Credit Cards Deals

OCBC credit cards offering up to 400 bonus miles with ‘Stay Home Privileges’

Earn 0.2 mpd more than usual with OCBC credit cards for groceries, selected online shopping and foreign currency transactions between now and 30 June...

... capped at a paltry 400 bonus miles!

OCBC has a (pretty dismal) bonus miles earning offer for its Voyage and 90°N cardholders between now and the end of June, with a bonus 0.2 mpd awarded for groceries, online shopping and foreign currency transactions.

Notwithstanding the fact the new earn rates for local spend in these categories are easily eclipsed by several 4 mpd cards on the market, OCBC is even capping the offer at:

  • S$2,000 spend for Voyage cardholders (equivalent to 400 bonus miles); or
  • S$1,000 spend for the first 10,000 90°N cardholders (equivalent to 200 bonus miles, if you’re lucky enough to be among the fastest 10k ‘across the line’).
Bonus rates for the OCBC Premier cards. (Image: OCBC)

In case you were wondering whether this is worth bothering with, we value 400 KrisFlyer miles at S$7.60 and 200 KrisFlyer miles at S$3.80.

How it works

Registration is not required for this promotion, all OCBC Voyage cards and the 90°N cards are automatically eligible, with no minimum spend.

Bonus miles (+0.2 mpd) will be awarded for:

  • Grocery shopping (online or in-store), at:
    Cold Storage
    NTUC FairPrice (excl. FairPrice Xpress)
    RedMart
  • Online-only shopping at:
    Lazada (MCC 5311 only)
    Shopee (MCC 5262 or 5331, excl. ShopeePay)
    Amazon (MCC 5311, 5399, 5411, 5732, 5814, 5817, 5818, 5941, 5942 or 5999)
  • All transactions made in foreign currency

The promotion runs from 25th May 2021 to 30th June 2021.

Initially you will earn your card’s base miles for bonus category transactions as usual, with the difference between the regular rate and the bonus rate (+0.2 mpd) topped up within two calendar months after the end of the promotion period (i.e. by the end of August 2021).

Promotional earn rates

Card Type
Grocery
Shopping

Online
Spend

FCY
Spend
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Card-2-small.pngOCBC 90°N 1.2 mpd
1.4 mpd
1.2 mpd
1.4 mpd
2.1 mpd
2.3 mpd
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Card-2020-v2-Smallest.pngOCBC Voyage 1.3 mpd
1.5 mpd
1.3 mpd
1.5 mpd
2.2 mpd
2.4 mpd
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Premier-Voyage-Card-2-Small-1.pngOCBC Premier Voyage 1.6 mpd
1.8 mpd
1.6 mpd
1.8 mpd
2.3 mpd
2.5 mpd
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is PPC-Voyage-Smallest.pngOCBC PPC Voyage
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is BOS-Voyage-Card.pngBOS Voyage

Remember the bonus of 0.2 mpd in each case is capped at S$2,000 spend for the Voyage cards and S$1,000 spend for the 90°N card (with a UOB-esque 10,000 customer cap on the latter), after which you’ll earn the regular rates again.

S$5 rounding for miles earning

Don’t forget that OCBC credit cards now award miles only for S$5 spend blocks, so for smaller transactions like those you may make in these categories, be prepared to earn less than the promotional rates.

For example picking up a few items at Cold Storage costing S$14.99 will result in a round-down to S$10 for miles earning purposes (i.e. 15 miles with the OCBC Voyage card under this promotion @1.5 mpd), equivalent to just 1 mpd, not 1.5 mpd.

You’d do better than that with a Citi PremierMiles card at the regular 1.2 mpd earn rate!

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for this promotion, which for some reason is labelled ‘tier up’ at the ‘paperwork’ stage (but in no other promotional marketing) are available here:

 OCBC 90°N ‘Tier Up’ T&C
 OCBC Voyage ‘Tier Up’ T&C

Other cards to use for groceries

For grocery shopping during this promotion at Cold Storage, FairPrice and RedMart, there are several cards offering year-round 4 mpd bonus rates for your spend.

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That’s significantly better than this OCBC offer, so if you’re holding one or more of the following cards and not already maxing out the monthly bonus caps, here are the options:

Card In-store Online Notes
HSBC Revo Card SmallHSBC Revolution
(see our review)
4 mpd On contactless payment or online at grocery stores, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month.
Ladys CardUOB Lady’s
4 mpd* 4 mpd If family is specified as your quarterly bonus category, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month.
Ladys Solitaire CardUOB Lady’s Solitaire
4 mpd* 4 mpd If family is specified as your quarterly bonus category, capped at S$3,000 per calendar month.
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Card3-Small.pngUOB PPV
(see our review)
4 mpd* 4 mpd On contactless payment or online at grocery stores, capped at S$1,110 per calendar month.
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Card-2-Small.pngUOB VS
(see our review)
4 mpd* 0.4 mpd For contactless payment, capped at S$2,000 per statement cycle.

* Except at Cold Storage, Giant, Jasons and Market Place

Do be careful to note that no UOB card will earn miles for in-store transactions at Dairy Farm Group outlets like Cold Storage (though they are fine in FairPrice and for online Dairy Farm transactions).

Other cards to use for online shopping

For online shopping at Lazada, Shopee and Amazon, you can consider the following cards with superior earn rates to this OCBC offer:

Card Miles per S$1 Notes
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is CRMC-Small.pngCiti Rewards
(see our review)
4.0 For (non-travel) online transactions, capped at S$1,000 per statement cycle
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Card-small.pngDBS WWMC
(see our review)
4.0 For all online transactions, capped at S$2,000 per calendar month.
HSBC Revo Card SmallHSBC Revolution
(see our review)
4.0 For selected online transactions, capped at S$1,000 per calendar month.

Summary

This deal from OCBC is fairly dismal, with a maximum of 400 bonus KrisFlyer miles on offer and many cards on the market already eclipsing these bonus earn rates for the sort of spend the bank is targeting – ‘stay-home’ online and grocery shopping.

The 200-mile bonus limit and customer cap for OCBC 90°N cardholders is particularly disappointing. The bank has clearly marked these customers as ‘less worthy’ than others, like we’ve seen with the “first xxx to qualify” sign-up bonus for the card this week – straight out of UOB’s playbook.

The HSBC Revolution once again stands out as a prime choice, outshining almost every earn rate on the table here.

Sorry OCBC – but it’s a “try harder” from us!

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)

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