Credit Cards Deals

Extended: 45,000 miles sign-up bonus for Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card

Earn 45,000 bonus miles when you apply for a Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card by 31st December and spend S$5,000 in the first 30 days.

Back in July Standard Chartered launched a new sign-up bonus for its Visa Infinite card, the first ‘bump’ above the regular year-round 35,000 miles deal we had seen since the product was resurrected in early 2021, following a 10-month hiatus for new applications

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A new 45,000 miles deal, including an additional 10,000 miles for new-to-bank credit card applicants who have at least S$5,000 to spend in the first 30 days of card membership, was then launched running until the end of August 2022, but this has been extended and is now valid for applications through to the end of 2022.

45,000 miles sign-up bonus

The year-round offer for those applying for a new Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card as a principal cardholder is 35,000 miles upon payment of the S$588.50 annual fee, whether you are an existing Standard Chartered credit card holder or not.

Terms and conditions for the 35,000 miles sign-up bonus can be found here.

If you apply for a Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card between 18th July 2022 and 31st December 2022, you’ll also be eligible for an additional 10,000 bonus miles, for a total of 45,000 miles, provided:

  • you are a new-to-bank principal credit card holder; and
  • you make a minimum spend of S$5,000 in qualifying transactions within 30 days of card approval.

The bonus miles structure for new-to-bank applicants is outlined in the following table.

  Bonus Cost per mile
Payment of Annual Fee
(S$588.50)
35,000 miles 1.68 cents
Meet S$5,000 Spend Criteria 10,000 miles  
Total award 45,000 miles 1.31 cents

Cost per mile is based on payment of the (non-waivable) first year annual fee of S$588.50.

Standard Chartered defines ‘new-to-bank’ customers as those who:

  • do not currently hold any principal Standard Chartered credit card; and
  • have not cancelled any principal Standard Chartered credit card(s) within the last 12 months prior to the card application date.
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If you are a supplementary Standard Chartered cardholder, but not a primary cardholder on any such account, you will qualify as a new customer.

If you cancelled your last primary Standard Chartered credit card on or before 30th December 2021, you’ll be eligible to participate in this promotion, provided you apply at least 12 months following your cancellation date.

Regular earn rates are in addition

These bonus miles will be awarded in addition to the regular miles you will accrue anyway to meet the S$5,000 spend as part of the sign-up bonus.

Your total earning (including the sign-up bonus) during this promotion, as a new-to-bank customer, will be at least 52,000 miles, assuming local spend.

SCVI
Total promotion earning

  New to SCB
Annual Fee bonus 35,000 miles
Spend bonus 10,000 miles
Miles for S$5,000 local spend
(1.4 mpd)
7,000 miles
Total 52,000 miles

That’s enough for a Business Class saver award redemption from Singapore to Tokyo or Seoul.

You’ll do even better than this by tapping into the card’s overseas 3 mpd earn rate during the first 30 days of card membership.

If you could channel all your S$5,000 spend in FCY to unlock the bonus miles, total earning would be 60,000 miles.

When does the bonus credit?

The 35,000 miles bonus for payment of the annual fee is credited in your first statement cycle.

The additional 10,000 miles bonus will be credited to your card by 28th February 2023, subject to your account being valid and in good standing at the time of crediting, and you meeting the spend criteria.

That means you may be waiting up to four months for the bonus element, so this isn’t a quick way to accrue those extra miles if you’re looking to use them for an upcoming redemption.

Spend exclusions

Standard Chartered is excluding transactions which fall under its usual list of excluded spend categories when it comes to qualifying spend for the S$5,000 minimum within 30 days to trigger the bonus miles, as shown below (click to expand).

  • any cash advance
  • any Credit Card Funds Transfer
  • any monthly instalment of an EasyPay transaction
  • any amount charged to your VI Card that is subsequently cancelled, voided, refunded or reversed
  • AXS, SAM or ATM transactions made using your VI Card
  • any insurance premiums charged to your VI Card
  • recurring payments (being automatic payments where a principal cardholder or supplementary cardholder of the VI Card has given a one-time authorisation or instruction for the merchant to charge the payment directly to the VI Card at a fixed interval, such as transactions made pursuant to Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited’s 0% Interest Instalment Plan) or payments made to all billing organisations using Standard Chartered Online Banking or mobile app
  • any fees or charges (including but not limited to annual card fees, service fees, interest charges, cheque processing fees, administrative fees, finance charges, and/or late payment charges and other miscellaneous fees and charges)
  • amounts which have been rolled over from any preceding month’s statement
  • tax refunds credited into your VI Card account
  • charges incurred by you or your supplementary VI cardholder but not submitted or posted to your VI Card account during the Promotion Period
  • any fraudulent retail transaction
  • any payments related to betting (including lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track betting, and wagers at race tracks) through any channel charged to your VI card
  • any top-ups or payment of funds to any prepaid and any prepaid accounts including without limitation: i. any transaction classified under either of the following Merchant Category Codes: • Financial Institutions – Merchandise, Services, and Debt Repayment (6012); or • Non-Financial Institutions – Stored Value Card Purchase/Load (6540); and ii. any top-ups or payment of funds to the following accounts or any other accounts as we may specify from time to time: · EZ LINK PTE LTD · EZLINK* · TRANSIT LINK* · EZ LINK PTE LTD (FEVO) · EZ LINK · TRANSIT LINK PL · EZ-LINK PTE LTD SINGAPORE · EZLINKS.COM · TRANSIT · EZ-LINK TOP-UP KIOSK · FLASHPAY ATU · PAYPAL * BIZCONSULTA · EZ-LINK (IMAGINE CARD) · TRANSITLINK* · PAYPAL * CAPITALROYA
  • any transaction classified under one or more of the following Merchant Category Codes: • 6051 (Non-Financial Institutions – Foreign Currency, Non-Fiat Currency (for example: Cryptocurrency), Money Orders (Not Money Transfer), Account Funding (not Stored Value Load), Travelers Cheques, and Debt Repayment) • 6211 (Security Brokers/Dealers) • 4829 (Money Transfer) and 6513 (Real Estate Agents and Managers) • 8211 (Elementary and Secondary Schools) • 8220 (Colleges, Universities, Professional Schools, and Junior Colleges) • 8241 (Correspondence Schools), 8244 (Business and Secretarial Schools) • 8249 (Vocational and Trade Schools) and 8299 (Schools and Educational Services (Not Elsewhere Classified)) • 9211 (Court Costs, Including Alimony and Child Support) • 9222 (Fines), 9223 (Bail and Bond Payments) • 9311 (Tax Payments) • 9399 (Government Services (Not Elsewhere Classified)) • 9402 (Postal Services – Government Only) and 9405 (U.S. Federal Government Agencies or Departments); • 8398 (Charitable Social Service Organizations), 8651 (Political Organizations) and 8661 (Religious Organizations); • 7523 (Parking Lots, Parking Meters and Garages); • 7349 (Cleaning, Maintenance and Janitorial Services);

