Earn miles with your monthly mortgage payment using CardUp

Card payments company CardUp has added a potentially very useful category to its lineup for personal users wanting to shift their monthly expenses onto their credit cards to earn miles, with the addition of regular mortgage loan payments to its list of options.

Our platform lets you shift this large, recurring payment onto your credit card, allowing you to enjoy miles, points and cashback on this payment otherwise made through cash or GIRO.

CardUp

While large expenses like property rental, education and insurance have featured on the platform for some time now, many of our readers have asked us over the years how to earn miles for mortgage payments, and the simple answer, until now, has been – cannot.

This new option will therefore be a very welcome addition for many.

CardUp new payment types

Here’s how mortgage loan payments sit alongside the other available CardUp payment categories.

Which banks?

CardUp is supporting mortgage loan payments to 15 banks in Singapore, which should mean almost all home loans are covered.

• Bank of China
• CIMB
• Citi
• DBS
• HDB
• Hong Leong Finance
• HSBC
• Maybank

• OCBC
• RHB
• SBI Singapore
• Sing Investment
• Singapura Finance
• Standard Chartered Bank
• UOB

CardUp has a dedicated post on its website covering the steps to set up your mortgage payment.

Schedule CardUp Payment

What about CPF?

You’ll only be able to shift the GIRO / Cash element of your monthly mortgage payment across to CardUp, any amount paid from your Central Provident Fund (CPF) account will continue to be credited directly to your mortgage account separately.

That limits the miles earning opportunity for those who pay a higher proportion of their home loan using CFP, whereas those who use 100% cash can capitalise the most.

Visa card 1.8% fee offer

For those setting up recurring payments using CardUp between now and 30th June 2021, there’s a promo code to unlock a 1.8% fee on the first six payments, including this new mortgage loan option.

To qualify you’ll have to set up a recurring payment of S$130 to S$10,000 (probably monthly for a mortgage, but weekly and quarterly options are also available), using a Singapore-issued Visa card.

The code is available to the first 700 users who redeem it, with full terms and conditions available here.

Here’s how the cost per mile looks for some popular Visa cards issued in Singapore at this 1.8% fee (you can refer to the latest full list of cards awarding points and miles for CardUp payments here, but remember this promotion is only for Visa cards).

Recurring Payment Promotion

Card	Miles per S$1	Cost per mile (1.8% fee)
UOB Reserve	1.6	1.11¢
Citi ULTIMA	1.6	1.11¢
UOB PRVI Miles Visa	1.4	1.26¢
SCVI	1.4*	1.26¢*
OCBC Voyage	1.3	1.36¢
DBS Altitude Visa	1.2	1.47¢
Citi PremierMiles Visa	1.2	1.47¢

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

Even with one of the widely-held 1.2 mpd cards like the DBS Altitude Visa and Citi PremierMiles Visa options, an effective cost per mile of 1.47 cents is fairly competitive.

For those lucky enough to have 1.6 mpd earning cards, the cost per mile drops to an excellent 1.11 cents.

Outside the recurring payment promotion, CardUp is offering a discounted 2.25% fee for Visa and Mastercard payments between now and the end of 2021 and a regular 2.6% fee for American Express payments, aside from its Income Tax promotions.

Queries?

If you have any further questions about shifting your monthly mortgage payment across to your credit card through CardUp, be sure to check with the CardUp team via hello@cardup.co.

Summary

It’s great to now see a way to earn miles through your credit card for the often significant monthly mortgage payment expense, giving many homeowners the opportunity to pick up thousands of extra miles each year.

If it’s something you want to do, we’d definitely recommend signing up for a recurring payment during the 1.8% fee offer for Visa cardholders, since that will give you some attractive miles purchase rates for the next six months.

At higher 2.25% or 2.6% rates it’s adding quite a bit to the cost, so hopefully some future recurring payment offers will come along to keep the deal competitive in the months ahead.

(Cover Photo: CardUp)