CardUp 1.7% fee on any payment type with OCBC Voyage and 90N cards

EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
 

If you’re an OCBC Voyage, Premier Visa Infinite or 90°N cardholder there’s a new CardUp deal running for the next few months offering you a very competitive 1.7% fee on any one-time payment, allowing you to buy miles from 1.04 cents each.

Better still – if you hold both cards, you can unlock the fee on two separate payments, and don’t forget the offer runs alongside CardUp and ipaymy’s ongoing 1.75% fee offer for income tax payments too.

OCBC promotion

The offer is available to both new and existing CardUp personal account users, for a payment scheduled on CardUp between 19th May 2021 and 24th August 2021 30th September 2021, both dates inclusive. The payment due date must be on or before 27th August 2021 5th October 2021, being the last date on which it must arrive at the recipient.

This takes account of CardUp’s requirement to schedule payments at least three working days before the due date, to allow for processing.

Simply use the promo code OCBCAFFCARD or OCBCCARDS at the ‘Amount’ stage, prior to uploading documents and reviewing the payment.

OCBCAFFCARD			2.6%	1.7%
One-time payment with an OCBC Voyage or OCBC Premier Visa Infinite card (no cap). Full details here.

OCBCCARDS			2.6%	1.7%
One-time payment with an OCBC 90°N or World Elite card, capped at S$10,000. Full details here.

CardUp advertises thee promo codes for income tax payment, but in fact they are applicable to any payment type made via the platform, as promoted by OCBC.

Remember this is a one-time use promo code, so to maximise the value you should save this for your largest upcoming payment (though read on to find out why it might not be a good idea to use this for income tax).

Note that while the payment amount is unlimited for the Voyage and Premier Visa Infinite cards, it is capped at S$10,000 for the 90°N card, after which the regular 2.6% fee will kick in for the amount above S$10,000.

For clarity, for a charge of S$10,900, the first S$10,000 will be based off the fee of 1.70% (Total fee charged = S$10,000 X 1.70% = S$170) and the remaining S$900 will be based off the effective fee of 2.6% (Total fee charged = $900 X 2.6% = 23.4). Only the final fee S$193.4 will be reflected.

OCBC

Full terms and conditions for use of these promo codes are available here.

Cost per mile

Here’s how the cost per mile looks for the payment at 1.7% fee.

Card	Miles per S$1	Cost per mile (1.7% fee)
OCBC Premier Visa	1.6	1.04¢
OCBC Voyage Visa	1.3	1.29¢
OCBC 90ºN	1.2	1.39¢

These all represent very competitive rates to buy KrisFlyer miles, which we value at 1.9 cents each.

Don’t use this for income tax if you have another bill to pay

Since CardUp already has a 1.75% fee promotion for income tax payments made during 2021 (as does ipaymy), you should probably save this new code for another payment type if you have one.

Why? Well let’s take a look at an example.

If you’re an OCBC Voyage cardholder with a S$10,000 income tax bill plus a S$2,000 insurance payment to make between now and 24th August 2021 30th September 2021, you might automatically assume it’s best to use CardUp’s 1.7% promo code for the largest bill (income tax), like this:

You’d be wrong though. It’s actually better to stick to the (slightly higher) 1.75% promotional fee for a one-time income tax payment and save this new 1.7% fee for the insurance payment, like this:

That would cover the S$12,000 payments for a total fee of S$209, but as you can see you’ll pay S$215 if you use the 1.7% fee for the income tax payment, then pay CardUp’s current promotional 2.25% fee for the insurance payment.

Roughly speaking, if you have a non-income tax payment to make between now and September equivalent to 10% or more of your income tax payment total, save this new 1.7% fee for the non-income tax payment.

The exception would be if you hold both the OCBC Voyage card and the OCBC 90°N card, in which case you’ll obviously want to use the 1.7% fee for income tax (Voyage) and the 1.75% fee for insurance (90°N) in the above example, to maximise miles earned for the minimum possible fee.

We’ve updated our comprehensive overview of miles earning options for making your 2021 income tax payment, to include this new OCBC offer in the value tables.

How to unlock the discounted fee

CardUp has recently revamped its user interface, but don’t worry it remains quite logical to set up a new payment and apply one of these promo codes.

Set up your payment as normal on CardUp and at the stage where you enter your payment amount and bill reference there is a ‘Promo Code’ field, just before the applicable fee is quoted.

This is where you can enter the OCBCAFFCARD or OCBCCARDS code, depending on which card you are using.

Note that entering the code at this stage will not change the fee, you’ll have to click ‘Continue’ to see the discount reflected.

Here’s an example using my OCBC 90°N card to make a S$5,000 education payment.

As you can see the fee is reduced to S$85 (1.7%) once the code is entered.

OCBC cards

If you’re not currently holding either the OCBC Voyage or the OCBC 90°N card, do be sure to check out our comprehensive reviews of each product to see if they deserve a place in your wallet.

You’ll be eligible to use these CardUp promo codes as a new cardholder, and there’s plenty of time to get your hands on one between now and late September if you are keen to take advantage.

Citi cardholder? PayAll has a better offer

Before you dive in with CardUp’s OCBC promo codes, there’s a much better miles earning offer available if you hold one of the following Citi credit cards:

That’s because Citi has hiked the earn rate on all four cards to 2.5 mpd for PayAll transactions made between now and 31st August 2021, capped at S$120,000 total spend, which means buying miles at just 0.8 cents each, even with the higher transaction fee of 2%.

That comfortably beats even the best miles purchase rate of 1.04 cents using the OCBC Premier Visa Infinite during this deal.

See our article for full details of this excellent PayAll promotion, which is also applicable to income tax payments to IRAS.

Summary

There are several great promotions out there lately for using your credit card to make a variety of payments like income tax, and these new ones for selected OCBC cards using CardUp are among the most competitive we’ve ever seen at 1.7% fee.

Of course the latest Citi PayAll 2.5 mpd offer with a higher 2% fee eclipses this CardUp OCBC deal as the best way to make almost any payment between now and the end of August September, but if you’re not holding an applicable Citi card – this is the next best option.

While an income tax payment seems like the most logical use of this offer, that’s not necessarily the case. With a competitive 1.75% fee offer from CardUp and ipaymy running alongside this one, it’s probably better to save this code for another payment if you have one, to replace a 2.25% fee instead.

Sign Up HERE

Links on Mainly Miles may pay us an affiliate commission.

(Cover Photo: CardUp)