The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa (UOB PPV) has been dealt a mixed hand of changes that will reshape how cardholders need to approach their spend strategy, especially from 1st October 2025. While public transport users now get 4 mpd on SimplyGo transactions, on the flip side the introduction of category sub-limits may be a painful constraint for higher spenders.

This trend towards strict category sub-caps is similar to the changes we saw in recent weeks with the UOB Visa Signature and UOB Lady’s Solitaire cards.

Here’s our rundown of the latest changes for UOB PPV cardholders.

4 mpd for SimplyGo transactions

After years of exclusion, SimplyGo transactions now earn 4 mpd on the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, a change that became effective from 28th August 2025.

This brings MRT and bus rides into the card’s Mobile Contactless category, subject to the category caps in force, both now and those that apply from October 2025 onwards.

Remember that with the UOB PPV card, you’ll only get 4 mpd for mobile contactless payments by waving your mobile device against the Visa payWave reader when tapping on and off for your journey (e.g. Apple Pay / Google Pay).

Tapping the physical card only earns the base 0.4 mpd, so try not to do that!

However, the S$5 spend block concern that has historically deterred cardholders from using UOB cards for public transport shouldn’t be an issue here.

UOB accumulates SimplyGo charges daily but calculates UNI$ based on the full month’s accumulated spend, awarding miles on the 7th day of the following month.

Since the UOB PPV aggregates all SimplyGo spend when computing bonus points, your public transport spend gets rounded down to the nearest S$5 at the end of each calendar month.

For example, a monthly spend of S$183.81 charged to your UOB PPV card will earn 720 miles (S$180 × 4 mpd), credited on the 7th day of the following month.

This makes the UOB PPV one of the few premium cards offering meaningful rewards on public transport – a category often neglected by bonus miles cards until recently.

Category caps get sliced and diced

Here’s where things get complicated. The card’s 4 mpd bonus structure is shifting from a flexible shared cap to rigid category-specific limits.

Starting from 1 October 2025, you can enjoy an increased bonus UNI$ up to UNI$2,160 per calendar month, capped at UNI$1,080 per category

UOB

Here’s a quick recap of the UOB PPV card’s bonus spend categories.

• Mobile Contactless transactions: Waving your mobile device against the Visa payWave reader when making your purchase (e.g. Apple Pay / Google Pay), either in Singapore or overseas. Waving the card itself or making magnetic stripe transactions will not be eligible.
• Online transactions: Online spend, in Singapore or overseas, provided the Merchant Category Code (MCC) of the retailer falls under one of the following (click to expand).

Here’s how the bonus spend cap structure will be changing.

Current Structure
(until 30th September 2025)

• Single shared cap: S$1,110 across both selected Online and Mobile Contactless spend
• Flexibility: Allocate the full cap to either category as desired
• Example 1: Spend S$1,110 via contactless payment and earn 4,440 miles
• Example 2: Spend S$1,110 at selected online merchants and earn 4,440 miles

New Structure
(from 1st October 2025)

• Category 1 (Online Transactions): Capped at S$600 per calendar month
• Category 2 (Mobile Contactless/SimplyGo): Capped at S$600 per calendar month
• Total possible bonus-eligible spend: S$1,200 (up from S$1,110)
• Catch: S$1,200 spend must be split between categories, not concentrated in one

UOB PPV Bonus Miles Earning
Spend Category	Bonus Miles & Spend Cap (28 Aug – 30 Sep 2025)	Bonus Miles & Spend Cap (From 1 Oct 2025)
SimplyGo	4 mpd within Mobile Contactless cap	4 mpd within Mobile Contactless cap
Mobile Contactless	4 mpd up to S$1,110 spend combined monthly cap	4 mpd up to S$600 spend
Online		4 mpd up to S$600 spend

Here are a few examples to help illustrate the change.

UOB PPV Monthly Spend Scenarios
Example spend	Current Miles	New Miles	Impact
S$1,110 contactless	4,440	2,604	1,836
S$1,110 online	4,440	2,604	1,836
S$600 online + S$600 contactless	4,476	4,800	324

Can you be a winner from these card changes? Yes, but only if you’re the type who naturally spends around S$600 in each category monthly – you’ll now get 4 mpd right up to the S$600 level for each and net 4,800 miles per month.

Small spenders usually unaffected by the monthly caps will also benefit from the new SimplyGo bonus.

In reality though, most of our readers are high-contactless spenders with the UOB PPV card, taking advantage of the ability to put S$1,110 into contactless payments – very useful for everyday dining, shopping, and transport. It’s definitely a loss in this case, since the contactless cap is now being slashed by 46% to S$600 per calendar month.

When do these changes take effect?

Since the UOB PPV’s bonus spend caps are calendar-month-based, the timeline for this change is straightforward:

• SimplyGo 4 mpd: Effective from 28th August 2025 for all cardholders
• New category caps: From 1st October 2025 onwards for all cardholders

Note that UOB tracks spend based on posting date, not transaction date. If you make a purchase in late September but it posts in October, it will fall under the new category caps.

UOB has compiled a list of FAQs relating to these changes, which are available here.

Updated terms and conditions for the card can be found here.

Category complexity: Which spend falls where?

The UOB PPV categorises transactions based on merchant category codes (MCCs) and payment method:

UOB PPV Spend Allocation
Transaction Type	Category
Mobile contactless payments	Mobile Contactless
Physical card swipe / insert	Neither (0.4 mpd)
Selected online merchants*	Online
SimplyGo	Mobile Contactless

* Selected Online category includes specific MCCs for department stores, supermarkets, dining, food delivery, entertainment and ticketing, as outlined above.

Miles cards under pressure

This latest change from UOB is part of what’s been a broader trend across the Singapore miles card market lately, with banks increasingly implementing category sub-limits and reducing maximum earn rates.

The era of generous, flexible spend caps appears to be ending, as we’ve seen with changes to the UOB Lady’s Solitaire and UOB Visa Signature cards.

The UOB PPV changes will force most cardholders into more complex miles optimisation strategies. Rather than the simple “spend S$1,110 contactless and earn 4,440 miles” approach, you’ll now have to balance spend across categories while monitoring two separate caps, or just live with a single category S$600 cap – hardly the most generous.

Compounding the issue, UOB doesn’t offer tools to track these sub-caps in real-time, requiring manual monitoring of transactions.

It’s not all bad news though – with Maybank launching its XL Rewards Card recently, offering an impressive 4 mpd on dining, shopping, travel, and FCY transactions – capped at S$1,000 spend per month.

The catch? That one’s only available if you’re under 40!

UOB once again markets these changes as enhancements – adding SimplyGo to the 4 mpd list and increasing total caps – but the reality is more sobering. The flexibility that made the UOB PPV attractive to contactless spenders has been sacrificed for rigid category structures that will benefit fewer cardholders.

The 4,800 maximum monthly miles sounds impressive compared to the current 4,440 miles, but achieving this requires precise spend across both categories – more difficult than under the current shared-cap approach.

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)