The Best Credit Cards in Singapore

Update: New cardholders need to spend at least S$800 per year with Singapore Airlines and KrisShop to earn enhanced rewards on the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card. This requirement was S$500 per year previously.

The Bottom Line

Big spenders can improve their cashback & rewards a lot by using multiple cards. Here we recommend a few card combos that supercharge your cashbacks without needing you to track every dollar you spend.

Table 1: All our recommendations

Make sure you can comfortably meet the minimum spend requirement on every card, since your cashback collapses if you don’t.

Everything we recommend

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Who this is for

If you comfortably spend more than S$2,000 on your credit cards every month, strategically using more than one credit card can increase the value of your cashback and rewards by hundreds of dollars a year, if not more.

That’s because on many cashback cards you need to spend S$600-800 a month in order to get the best deals. If you split a monthly spend of less than $2,000 across more than one card, you may often miss the minimum spend on one or more cards and get much lower cashback than you would if you put everything on a single card.

Now, we have friends who have raised maximizing credit card rewards to an art form. However not everyone wants put so much effort tracking deals, discounts, reward caps and spending categories.

If that’s you, this article recommends a few cards that can work well together and will supercharge your rewards without a lot of micromanaging.

Of course, if you don’t want the hassle of juggling multiple credit cards and credit cards bills, our guides on the best cashback and rewards cards have the answer for you: Maybank Family & Friends (Maybank F&F) is the best single credit card in Singapore if you spend less than S$5,000 a month and KrisFlyer UOB is the best single credit card if you spend more than S$5,000.

How we picked

Managing multiple credit cards requires some effort. At a minimum, you need to:

• Sign up for the card
• set up the monthly credit card bill payments (monthly effort or one-time depending on the banks involved)
• Review your statement periodically
• Remember to claim the reward (in some cases)
• Remember to get the annual fee waived (in many cases)

More work is also required to figure out which card to use where and possibly change the setup on various sites and apps to use a different card.

So while adding more and more cards to the mix can keep increasing the potential benefits (at least for high spenders), we think most people would want to manage another card only if the additional benefit is meaningful and the additional mental load low.

With that in mind we decided to identify sets of 2 and 3 credit cards that will work well together for most people i.e. so that you can easily remember which card to use where, meet the minimum spend & other conditions and not lose track of all the admin stuff like paying the bill and getting annual fee waived.

To choose these cards, we created 5 spending profiles for different types of consumers and used those to estimate the potential cashback or reward that you could earn with each card. We simulated the rewards for these spending profiles for nearly 60 credit cards offered by different banks.

We then tested out various combinations of cards at each spending level to see which combination led to the best rewards. See our guides on the best cashback and rewards cards for more details.

We think most people do not want to obsessively track their spend by card and category on a daily basis. So we have tried to avoid a situation where you need to switch from one card to other based on how much you have spent on it during the month, in total or for a specific category. That’s too much work for most people.

We only added a card to the mix if it improved the monthly cashback / reward value by at least S$20-30 a month or more than about $250 a year.

It is certainly possible to earn more cashback than our recommendations below but we have tried to hit the sweet spot of maximum reward with minimum effort.

How to use this guide

First look through your existing credit card statements to figure out how much you spend each month in total. Then look for the section below for a monthly spending range that fits your pattern. The table in each of these sections shows the best cards for that spending range.

Next, look at the column “Suggested Spend Categories” for the types of spend we suggest putting on each card.

For instance in Table 2 below, for people spending up to S$2,000 a month, we suggest using Maybank F & F card for Groceries, Dining & Food Delivery, Transport etc. and using one of the other two cards for mobile contactless and online spend, with examples of the apps and stores that means.

If you do get these cards, you should set up all your apps and other automatic payments to use the suggested cards. In this case that means setting up RedMart, Grab, Deliveroo, Shein etc. to use the Maybank F&F while setting up Shopee, Qoo10, Apple Store etc. to use the Frank by OCBC. This is a one time set up.

You will also need to remind yourself to use the Maybank F & F card at Fairprice, Cold Storage etc and in restaurants while using the Frank card for other stores when you tap your phone to pay.

This way you maximize the possibility of hitting the minimum monthly spend on each card and also get the most cashback.

The Best Card to Spend <S$2,000 per month

The Maybank F & F card, which is our pick as the best single cashback credit card, also works well as your only credit card if you spend less than about S$2,000 a month on your credit cards.You can easily earn S$50-100 in cashback a month with this card.

As mentioned above, at this level of spend you may not want to use multiple cards because you run the risk of missing the minimum monthly spend on some of the cards and missing out on the higher reward or cashback rates.

If you feel you can manage to meet the minimum spends on 2 cards, we recommend Frank by OCBC as the second card, to be used as suggested in Table 2.

The Best Card Pair to Spend S$2,000-4,000 per month

We recommend getting Maybank F & F and Frank by OCBC (Frank) if you spend S$2,000-4,000 a month on your credit cards.

The Maybank F & F lets you choose 5 preferred spending categories out of 10 options, to earn 8% cashback on, with a minimum monthly spend of S$800. The cashbacks are capped at $25 a month, meaning you need to spend about $300 a month in each category to maximize cash back.

