If you’re a Maybank credit card customer in Singapore there’s some bad news from next year, with the bank joining a growing list adjusting its miles earning thresholds to S$5 spending blocks, effectively devaluing the true earn rate, especially for smaller transactions.
From next year this will mean the bank joining the same policy used by UOB, and more recently by OCBC, who are also following this unpopular miles calculation method for spend made on their cards.
The change to S$5 earning blocks
Currently your spend on Maybank cards, like the Horizon Visa Signature, is rounded to the nearest whole dollar on a per-transaction basis, before being assessed for TREATS Points accrual.
This newly announced change will mean that from 1st January 2023, the minimum spend to earn TREATS Points with your Maybank credit card will increase from S$0.50 to S$5.00.
From 1 January 2023, the awarding of TREATS Points on eligible card spend will be revised
Maybank Singapore
For a transaction of $4.99, no TREATS Points will be earned at all. For a transaction of $5.00, most credit card transactions will earn 5 TREATS Points. For a S$9.99 transaction, it’s the same 5 TREATS Points in this case, since a new S$5 block has not been reached.
Maybank has provided clarification of this new earning structure in its latest TREATS Points Terms and Conditions document, with the following examples for eligible credit card spend from 1st January 2023.
TREATS Points accrual for credit card spend
| Amount Spent | TREATS Points | |
| Till 31 Dec ’22 | From 1 Jan ’23 | |
| S$4.99 | 5 | 0 |
| S$12.99 | 13 | 10 |
| S$16.99 | 17 | 15 |
From 1st January 2023, TREATS Points will be calculated:
- based on each block of S$5 charged to your card per transaction,
- with no partial or pro-rated award of any TREATS Points for any amount charged that is less than a S$5 block, and
- with no combination of multiple transactions to make up a S$5 block.
For example, if you spend S$4.99 or less in a single transaction, or if you spend S$2.50 in one transaction and S$2.50 in another transaction, you will not be awarded any TREATS Points at all from 1st January 2023.
What about FCY transactions?
TREATS Points for spend on overseas retail transactions made in foreign currency will first be converted into SGD, before the TREATS Points are awarded on that SGD equivalent of the foreign currency spend.
Administrative fees payable in connection with spend on retail transactions in foreign currency will not be taken into account for the awarding of TREATS Points.
What’s the impact?
On the face of it, 5 TREATS Points per S$5 spent is the same as 1 TREATS Point per S$1 spent, which is certainly true.
The problem is that while currently your transactions with Maybank credit cards are rounded to the nearest whole dollar before the TREATS Points multiplier is applied, from 1st January 2023 they are rounded down to the next whole S$5 before this happens.
Here’s an example of how it works today for some smaller transactions (remember the current terms and conditions still apply at the time of writing) and how it will work from 1st January 2023 using the Maybank Visa Infinite card, which earns:
- 5 TREATS Points (equivalent to 2 mpd) for every dollar charged on FCY transactions, and
- 3 TREATS Points (equivalent to 1.2 mpd) for every dollar charged on SGD transactions.
| TREATS Points Awarded (SGD credit card transactions) |
||
 |
||
| Charge | Till 31 Dec ’22 | From 1 Jan ’23 |
| $4.99 | 15 (1.2 mpd) |
0 (0 mpd) (-100%) |
| $5.00 | 15 (1.2 mpd) |
15 (1.2 mpd) |
| $9.99 | 30 (1.2 mpd) |
15 (0.6 mpd) (-50%) |
| $10.00 | 30 (1.2 mpd) |
30 (1.2 mpd) |
As you can see at the ‘exact’ S$5 rounding levels you’re no worse off, but stray outside those rounded totals and the earn rate can drop significantly for these smaller transactions – even to zero.
Since any amount in SGD will first be rounded down to the next S$5 denomination, S$5.00 will become the minimum transaction amount to earn any TREATS Points using a Maybank credit card from 1st January 2023, whether transacted in SGD or foreign currency.
The impact lessens as transaction sizes increase, for example let’s look at spend levels closer to the S$100 mark.
| TREATS Points Awarded (SGD credit card transactions) |
||
|
||
| Charge | Till 31 Dec ’22 | From 1 Jan ’23 |
| $99.99 | 300 (1.2 mpd) |
285 (1.14 mpd) (-5%) |
| $100.00 | 300 (1.2 mpd) |
300 (1.2 mpd) |
| $129.99 | 390 (1.2 mpd) |
375 (1.15 mpd) (-4%) |
| $130.00 | 390 (1.2 mpd) |
390 (1.2 mpd) |
Here we see the same impact, those transactions rounded nicely in S$5 denominations suffer no ‘loss’, but now we see that in the worst case (falling one cent short of a block) has a much smaller effect – in the order of a 4% to 5% reduction in earn rate.
Once your single transactions are in the S$1,000s, the impact is negligible and not worth worrying about.
It really is the sub-S$150 transactions to watch out for here, where you will soon need to try your best to match a whole S$5 threshold or exceed it by as little as possible when spending (e.g. S$55.50 is fine, but S$59.50 is to be avoided).
Granted that’s easier to do online than it is in a retail store where you may be purchasing multiple items. For foreign currency transactions it will be almost impossible to achieve, as you’ll be at the mercy of the exchange rate and FCY fee applied, with the TREATS Points being calculated on the final SGD charge on your statement.
TREATS Points must be redeemed in-app for the best rate to KrisFlyer miles
Back in April 2021, Maybank increased its minimum transfer block sizes for TREATS Points to airline miles.
At the same time, for KrisFlyer miles transfers, you’ll now need to use the TREATS SG app to get the best transfer ratio of 2.5:1.
Using the online rewards portal will bump up the transfer ratio to 2.56:1, while making your conversion over the phone will still be charged at the previous manual ratio of 2.62:1 (both of which are worse than 2.5:1).
See our article for full details.
Summary
It’s a shame to see Maybank join the list of credit card providers in Singapore awarding points only for S$5 block sizes from next year, something UOB and OCBC are already doing.
Let’s hope this practice doesn’t continue to spread to other banks like Citi, HSBC and DBS, which continue to have quite reasonable transaction rounding and block size policies.
Don’t forget nothing has changed yet. You can still use your Maybank credit cards and benefit from the S$1 rounding policy until 31st December, with the new rules coming into effect on 1st January 2023 (around a month from now).
As we’ve shown, after that you’ll almost always lose out on miles under the new rounding policy, unless you can make transactions in exact S$5 blocks, though once your individual transactions start to exceeded the S$150 mark the effect does become increasingly negligible.
(Cover Photo: TanakDusun / Shutterstock)