If you’re holding a UOB miles-earning credit card in Singapore, there’s some bad news – you’ll soon pay slightly more to convert your UNI$ rewards points into frequent flyer miles, with the bank increasing its transfer fee from S$25 to S$27 per transaction.

The new S$27 fee applies for conversions to KrisFlyer and Asia Miles made on or after 15th December 2025, giving you one more week to lock in the current S$25 rate, potentially making this a good time to press the button if you’ve been contemplating a transfer.

Each transfer [to your] designated airline’s frequent flyer programme is subject to a S$25 conversion fee.

With effect from 15 December 2025, the conversion fee will be revised to S$27.

UOB

Whilst a S$2 hike might not sound like much, every bit counts when you’re maximising miles value – and if you were planning a conversion anyway, it may be a good reason to do it before the deadline.

Fee waiver still applies to premium cards

The good news is that holders of UOB’s premium cards will continue to benefit from complimentary miles conversions, with no fee charged regardless of this increase.

The following cards retain their fee waiver:

• UOB Visa Infinite Card
• UOB Visa Infinite Metal Card
• UOB Privilege Banking Card
• UOB Reserve Card
• UOB Reserve Diamond Card

If you hold one of these cards, the fee change won’t affect you at all.

Better yet, since UNI$ points pool across your UOB cards, you’ll benefit from free conversions on points earned through any of your UOB cards – not just the premium one.

Should you convert now?

If you’re holding a standard UOB card and have been sitting on a stash of UNI$ points you intend to convert soon, it might seem sensible to pull the trigger before 15th December to save the extra S$2.

However, there’s an important consideration: miles validity.

UOB is one of the more restrictive banks in Singapore when it comes to miles transfer options, with only Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles programmes of any true value (the less said about AirAsia Rewards the better!).

KrisFlyer miles expire three years after crediting to your account (specifically, at the end of the same month three years later).

Converting now means the three-year validity clock starts ticking immediately – and if you weren’t planning to convert until well into 2026 anyway, saving S$2 may not be worthwhile given the additional validity you’ll gain by converting later.

Asia Miles operates on a simpler activity-based validity policy: earn or redeem once every 18 months and your entire balance validity is ‘recharged’ – including a points transfer from UOB.

This makes the timing decision slightly less critical for Asia Miles conversions, especially since a simple 100 miles carbon offset donation is all it takes to ‘reset the clock’ one every 18 months.

That said, if your UNI$ points are expiring this month (December 2025), it’s best to transfer by 14th December to benefit from the lower S$25 fee whilst rescuing those points, regardless of which programme you intend to transfer to.

Transfers from UOB UNI$ to KrisFlyer miles usually take around 48 hours.

Convert in bulk to maximise value

UOB’s UNI$ convert to both KrisFlyer miles and Asia Miles in block sizes of UNI$5,000 (for 10,000 miles in each case), with the minimum transfer being UNI$5,000.

One thing worth remembering though – you’ll pay the same S$25 (soon S$27) fee regardless of how many UNI$ points you’re converting.

Whether you’re transferring 10,000 points or 500,000 points, the fee is identical.

This means it’s always more cost-effective to make large, lump-sum conversions rather than multiple smaller ones. If you’re converting regularly in small batches, you’re essentially paying a higher percentage fee each time.

Auto-conversion programme unchanged

There’s no change to UOB’s KrisFlyer auto-conversion programme, which automatically converts UNI$ to KrisFlyer miles at the end of each month for an annual fee of S$50, in blocks of UNI$2,500 to 5,000 miles (50% of the minimum manual transfer block size).

However, most of our readers avoid this option because it starts the three-year expiry clock ticking immediately each month – defeating one of the key advantages of holding points in your UNI$ account for as long as possible, where they don’t expire for two years after the end of each earning quarter.

You also must retain a minimum of UNI$15,000 (30,000 miles) in your rewards account if you opt for the auto-conversion programme – this ‘base’ level will never be converted to miles, which is quite a significant commitment.

It means you’ll need at least UNI$17,500 in your rewards account before any transfer will take place – with only UNI$2,500 actually being converted in this example.

Another downside – the auto-conversion programme also effectively commits you to KrisFlyer miles transfers, there’s no option to credit to Asia Miles one month if you feel like it!

How UOB compares to other banks

While you may disagree with banks’ points-to-miles transfer charges – effectively a ‘junk’ fee that bears little resemblance to any costs incurred – one good thing about UOB’s is that it isn’t actually the worst on the market, even after this S$2 hike takes effect.

Here’s how these fees look for all nine banks in Singapore.

Singapore Bank to Miles Conversion fees
Bank		Fee
	Amex Membership Rewards	Free
	HSBC Reward points	Free
	OCBC OCBC$ | Travel$ | VOYAGE Miles	S$25.00
	UOB UNI$	S$25.00 (till 14 Dec)^ S$27.00 (from 15 Dec)^
	Citi ThankYou Points | Miles	S$27.25
	DBS Points	S$27.25^^
	Maybank TREATS Points	S$27.25
	Standard Chartered 360° rewards points	S$27.25
	BOC Bonus Points	S$30.56*

^ Free for UOB Visa Infinite, Visa Infinite Metal, and Reserve cardholders, across all UNI$ held
^^ Free for DBS Insignia cardholders, across all DBS Points held
* BOC charges this fee for each points-to-miles transfers of up to 10 transfer blocks (100,000 KrisFlyer miles or 60,000 Asia Miles).

As you can see, you’re still forking out more for transfers from Citi, DBS, Maybank, Standard Chartered and BOC.

However, Amex and HSBC offer completely fee-free transfers.

Note that points earned on Singapore Airlines co-brand credit cards are automatically credited directly into your KrisFlyer account on a monthly basis, without any fee payable.

From 15th December 2025, it’ll cost you S$27 instead of S$25 to convert UOB UNI$ points to frequent flyer miles, and while that’s a modest 8% increase it still leaves you a narrow window to lock in transfers at the current rate.

Convert strategically based on your points validity, actual travel plans and potential redemption timeline, rather than making decisions purely to dodge this small fee hike.

For most cardholders, the additional miles validity you’ll gain by converting later in 2026, for example, will outweigh the S$2 saving – unless you genuinely need those miles in your frequent flyer account soon, or your UNI$ points are about to expire.

While this is admittedly a ‘junk’ fee from the banks, bearing little relation to its own costs when transferring your points to miles, even after the hike UOB remains one of the cheaper options in the market.

(Cover Photo: UOB)