UOB Preferred Platinum Visa Card review: Don't underestimate this unassuming card

UOB Preferred Platinum Card
Annual fee & waiver	$192.60 (waived for one year)
Supplementary annual fee	First supp card free. Subsequently $96.30 (waived for 1 year)
Interest free period	21 days
Annual interest rate	26.9 per cent
Late payment fee	$100
Minimum monthly repayment	3 per cent or $50, whichever is higher
Foreign currency transaction fee	3.25 per cent
Cash advance transaction fee	8 per cent
Overlimit fee	$40
Minimum income	$30,000 (Singaporean) / $40,000 (non-Singaporean)
Card association	Visa
Wireless payment	Visa payWave, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, Mighty Pay

How the UOB Preferred Platinum Card works

The UOB Preferred Platinum Visa card is one of the best credit cards for Singaporeans to get air miles (or other rewards) fast on their daily spending, even if you don't travel much.

As a 10X rewards card, it has an extremely good bonus earn rate of $1 = 4 miles on certain types of local expenditure. In comparison, most air miles cards offer only $1 = 1.2 miles, or at most 1.4 miles, on local spending.

Not every kind of local expense is covered, but the range of categories is very wide. It includes day-to-day online spending — online shopping, groceries, food deliveries, entertainment, app purchases, etc. but not travel-related spending.

Offline, you can also get the same high earn rate when you use it at any merchant that accepts contactless payment like Visa payWave, such as supermarkets, restaurants, cinemas and mainstream retailers.

There's an expenditure cap of $1,000 a month for online and contactless transactions. After which, you will only be awarded UNI$1 for every $5 spent.

You can also earn get cash rebates at various offline merchants under the UOB$ Rebate Programme, previously known as the UOB SMART$ Rebate Programme. The catch, however, is that you can't earn rewards points at the same time, so look out for that. It definitely seems more worthwhile to earn miles/points rather than 10 per cent cashback.

UOB Preferred Platinum Card promotions

Be one of the first 200 UOB customers to sign up, activate your card, and spend a minimum of $1,500 within 30 days between May and June 2022 to win $250 in Grab vouchers!

There's also an $8 off a minimum purchase of $16 on Shopee with the promo code UOB8NEW valid till December 31, 2022 for new customers. For existing users, you can get $8 off Shopee Supermarket with a minimum spend of $80. Limited redemptions are available till December 31, 2022 on a first come first serve basis.

Who should use the UOB Preferred Platinum Card?

The UOB PP Card is ideal for the average Singaporean who spends modestly.

That's because earning miles from a traditional air miles credit card is going to be excruciatingly slow if you (a) mainly spend money in Singapore and (b) don't spend a ton of money every month.

With a rather pathetic earn rate like 1.2 miles per dollar locally, almost every air miles card will lose out to the UOB PP's 4 miles per dollar if you plan to use your card mainly on day-to-day spending.

The UOB Preferred Platinum lets you rack up the miles much more quickly and easily, thanks to the wide range of categories in which you can get bonus points.

It's definitely not for big spenders, who will find the expenditure cap of $1,000 a month rather restrictive.

On the other hand, you also cannot be too frugal with this credit card because UOB's miles expire within 2 years. You don't want to be disappointed at the end of those 2 years when you realise you only have enough points for a $10 Famous Amos voucher.

Alternatives to the UOB Preferred Platinum Card

There are a few others giving the UOB Preferred Platinum Card a run for its money. Let's see how they stack up:

DBS Woman's World Card — If your income is high enough ($80,000 p.a.) to qualify for this credit card, the DBS Woman's World is actually better for online spending. That's because you get 10X rewards (4 miles per dollar) on an even wider range of online spending, including travel.

The DBS Woman's World is very strong because it includes travel and has a higher expenditure cap, but then it's out of reach for many ordinary Singaporeans. Don't be fooled by the name, men can sign up too.

OCBC Titanium Rewards Card — Another 10X credit card (4 miles) for various kinds of online spending, albeit fewer categories than the DBS Woman's World and UOB Preferred Platinum — fashion, electronics, kidswear, department stores and personal care.

There's no monthly cap, just an annual cap of $12,000. If you have big expenses coming up, like a home makeover, consider using the OCBC Titanium to earn points as the annual cap gives you more to play with.

HSBC Revolution Credit Card — This credit card also gives you 10X rewards ($1 = 4 miles) and you can earn it on the widest range of online spending categories (even insurance premiums), offline dining and entertainment. Best of all, there's no cap so you don't have to monitor your spending. Plus no yearly fee charges for the card.

But despite the competition, the UOB Preferred Platinum remains hard to beat in terms of earn rate, versatility and accessibility.

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