My current obsession is earning Krisflyer miles. I have always preferred credit cards that give me miles over cash back, but never spent time trying to maximise it until recently.
Did you know the payment of school fees are not considered eligible transactions for most credit cards? When my husband told me about it, I realised we were losing out on a ton of miles when we pay the school fees for our 2 little ones. This started me on my current obsession to earn as many miles as we can based on our existing expenditures.
Here is how we do it:
| Card | Earn rate (mpd) | Notes |
 Krisflyer Ascend Credit Card | 1.2 miles per dollar for local spend 2 miles per dollar for foreign currency transactions | Good for paying school fees as most other cards do not allow you to earn miles for paying to educational institutions. If you use this for recurring bill payments of a telecommunications service provider that is a participating merchant, you get an additional 500 miles after making the first payment. |
 DBS Woman’s World Credit Card | 4 miles per dollar for online transactions up to S$2,000 | Good for all online shopping transactions as well as Grab and Gojek. The 4 mpd only applies to the first $2,000 each month. For amounts above $2,000, I use the Citibank Premier Miles because the miles do not expire. Note: (i) The miles expire after 1 year; and (ii) Men are also eligible for this card. |
 UOB Krisflyer Credit Card | 3 miles per dollar for local dining and online transactions | My husband uses this for online transactions and dining. I add it to my Apple Pay for Kris+ payments so he gets miles for dining and I get miles on Kris+. Note: There is a minimum annual spend requirement of S$500 for SIA or KrisShop. |
 Citibank Premier Miles | 2 miles per dollar for foreign currency transactions 1.2 mpd for local transactions | Good for all other types of transactions. |
 Kris+ App | Up to 9 miles per dollar when paying through Apple Pay on the App | Good if you are already spending at their participating merchants. Be sure to transfer the miles to your Krisflyer account within 7 days of earning. I usually do it immediately as the transfer is free. I also make restaurant reservations through Makan+ in the Kris+ app which gives me 100 miles for every reservation. If you sign up with my referral code: O085607, we will each get SGD 5 worth of KrisPay miles. |
I used to think this was a lot of work, having to keep track of which credit card to use for what transactions, so I put all my expenses on 1 card only. The realisation that we were not getting miles on education expenses was a turning point especially now when we need miles for our family of 4.
Hope this was useful to you. If you have any questions or better ways of earning miles, drop me a comment and we can learn from each other.
