The UOB PRVI Miles cards have been a longstanding miles earning option on the market in Singapore for many years, with reasonable benefits, but this month there’s a welcome refresh for many of the product’s perks, including earn rates, lounge access and the welcome bonus for new applicants.

Here’s a summary of the latest changes, effective from 9th October 2024.

3 mpd on ‘regional’ FCY spend

For some time, the UOB PRVI Miles cards have earned:

• 1.4 mpd for local spend in Singapore Dollars (UNI$3.5 per S$5 spend)
• 2.4 mpd for overseas spend made in foreign currency (UNI$6 per S$5 spend).

Now you’ll be able to earn a new enhanced rate of 3 mpd (UNI$7.5 per S$5 spend) for what the bank calls ‘Regional currency’ spend, which applies to any transactions (i.e. at physical point-of-sale, or online) effected in the following currencies:

• Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)
• Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)
• Thai Baht (THB)
• Vietnamese Dong (VMD)

That’s a 25% hike in the earn rate when transacting in these currencies, and there’s no minimum spend or upper cap in sight.

The UOB PRVI Miles card charges a 3.25% fee for foreign currency transactions, so you’re ‘buying’ miles at 1.14 cents each with this new 3 mpd earn rate in four regional countries, when a 0.3% ‘spread’ over money changer rates is also accounted for.

Other FCY spend with these cards (for example in Australian Dollars, US Dollars or Euros) will continue to earn the usual 2.4 mpd rate.

Do also note that spend made in foreign currency on the PRVI Miles cards with merchants whose payment gateway is in Singapore will not earn at FCY rates, and will instead only net you 1.4 mpd, like other local spend with these cards.

4 complimentary Priority Pass lounge visits per year

One missing benefit of the UOB PRVI Miles cards has always been an airport lounge access perk, a common benefit with cards like this even if only a couple of free visits are thrown in annually, like with the Citi PremierMiles card.

Thankfully that’s now been resolved, with UOB PRVI Miles cardholders entitled to four complimentary lounge visits on the Priority Pass network per calendar year, with immediate effect.

Priority Pass lounge visits can now also be used to redeem dining and spa privileges at a variety of airports, including a generous list across all four terminals at Singapore Changi.

You can register your PRVI Miles card for this lounge access perk at the following link.

  PRVI Miles Priority Pass Registration

After successful registration, you will need to download the Priority Pass App on your mobile phone and login to access your Digital Membership Card. You can then start using your complimentary airport lounge benefit immediately.

If you hold more than one UOB PRVI Miles card, you should register with only one of them. You are entitled to only four complimentary airport lounge visits per calendar year, regardless of the number of principal UOB PRVI Miles cards you hold.

Do note that these complimentary visits are only for the UOB PRVI Miles principal cardholder – there is no guest allowance. Guests will be charged at US$35 per person per lounge visit.

If you use up your four complimentary lounge visits within the calendar year, any subsequent visits for the principal cardholder will also be charged at US$35.

One nice element of this new perk is that it’s based on an annual calendar year allowance, so UOB PRVI Miles cardholders actually have four complimentary visits between now and 31st December 2024, then a fresh four visits are loaded for 2025.

That potentially allows you to actually achieve up to eight complimentary visits over the next 12 months, if you time them appropriately.

46,000 miles guaranteed sign-up bonus

To coincide with these new benefit enhancements, UOB is once again offering a rare uncapped sign-up bonus for its PRVI Miles credit cards, with 46,000 additional miles on offer, for spending S$2,000 per month over the first two months – no questions asked.

Unfortunately that’s double the spend requirement threshold in the most recent offer, which expired on 30th September 2024, but it’s probably still worth considering if you’re new-to-bank.

The offer requires payment of the first year annual fee of S$261.60, but means the opportunity to buy miles for 0.57 cents each, assuming you had S$4,000 of spend coming up over the next couple of months anyway.