Looking at the 10 options, we think most people should comfortably be able to find at least 3 or 4 categories where they regularly spend $300 a month e.g. Groceries, Dining & Food Delivery, Transport etc. Finding the 5th category with that much monthly spend may be a struggle for some but even without that you can earn $75-100 a month in cashback, making the F&F a solid first credit card.

Frank by OCBC offers 6% discount on online and mobile contactless spend, with a cap of $25 on each of those categorie and a minimum monthly spend of S$600.

Both these categories are not really covered by the Maybank F&F and so using Frank could easily add another S$30-50 in cashback every month.

UOB EVOL could also work well here as well since it offers 8% cashback on the same two categories as Frank – online and mobile contactless. However, it has a lower category cap of S$20 per month. Because of this we chose Frank.

Table 2: Recommended Cards for monthly spend of S$2,000-4,000

If you are lucky enough to find more than 5 categories among the Maybank F & Fs 10 options, where you spend S$300+ every month, then Citi Cash Back Card (which is different from Citi Cash Back+ Card) would be an even better second card.

Citi Cash Back card offers 6% cashback on dining and 8% cashback on groceries with a monthly cap of S$80 and monthly minimum spend of S$800.

In this case you could use the Maybank F & F for categories other than Dining & Groceries and use Citi Cash Back for these two, for an additional S$40-80 cashback each month.

If you have a large monthly spend in one of these categories, say $800 a month in groceries, it may even work to use Citi Cash Back only for that category and use the Maybank F&F for the other one.

Taking the Citi Cash Back card as your second card only makes sense if you can find more than 5 categories to earn the maximum cashback with the Maybank F&F.

This is because otherwise you  give up the S$25 or S$50 cashback with Maybank F & F when you shift your grocery and dining spend to Citi Cash Back. In that case you only earn maybe S$15-20 extra per month by using two cards, which may not be worth the effort of an extra card.

The Citi Cash Back card could also work well as a second card if you drive and fill up your vehicle at Esso or Shell, as it offers 20.88% effective discount on fuel and gives you access to the widest network of pumps in Singapore.

Table 3: Alt. Recommendation for monthly spend of S$2,000-4,000

In all cases, its important to ensure that you meet the minimum spend on each card every month, since otherwise the cashback rate drops precipitously to 0.3% only on most cards.

The Best Card Pair to Spend S$4,000-6,500 per month

We recommend getting Citi Cash Back and KrisFlyer UOB credit cards, if your monthly credit card spend ranges between S$4,000-6,500.

The Citi Cash Back card gives 8% cashback on groceries and 6% on dining and food delivery, with a cap of S$80. With those high cashback rates, you should get nearly the maximum cashback as long as you cross the monthly minimum spend of S$800 between those two categories.

Use KrisFlyer UOB for every other item for an effective rewards rate of 2.60-2.80% with no cap and no minimum spend (other than an annual minimum spend of S$800 at Singapore Airlines or KrisShop).

This combination is easy to implement and should earn you between S$140-220 a month in cashback and miles. KrisFlyer UOB is one of the few rewards cards that does not charge any fee to transfer your miles to the airline so they can be redeemed for flights and other benefits.

Table 4: Recommended Cards for monthly spend of S$4,000-6,500

The Best Cards to Spend S$6,500 – 10,000+ per month

If you spend betweenS$6,500 – 10,000 a month on your cards, we still recommend the Citi Cash Back and KrisFlyer UOB credit cards.

In this case, if your spend on dining or groceries is large enough, you may want to use Citi Cash Back only for that category and use KrisFlyer UOB for everything else. Citi Cash Back caps monthly cashback at S$80, so any additional spending beyond S$1,000 – 1,200 on those two categories will not earn you more.

In this scenario, your total monthly cashback + rewards should range between S$220-340 a month.

Table 5: Recommended Cards for monthly spend of S$6,500-10,000+

If you travel frequently, adding the UOB Visa Signature card to the two above may also make sense. It offers an effective reward of 5.6% on all overseas and local contactless spend but requires a minimum spend of S$1,000 a month in each category for the high payout.

If you can manage that, this set of cards can boost you montly rewards to between S$260-380.

Table 6: Alternate Recommendation for monthly spend of S$6,500-10,000

Don’t fly SQ?

If bulk of your travel happens on an airline other than Singapore Airlines, the KrisFlyer UOB card may not work for you. It requires a minimum spend of S$800 in a year with Singapore Airlines or KrisFlyer and offers the best rewards for spend with Singapore Airlines.

If instead you travel on Emirates, Lufthansa, Cathay, Qantas etc. you should consider the UOB PRVI credit card. It offers rewards equivalent to 8.4% on these (and many others, but not Singapore Airlines) airlines. It also offers a similar reward for your hotel booking, as long as they are made via a few UOB partner websites.

The UOB PRVI card offers rewards equivalent to a 1.96% cashback for all your spend vs. only 1.68% that KrisFlyer UOB does. For spend between S$6,500-10,000, you can earn nearly identical rewards with a combination of Citi Cash Back and UOB PRVI as you can with Citi Cash Back and KrisFlyer UOB.

It was not our first choice because it does not offer special rewards at Singapore Airlines and has a very small list of sites for travel bookings to be eligible for the high reward. It also has a slightly higher annual fee and requires an annual spend of S$50,000+ for the fee waiver. It is also an American Express credit card, which may not be accepted by a few merchants.

Table 7: Monthly spend of S$6,500-10,000 & Don’t fly SQ

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