New to ipaymy? 1.78% fee on any payment – buy miles from 1.09 cents

If you haven’t tried ipaymy to earn miles when making payments for services that don’t usually accept credit card, like taxes and property rental, or those that often don’t award any points for the transaction, like insurance and education, there’s now a good reason to give it a try.

ipaymy is kindly offering a one-time discounted fee of 1.78% (usually 2.25%) for our readers signing up for the first time, or those who have already signed up but are yet to make their first payment.

Thats a 21% discount on the usual fee charged, allowing you to buy miles from as little as 1.09 cents each between now and 31st December 2021.

The deal

Simply sign up for a new personal ipaymy account, or make the first payment on an account you have already opened previously but have yet to use, then apply our promo code MAINLY178 in the ‘Coupon code’ field at the confirmation stage.

MAINLY178			2.25%	1.78%
Any first-time payment with a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard.

Click here to sign up to ipaymy

This is a one-time promo code, valid for your first ipaymy payment between now and 31st December 2021 using a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard. You’ll be able to apply it just one single time, so our advice is therefore to use it for something big like a tax bill or a monthly rental payment to your landlord, to maximise the value.

Pro Tip: You can usually overpay your rent if you wish (i.e. advance payment of x months), provided your landlord agrees, which could be a nice way to maximise this offer as a one-time payment.

There is no upper cap on the payment amount when using the MAINLY178 promo code, but since it’s for one-time use you won’t be able to apply it to recurring payments.

Your credit card must be charged on or before 31st December 2021 for the discounted rate to take effect.

Combining payments

You can maximise this promotional rate by combining more than one invoice payment into a single transaction, for example one for insurance and another for tuition fees. This will allow you to pay more than one bill at the 1.78% promotional rate.

For a guide on how to pay multiple invoices with ipaymy, click here.

Eligible cards

ipaymy maintains a list of cards which should earn rewards (i.e. miles, points or cashback) on transactions. Check out the full list here, which thankfully includes most miles-earning cards.

A notable exception for some of our readers is the HSBC Visa Infinite card.

Cost per mile

Here are some cost per mile examples for Singapore-issued credit cards under this promotional deal at the 1.78% rate (applicable to any first-time Visa or Mastercard payment):

Card	Miles per S$1	Cost per mile (1.78% fee)
UOB Reserve	1.6	1.09¢
Citi ULTIMA	1.6	1.09¢
UOB PRVI Miles MC/Visa	1.4	1.25¢
Standard Chartered Visa Infinite	1.4*	1.25¢*
Citi Prestige	1.3	1.35¢
OCBC Voyage Visa	1.3	1.35¢
DBS Altitude Visa	1.2	1.46¢
Citi PremierMiles	1.2	1.46¢
OCBC 90ºN	1.2	1.46¢
KrisFlyer UOB	1.2	1.46¢

* 1.4 mpd subject to a minimum spend of S$2,000 in the same statement cycle, otherwise 1 mpd. ipaymy payments do count towards the minimum.

All of these are competitive rates to buy, we value KrisFlyer miles at 1.9 cents each (our upper limit to buy), and actually achieve around 2.4 cents per mile when we redeem, based on well over 1 million miles burned over recent years, even assuming current redemption rates.

This comfortably beats the regular Citi PayAll 2% fee, which is at a cost of 1.67¢ per mile for the Citi PremierMiles Visa for example (remember you don’t earn miles for paying the fee itself with Citi PayAll, so even if the headline rate was the same, the ipaymy offer would come out on top).

It’s also very slightly ahead of the current (targeted) CardUp rent promo, running at 1.79% until the end of June 2021, and ipaymy’s own rent promo for six+ recurring payments, also at 1.79%.

May 1.85% promo

If you’re an existing customer, ipaymy is also running a promotion for the month of May, with a 1.85% fee open to all users on up to two payments.

You’ll need to apply the promo code MAYMILES to unlock this rate for any payment type.

MAYMILES			2.25%	1.85%
Up to two payments with a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard.

If you’re a new ipaymy user and have two or three payments to make between now and the end of May 2021, you can use our MAINLY178 promo code to get a 1.78% fee on your first payment, then the MAYMILES promo code for a 1.85% fee on one or two additional payments.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the promotion please let us know in the comments section below. We’ll pass any queries we can’t answer to the ipaymy team.

Summary

Using your credit card to make bill and invoice payments you would normally pay by cheque or bank transfer, including monthly rental and IRAS tax payments, is a great way to boost your annual miles total at a competitive cost.

We value KrisFlyer miles, for example, at 1.9 cents each, though you should be getting even more than that when you redeem. ‘Buying’ miles with this offer is costing you much less than that in most cases, especially for those with high earn rate cards in the 1.4 to 1.6 mpd range for local spend.

Remember that while card payment companies like ipaymy are probably best known for making rental payments you can effectively pay any invoice this way, including home renovation bills, plus things like tax, insurance, tuition fees and stamp duty.

Sign Up HERE

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)