APPLY	APPLY	APPLY

If you’re a new UOB credit card holder, simply apply and have your card approved between 9th October 2024 and 31st October 2024 and you’ll get a 46,000 miles bonus, provided you:

• charge at least S$2,000 in eligible transactions per month for two consecutive months from your card approval date, and
• make payment for the card’s annual fee of S$261.60, and
• send an SMS to 77862 using your mobile number which is (or will be) registered with UOB, in the following format:

PMAF [space] Last 4 alphanumeric digits of your NRIC or Passport Number Example: If your NRIC is S1234567A, you will need to send “PMAF 567A” to 77862

You must register to participate via SMS as outlined above by 30th November 2024. We advise to just do it as soon as you receive your card, in case you forget later.

All new cardholders are eligible for this promotion, with no upper participant cap.

You will receive the bonus miles in your account by 28th February 2025. Unfortunately UOB only transfers to KrisFlyer and Asia Miles (and AsiaMiles, which aren’t worth mentioning).

That means provided you cancelled your last UOB credit card on 30th March 2024 or earlier, you’re eligible for the sign-up bonus.

Do note that UOB advertises this sign-up offer as “58,000 miles”, because it includes 12,000 miles you would earn by making all of your S$4,000 spend on regional overseas transactions (at the new 3 mpd rate).

That’s very much a best-case scenario and includes miles you would almost certainly earn with other cards if you made the same spend on those instead. The true bonus is 46,000 miles.

Spend period

The qualifying spend period for your two sets of S$2,000+ transactions in this promotion is defined as two monthly periods from your card approval date.

For example, if your card is approved on 10th October 2024, you will need to fulfil the following spend:

• S$2,000+ between 10th October 2024 and 9th November 2024; and
• S$2,000+ between 10th November 2024 and 9th December 2024

Note that you cannot simply spend S$4,000 in the first week of approval and still receive the bonus, since you would not trigger the spend requirement in the second period. Do be careful with this.

Spend made by your supplementary cardholder(s) will be counted towards the qualifying spend requirement for the principal cardholder.

Terms and Conditions

Updated full terms and conditions for the UOB PRVI Miles cards following the latest benefit enhancements are available here.

Terms and conditions for the 46,000 miles sign-up bonus offer are available here.

The latter includes the full list of excluded transactions, when considering the S$4,000 minimum spend to trigger the bonus miles (see section 1.4 (c)), including education, hospital, insurance and utilities payments.

Our review

You can read our full review of the UOB PRVI Miles cards, detailing all its pre-enhancement perks, to get an idea of the other benefits it has – like 6 mpd on Agoda and Expedia, plus regular bonus offers throughout the year, like 5 mpd on overseas spend for limited periods.

A major factor to note with these cards is that you’ll only earn UNI$ (which convert at a 1:2 ratio into KrisFlyer miles or Asia Miles) for S$5+ spending blocks. Spend S$4.99 and you will walk away empty-handed!

When choosing between the cards, you may wish to note that the PRVI Miles Amex version also boasts 20,000 bonus miles for a S$50k+ annual spend.

We’ll update the review in due course, to reflect the most recent benefit enhancements outlined in this article.

UOB has made some nice enhancements to its PRVI Miles cards, effective from 9th October 2024.

These include an uncapped 3 mpd earn rate on ‘regional’ FCY spend in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, plus four complimentary Priority Pass lounge visits per calendar year.

A lack of free lounge visits in particular was always a big drawback of this card – so it’s great to see that resolved.

A new 46,000 miles guaranteed sign-up bonus is also part of the deal, though the minimum spend requirement has been doubled to S$4,000 in total – S$2,000 per month over the first two months of card membership.

Nonetheless, this is a rare uncapped bonus for the UOB PRVI Miles cards, and is the equivalent of buying KrisFlyer miles or Asia Miles for a very competitive 0.57 cents each.

If you’re not a principal UOB cardholder or haven’t been for the last six months, this is a great time to jump in and benefit from this generous deal, just as the card benefits get enhanced.

(Cover Photo: UOB)