 miles per dollar on groceries and selected online spend using its PRVI Miles Amex cards until the end of June 2020. Unfortunately holders of the PRVI Miles Visa and Mastercard versions were left out, however that’s now changed with the bank launching a separate offer for those customers on Friday last week.
This new offer is for online spend using your UOB PRVI Miles Visa and Mastercard for a range of online transactions between 17th April 2020 and 31st July 2020 – perfect for those ‘stay home’ purchases for essentials or entertainment to see you through the circuit breaker period in Singapore.
The offer is subject to spending at least S$2,000 in the eligible spend categories during the promotion period, and is capped at S$3,500 spend per primary cardholder account.
The deal is good for up to 10,500 miles earned, 5,600 of which are ‘bonus’ miles on top of your regular earn rate, when making purchases which are processed by the respective merchants as online transactions via a payment gateway in Singapore at:
- Grocery stores and drugstores
- Online retail stores (including computers, electronics, home furnishings)
- Dining and food delivery (including Deliveroo, Grab Food and foodpanda)
- Entertainment and ticketing
- Transport (including Grab and gojek rides)
The offer
Unlike the recent promo for PRVI Miles Amex cardholders, you will need to successfully register for this one, by sending an SMS to 77862 in the following format:
BONUS[space]Last 4 alphanumeric digits of your NRIC or Passport Number
Example: If your NRIC is S1234567A, you will need to send “BONUS 567A” to 77862
Note that unlike many UOB promotions, there is no upper cap on the number of customers eligible for the offer, plus you can send the SMS in order to qualify for the bonus earn rate at any time during the promotion (i.e. between now and 31st July 2020), not necessarily before you start spending.
That means any eligible spend you already made over the weekend (this promotion started on Friday 17th April 2020) will still be counted as soon as you register.
As usual with promotions like this, the 3 miles per dollar rate 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$4 per S$5 spend (equivalent to 1.6 miles per S$1).
Note that you’ll only be able to earn the bonus rate once during the promotion period, regardless of the number of cards you hold, so you don’t get a separate S$3,500 cap for your PRVI Miles Visa and Mastercard if you have both – just stick to one of them for this promotion in that case.
Groceries and drugstores
For groceries, remember that as with all transactions under this offer you must make online payment through a payment gateway in Singapore, which must be processed by the merchant as an online transaction.
- Groceries and drugstores: Grocery stores and supermarkets in Singapore with Merchant Category Code (“MCC”) 5411 or drugstores with MCC 5912, with payment in Singapore dollars.
Pro Tip: Don’t worry about earning SMART$ instead of UNI$ online at the likes of Giant, Cold Storage and Jasons with your PRVI Miles cards. SMART$ only apply to in-store purchases, with online transactions excluded from that programme, so you’ll earn UNI$ as usual.
The SMART$ Terms and Conditions aren’t crystal clear on this, so we checked this morning directly with UOB, who confirmed:
“SMART$ is applicable only for in-store purchases at participating merchants. For online purchases on your PRVI Miles Visa or Mastercard , you are eligible to earn UNI$” UOB
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 and 5912 codes:
- Cold Storage
- Giant
- Guardian
- Jasons Marketplace
- Fairprice
- Redmart (via Lazada)
- Shen Siong
- AEON Supermarket
- Watsons
Note that if you have a mixed ‘bag’ of online shopping from both Lazada and Redmart (i.e. in the same delivery), this processes on your card under the Lazada MCC 5311 (department stores), not MCC 5411. Don’t worry though, as you’ll see later on, that category is included in this offer too.
Bill payments
The 3 mpd offer also includes online bill payments to the following utility providers:
- Diamond Energy Merchants Pte Ltd
- Geneco by Seraya Energy
- I Switch Pte Ltd
- Keppel Electric Pte Ltd
- PacificLight Energy Pte Ltd
- Senoko Energy Pte Ltd
- Sembcorp Power Pte Ltd
- Sunseap Energy Pte Ltd
- SP Services
- SP Digital Pte Ltd
Additionally, bill payments for Netflix or Spotify subscriptions are eligible, with these two categories counting towards the bonus whether transacted in SGD or foreign currency.
Other online transactions
In addition to the categories mentioned above, online payments to merchants with any one of the following MCCs are included:
| Category | MCC |
| Online Retail Stores (including Apparel, Computers, Electronics, Home Furnishing, Bookstores, Sports, Online Marketplace, etc) | 4816, 5044, 5045, 5262, 5306, 5309, 5310, 5311, 5331, 5399, 5611, 5621, 5631, 5641, 5651, 5655, 5661, 5691, 5699, 5712, 5719, 5722, 5732, 5733, 5734, 5735, 5815, 5816, 5817, 5818, 5912, 5941, 5942, 5943, 5944, 5945, 5946, 5947, 5948, 5949, 5964, 5965, 5966, 5967, 5968, 5969, 5970, 5992, 5999, |
| Dining and Food Delivery | 5333, 5441, 5462, 5499, 5811, 5812, 5814, 8012, 9751 |
| Entertainment and Ticketing | 7278, 7832, 7841, 7922, 7991, 7996, 7998, 7999 |
| Transport | 4111, 4121, 4789 |
This would include Amazon (MCC 5964), Amazon Prime (which sells groceries among other things but falls under MCC 5999 along with retailers including Shopbop), Courts and Harvey Norman (both MCC 5732) in the Online Retail Stores category.
ASOS and Uniqlo are also covered under this category (MCC 5651), as are ZALORA (MCC 5691) and Qoo10 (MCC 5699).
If you’re really itching to travel again in style after COVID-19, Rimowa and TUMI online transactions (MCC 5948) also qualify!
Qualifying spend on any supplementary cards does count for the promotion, but the upper cap of S$3,500 spend applies per principal cardholder.
In other words your supplementary cardholders can assist you with the promotion, but they 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 October 2020. That’s a 3-month wait after the promotion has ended for the additional miles to arrive, so this isn’t a quick way to rack up the extra miles.
T&Cs
Full terms and conditions for the deal can be found on the UOB website here. Do read those carefully as there is a list of excluded transactions.
These include AXS, Ez-Link, GrabPay top-ups, Cardup, ipaymy and RentHero transactions among others.
Summary
This is a great opportunity for UOB PRVI Miles Visa and Mastercard holders to top up their miles balance on a wide range of online transactions from home during this circuit breaker period, which we all hope will end in early May but of course may be extended further depending on the local situation with COVID-19.
Aside from groceries, which rarely do include Cold Storage and Giant this time for these cards, there are plenty of other online categories too.
These include bill payments, food delivery (with Deliveroo, foodpanda and Grab Food) and online transactions at merchants like Amazon Prime, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to reach the S$2,000 minimum spend to qualify for this bonus offer between now and 31st July 2020.
(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)
Does the Supplementary card need to register separately ?
Should be just the principal cardholder