KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card now lets you buy unlimited miles for 2.1 cents

UOB has a longstanding option if you hold selected credit cards in Singapore to use its Payment Facility and generate unlimited miles through your card, on payment of an administrative fee, “no questions asked”.

While this option has been available to those holding the bank’s Reserve, Privilege Banking, Visa Infinite and PRVI Miles cards for some time, there’s now a new option in the form of the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card, which also has a rare uncapped 25,000 miles sign-up bonus running between now and the end of April.

What is the UOB Payment Facility?

The UOB Payment Facility is designed to allow you to use your credit card to pay bills like income tax or property tax, where credit card payment wouldn’t normally be available, and earn some extra points in the process.

In reality though, it can be used to pay for just about anything you like. That’s because UOB won’t be making the payment directly to the beneficiary, but directly to your bank account. What you then do with the money is up to you (they don’t even ask!).

New (increased) rates apply

Unfortunately since 1st February 2023, UOB hiked the regular admin fee for its Payment Facility service, as we reported last month, making it a less enticing deal compared to other payment providers, with the last remaining benefit being that you don’t actually have to have a payment to make in order to generate miles.

This may still make it worth considering for a small top-up to help you cross a specific redemption threshold you need for an award ticket.

There’s currently an ongoing deal with a 0.2% fee reduction across all eligible cards between now and the end of March 2023, including for the recently added KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card option.

UOB Payment Facility Fee Changes
Now – 31st March 2023
(one-time payment)

Card	Discounted Fee Till 31 Mar	Cost per Mile
UOB Reserve	1.9% 1.7%	1.9 cents 1.7 cents
UOB Privilege Banking	2.2% 2.0%	2.2 cents 2.0 cents
UOB Visa Infinite UOB Visa Infinite Metal	2.2% 2.0%	2.2 cents 2.0 cents
UOB PRVI Miles (Visa / MC / Amex)	2.3% 2.1%	2.3 cents 2.1 cents
KrisFlyer UOB	2.3% 2.1%	2.3 cents 2.1 cents

As you can see the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card has the same regular fee for the Payment Facility as the UOB PRVI Miles cards at 2.3%, which is currently discounted to 2.1% until 31st March 2023.

That means ‘buying’ miles for 2.1 cents each, which is over the odds for anything other than a small top-up.

Using CardUp to make bill payments and other expenses with your KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card allows you to generate miles for 1.83 cents each at the ongoing fee of 2.25% (but with a 1.2 mpd earn rate), which is a cheaper option but does require you to actually have a bill to pay (and prove so).

UOB Reserve cardholders are really the only ones that still get a decent deal here, with a discounted 1.7% fee for the Payment Facility using that card during this promotion allowing you to generate miles for 1.7 cents each.

How UOB rounds points and miles

UOB awards you with UNI$2.5 for every S$5 of the approved amount charged, when using cards listed above except the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card.

That’s equivalent to 5 miles per S$5 (1 mpd), but be careful. Unlike the usual S$5 rounding blocks we’re used to sticking to with UOB cards, it’s more optimal to make these payment requests in S$10 denominations in this case, because UNI$2.5 (for a S$5 block) will round down to UNI$2.

UNI$5 (for a S$10 block), however, will remain intact (no round-down).

Since the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card earns KrisFlyer miles directly, not UNI$, you will instead be awarded with 5 KrisFlyer miles for every SS$5 of the approved amount charged to the Card account.

In this case, you can therefore stick to making payment facility requests in S$5 denominations and still get the ‘advertised’ 1 mpd.

KrisFlyer miles earned this way will be calculated at the end of each calendar month and will be automatically credited to your KrisFlyer membership account that is linked to your card, in the same way miles are credited for your regular KF UOB CC spend.

Full terms and conditions for the latest promotion through 31st March 2023 are available here.

The UNI$ / KrisFlyer miles accrual and rounding policy are available in the updated regular UOB Payment Facility T&Cs here.

The top-up option

While the headline rate isn’t great, UOB’s Payment Facility can be a good way of topping up your miles to achieve a redemption if you’re close but not quite there.

For example, let’s say you’re looking to book a Saver Business Class KrisFlyer award seat from Singapore to Sydney (68,500 miles), but you only have 67,500 miles in your account with no other short-term top-up plans.

Asking UOB for a $1,000 payment through the Payment Facility will cost you $21 with this offer using your KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card, but generates the extra 1,000 miles required to redeem the award.

KrisFlyer will sell you the extra 1,000 miles you need, but will charge US$40 (~S$53) for this.

The downside is that you will have to wait for the regular monthly automated transfer from your KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card to see the miles in your KF account, and there is no way to expedite those.

Consider Kris+ for smaller top-ups

You can also consider a purchase via Kris+ to increase your miles balance using the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card for a short-term boost, now that it earns 3 mpd on all Kris+ purchases in addition to the instant KrisPay Miles, which you can transfer immediately into your KrisFlyer account.

For example, a S$1,000 purchase at Challenger using the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card for in-app payment via Kris+ will earn you:

• 3,000 KrisFlyer miles instantly via Kris+ (3 mpd merchant)
• 3,000 KrisFlyer miles by the following month from UOB’s regular transfer into your KrisFlyer account
• 6,000 miles total

With Kris+ now offering an extensive range of earning merchants across Singapore, it’s difficult to envisage a situation where you would actually need to resort to the UOB Payment Facility to make a small miles top-up to your account at 2.1 cents each.

Our review

We recently updated our full review of the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card. While this addition of the Payment Facility option isn’t likely to sway your decision much, be sure to check it out to help you decide whether this card is worthy of a place in your wallet for its other benefits.

Since the February 2023 fee hike, UOB’s Payment Facility option has become an unattractively expensive way to generate miles, given the alternatives available.

Nonetheless, KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card holders can now take advantage if they wish, and there’s a promotional 2.1% fee offer ongoing until 31st March 2023, though that still means ‘buying’ miles at 2.1 cents each.

The primary benefit of the UOB Payment Facility is when you’re just looking to top up your miles balance to achieve a specific redemption, but can’t wait to hit that through your normal spending.

UOB doesn’t ask you to prove you have an expense to pay, like CardUp does, so if you’re only short by a few miles, even a 2.1% fee is probably justifiable. In cases like that, this “no questions asked” option can still save the day in the top-up scenario, but remember there are other options to consider too, like Kris+.

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)