EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
UOB is really trying to capture a slice of your ‘stay home’ and essential spend during the circuit breaker period, with COVID-19 confining us to our homes for most of the day and only certain retail stores permitted to open, not to mention a big shift to online spend and delivery services.
Already this month we’ve seen an offer for 3 mpd on groceries and selected online spend using its PRVI Miles Amex cards until the end of June 2020, and last week the bank added a slightly different offer for its PRVI Miles Visa and Mastercard customers for online spend in a range of categories until 31st July 2020.
This week it’s the KrisFlyer UOB card getting some attention, with a new “3 miles per S$1 on what matters” offer running until 31st July 2020.
The offer
Provided you spend at least S$4,000 on your KrisFlyer UOB credit card between 20th April 2020 and 31st July 2020 (on any transaction), you’ll be entitled to an enhanced earn rate of 3 miles per dollar on both in-store and online spend with selected retailers in the following categories:
- Groceries and Supermarkets
- Health & Beauty
- Electronics, Home Appliances and Furniture
The 3 miles per dollar rate comprises:
- the usual rate of 6 KrisFlyer miles per S$5 spend locally (equivalent to 1.2 miles per S$1); and
- a bonus rate of 9 KrisFlyer miles per S$5 spend (equivalent to 1.8 miles per S$1).
The maximum number of bonus KrisFlyer miles you can earn under this promotion is 3,600. Since you usually earn 1.2 miles per dollar with this card, that means the bonus 1.8 miles per dollar (3.0 – 1.2 = 1.8 bonus) is capped at 3,600, which is equivalent to S$2,000 spend in these categories (3,600 / 1.8 = 2,000).
You’ll need to successfully register for this offer, by sending an SMS to 77862 in the following format:
KFEVERYDAY[space]Last 5 alphanumeric digits of your NRIC or Passport Number
Example: If your NRIC is S1234567A, you will need to send “KFEVERYDAY 4567A” to 77862
You will receive a confirmation SMS from UOB once you have successfully registered.
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 since Monday (this promotion started on Monday 20th April 2020) will still be counted as soon as you register.
Likewise eligible total spend (remember you’ll still need to hit at least S$4,000 total spend by 31st July 2020) accumulated since Monday will be counted, even if you register later.
Excluded transactions
The KrisFlyer UOB credit card’s usual list of excluded transactions will not count towards your S$4,000 minimum spend on this card during the promotion period, required to trigger the enhanced 3 mpd earn rate on up to S$2,000 of these bonus category transactions.
A full list of those excluded transactions is available in the card’s general terms and conditions (see clauses 1.8 to 1.12).
For both the eligible transactions to meet your minimum S$4,000 spend and transactions in the bonus category, do note that they must be “successfully charged and posted to the eligible card account”, so do be careful towards the end of the promotion as it can take a few days for certain transactions to actually post to your account.
That’s especially true if you’re making any foreign currency transactions (to meet the S$4,000 total spend for example). These can sometimes take up to 5 days to post.
Groceries and supermarkets
Grocery stores and supermarkets in Singapore are eligible via their official retail stores, official website or official mobile applications with Merchant Category Code (“MCC”) 5411, with payment made in Singapore dollars.
Card transactions charged at grocery stores and/or supermarkets which are not classified as MCC 5411 will not be eligible for the 3 mpd rate under this promotion.
Beware of SMART$ merchants You will not earn KrisFlyer miles for in-store transactions at grocery stores and supermarkets participating in the SMART$ rewards scheme. These are:
- Cold Storage
- Giant
- Jasons
- Market Place
You will however earn KrisFlyer miles for online transactions (e.g. home delivery) with these merchants, since the SMART$ programme only applies to in-store purchases.
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:
- AEON Supermarket
- Cold Storage
- Giant
- Jasons Marketplace
- Fairprice
- Redmart via Lazada (see note)
- Shen Siong
Note that Redmart transactions are handled by Lazada. Provided your order contains only Redmart items, MCC 5411 is applied, however if any Lazada items are added the entire transaction shifts to MCC 5311, which will not earn any bonus miles under this promotion. Be sure to only select Redmart items if you want to benefit from the 3 mpd rate.
Health and beauty
This category includes local card transactions made at the following specific merchants in Singapore via their official retail stores, official websites or official mobile applications.
The transaction must then bear the corresponding description shown, though this should cover all such purchases.
| Merchant | Transaction descriptions |
| Eu Yan Sang | EU YAN SANG* EU YANG SANG* PAYPAL *EUYANSANGHO PAYPAL *EUYANSANGSI PAYPAL *EUYANSANGMA |
| GNC | GNC* PAYPAL *GNC |
| Unity | UNITY BY FAIRPRICE* |
| Watsons | WATSONS* WATSON’S* |
Electronics, appliances and furniture
This category includes local card transactions made at the following specific merchants in Singapore via their official retail stores, official websites or official mobile applications.
As with the previous category, the transaction must then bear the corresponding description shown, though this should cover all such purchases.
| Merchant | Transaction descriptions |
| Best Denki | BEST DENKI* |
| Challenger | CHALLENGER* |
| Courts | COURTS* COURTS SPORE LTD* |
| Harvey Norman | HARVEY NORMAN* |
| IKEA | IKEA* |
Qualifying spend on any supplementary cards does count for the promotion, but the upper cap of S$2,000 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.
Supplementary cardholder spend also counts towards the S$4,000 minimum to trigger the bonus miles.
When does the bonus credit?
Initially these transactions will earn at the regular earn rate of 1.2 miles per S$1 spent.
The bonus Krisflyer miles (1.8 miles per S$1 spent) under this promotion will be credited to your KrisFlyer account by 30th November 2020. That’s a 4-month wait after the promotion has ended for the additional miles to arrive, so this isn’t a quick way to rack up the additional miles.
T&Cs
Full terms and conditions for the deal can be found on the UOB website here.
Summary
Another nice opportunity for UOB cardholders to top up their miles balance on a wide range of ‘stay home’ transactions during the (now extended) circuit breaker period.
Remember that if you’re taking advantage of the bonus rate for grocery shopping, you’ll need to avoid in-store purchases as the SMART$ merchants listed above, which will not accrue KrisFlyer miles.
Online and mobile app transactions with those merchants are eligible however, or you can stick to the known non-SMART$ supermarkets like Fairprice.
The other major consideration with this offer is that you’ll have to hit a total of S$4,000 spend (including transactions in the offer categories if you wish), in order to benefit from the bonus rate. If you are going to participate, make sure you’ll comfortably achieve that.
Unfortunately you’ll also be waiting a while for the bonus miles to credit to your KrisFlyer account (nothing new there with this card!), so don’t expect to see the full miles in your account until the end of November 2020.
Should be last 5 digit instead of 4.
Thanks! Amended