Note that CardUp and ipaymy spend is not excluded, so you can potentially settle large payments like property rental, insurance premiums and education fees to help you along your way to the S$5,000 threshold.

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for the 10,000 bonus miles promotion are available here.

Our thoughts

The sign-up bonus is actually one of the few things about the SCVI card worth having, with 45,000 miles credited for payment of the first year annual fee of S$588.50 you’re effectively buying miles at 1.31 cents each, assuming you have at least S$5,000 to spend in the first 30 days.

This opportunity is only good in the first year, since there is no formal miles bonus on annual renewal with this card.

Standard Chartered usually offers 50,000 Reward Points on renewal (equivalent to 20,000 KrisFlyer miles), but this is not an attractive proposition at 2.94 cents per mile, so you’d have to value the card’s other benefits (which are minimal) to continue to commit beyond year one.

There isn’t much else to the card

For a S$150k income high annual fee credit card, the SCVI is pretty light on benefits.

Once you’ve received the 45,000 miles sign-up bonus (for a “reasonable” cost), its main advantage is competitive earn rates provided you spend at least S$2,000 per statement cycle:

  • Local Spend: 1.4 mpd
  • FCY Spend: 3 mpd

In statement months where you don’t hit the S$2,000 spend however, it’s far less attractive:

  • Local Spend: 1 mpd
  • FCY Spend: 2 mpd

Even the complimentary yacht hire benefit for spending at least S$75,000 on the card in a calendar year was discontinued in 2019, leaving six complimentary Priority Pass visits per year as the only other major benefit.

Priority Pass lounge access is one of the SCVI’s few perks. (Photo: MainlyMiles)

Income tax payment

If you’re on the fence about buying 45,000 miles for 1.31 cents each, there’s another useful benefit of the SCVI card – generating cheap miles when paying your income tax bill.

That’s because of the card’s competitive 1.6% fee for income tax payments.

The SCVI gives you 1.4 KrisFlyer miles per S$1 spent locally, assuming you have at least S$2,000 of spend on the card in the same statement month (including the income tax payment), which is a condition of the higher earning rate.

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For a S$10,000 tax bill (example to keep the maths easy), the fee will set you back S$160, for 14,000 miles awarded. That means paying 1.14 cents per KrisFlyer mile, which is a great deal.

The SCVI card is one of the best options to earn miles paying your annual income tax bill. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Better still, Standard Chartered will pay your income tax Notice of Assessment amount directly into your bank account, for you to then arrange payment to IRAS yourself. You are under no obligation to do this, and can continue with a monthly GIRO payment instead if you prefer.

The Visa Infinite X Card

The SCVI’s extended sign-up bonus doesn’t change one aspect – the card still sits awkwardly alongside the bank’s X Card, launched in 2019 with a great sign-up bonus but far inferior perks for its higher annual fee.

It always looked like the two products could not both exist in perpetuity, and the apparent withdrawal of the SCVI card to new applicants in 2020 was beginning to look like the start of that process, though strangely that’s not what’s happened.

X Card Promo 2
We thought the X Card was likely to fill the void if the SCVI had vanished

Here’s a look at how the main benefits of the SCVI and X Card sit (rather uncomfortably) alongside one another.

  image_standard-chartered-visa-infinite@2x02 Card
Annual Fee S$588.50 S$695.50
Min. income S$150,000 S$80,000
Sign-up bonus 45,000 miles 30,000 miles
Local earn rate 1.4 mpd* 1.2 mpd
FCY earn rate 3 mpd** 2 mpd
FCY fee 3.5% 3.5%
Miles transfer fee S$26.75 S$26.75
Lounge visits per year 6 2
Income tax payment facility 1.14 cpm 1.58 cpm

* 1 mpd if < S$2,000 spent in a statement cycle
** 2 mpd if < S$2,000 spent in a statement cycle

The best thing about the X Card? The bank has waived the annual renewal fee for the second membership year, and will almost inevitably do so this year too, while the SCVI’s fee remains strictly non-waivable.



 


 

Summary

Standard Chartered has extended its 45,000 miles sign-up bonus through to the end of 2022, for a first year annual fee of S$588.50, if you’re new-to-bank and have S$5,000 spend to make in the first 30 days.

That’s not a bad deal, equivalent to buying miles at 1.31 cents each, even if you place no value on the card’s other perks like lounge access.

You may also want to use the card to tap into the opportunity to buy miles at 1.14 cents each through your next income tax payment, the other major SCVI benefit worth considering.

APPLY HERE

(Cover Photo: Jodi Nelson)

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