KrisFlyer UOB credit card offering 25,000 miles sign-up bonus (no applicant cap!)

UOB has launched a new sign-up bonus for the KrisFlyer UOB credit card, where you’ll earn a guaranteed 20,000 miles bonus when you spend at least S$2,000 in the first 60 days with the card as a new-to-bank customer (or new in the last six months), then an extra 5,000 miles for being new to the KF UOB credit card itself.

While that first element is usually one of UOB’s ‘gambling’ offers, open to the first xxx applicants to meet the spend criteria, in this latest version of the offer it’s completely uncapped, making the deal good for 25,000 miles total bonus miles, for a very reasonable spend level.

When UOB occasionally offers these uncapped sign-up bonuses, it really represents the optimum time to jump in and take advantage, since the opportunity doesn’t come around that often.

Here’s how the deal is structured, for new card approvals between 1st February 2023 and 30th April 2023.

Sign-up bonus

Provided you’re a new UOB credit card holder, you’ll get a 20,000 miles bonus if you spend at least $2,000 on the card within 60 calendar days of your account approval date.

That means if you cancelled your last UOB credit card on 31st July 2022 or earlier and you don’t currently hold any UOB credit cards, you’ll be treated as a new applicant and be eligible for this sign-up bonus.

You will receive a further 5,000 miles, for a total stash of 25,000 bonus miles, as a new first time applicant for KrisFlyer UOB credit card, provided you make a single transaction of at least S$5 (which you will no doubt be doing anyway to trigger the 20,000 miles bonus).

Do note that 5,000 miles bonus element is a once-per-lifetime deal – if you previously held the KrisFlyer UOB credit card but cancelled, you can’t receive this element of the bonus again.

The first year annual fee of S$194.40 for this card is automatically waived, so these bonus miles are effectively “free”, provided you have S$2,000 of spend coming up, making this an ideal time to apply while the deal is uncapped.

How it works

You must apply online and be approved between 1st February 2023 and 30th April 2023, then meet the S$2,000 spend criteria within 60 days of approval, to receive your bonus miles.

Do note that UOB advertises this offer as a ‘31,000 welcome miles’ promotion, because it includes 6,000 miles you would earn meeting the minimum spend wholly within its 3 mpd spend categories!

While that’s probably not realistic anyway, you can also do this at any time of year, so these miles do not form part of the bonus – which is simply 20,000 miles or 25,000 miles, depending on whether you have held this card before.

Remember you will still have to be a fresh UOB principal cardholder (across any of the bank’s credit cards) for at least six months to qualify for the 20,000 miles element too.

Qualifying spend

Once your card is approved, the S$2,000 spend in order to trigger the 20,000 miles bonus can be made both in-store and online in SGD or FCY, but must fall outside excluded categories, as outlined in Section 1.6 of the promotion Terms and Conditions document.

Key exclusions to be aware of include:

• Charitable donations
• Education transactions
• Government transactions
• Hospital transactions
• Insurance premiums
• Utility bills

When do the bonus miles credit?

The 5,000 welcome miles for new KrisFlyer UOB credit card holders (once-per-lifetime) will be credited directly into your KrisFlyer membership account in the month following your first S$5+ transaction.

The 20,000 bonus miles will be awarded directly into your KrisFlyer account as follows, provided you have met the S$2,000 spend requirement within the first 60 days:

Card approval month	20,000 bonus miles credited by
February 2023	30th June 2023
March 2023	31st July 2023
April 2023	31st August 2023

Once miles are credited to your KrisFlyer account, they are then valid for three years, so if you’re not in a rush for the bonus it may be better to apply in April, to maximise their validity.

Terms and Conditions

Full terms and conditions for the sign-up offer are available here.

This includes the full list of excluded transactions, when considering the S$2,000 minimum spend to trigger the bonus miles.

Recent card tweaks

In November we outlined UOB’s latest update to the terms and conditions for the KrisFlyer UOB credit card, including an uncapped 3 mpd on all Kris+ spend and complimentary KrisShopper ‘Icon’ status (since downgraded to ‘Insider’ status from 1st February 2023).

An uncapped 3 mpd with this card is now available on the following spend:

• Kris+
• KrisShop
• Scoot
• Singapore Airlines
• “Accelerated Miles” categories like dining, food delivery, online shopping, travel and transport

Unfortunately the bank quite sneakily hiked its annual spend requirement with SIA Group partners to unlock the card’s 3 mpd “Accelerated Miles” rate to S$800 per year (excluding Kris+ spend), for those whose card membership year expires from April 2023 onwards.

If you’re not familiar, this card’s “Accelerated Miles” category means a long wait of up to 14 months to actually see the bonus come through:

• 1.2 mpd is awarded initially
• 1.8 mpd is awarded two months after the end of your card membership year, provided you hit S$800+ SIA Group spend.

Hardly “Accelerated”, it couldn’t be much slower!

Our review

We also recently updated our full review of the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card. Be sure to check it out to help you decide whether this card is worthy of a place in your wallet.

If you’re familiar with most UOB sign-up ‘promotions’ – you’ll know that this is a rare opportunity not to worry about the applicant cap! While these promotions usually leave you wondering whether you’ll qualify for at least some of the miles element, this time everyone is eligible, provided you haven’t held a UOB credit card during the last six months.

That means there’s at least 20,000 bonus miles up for grabs for new-to-bank cardholders, with no annual fee in year one and a relatively modest spend requirement of S$2,000 in the first 60 days.

First-time KrisFlyer UOB credit card applicants also benefit from an additional 5,000 miles.

With an uncapped 3 mpd on a range of useful expenses like Kris+ spend, Grab rides, dining and food delivery, the KrisFlyer UOB credit card is definitely one to consider signing up for while this uncapped offer is running.

(Cover Photo: MainlyMiles)