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Here Are The Best Credit Cards For Your Lifestyle Needs With The Highest Cash Rebates, Air Miles, Dining Deals, Fuel Discounts, And More.

Owning a credit card is something that most Singaporeans have for its benefits, but how do you know that you are getting the most bang for your buck with that movie deal or that buffet dinner? With the plethora of credit cards in the market, finding a suitable credit card for your lifestyle needs may be daunting. Therefore, we have rounded up the best credit cards for you, which offers the best deals for your lifestyle, so you do not need to do it. So, get the most out of your travels, shopping, entertainment and more, with this guide.

Psst! Even if you already own a credit card, you can consider signing up for another one! Promotions varies from company to company, and you may score a deal with another card!

Cards selected was chosen from SingSaver’s comparison tool. Here are the top 7 credit cards for your different lifestyle needs.

1) For The Gourmand, Shopaholic and Movie Buff

Upsize your rewards with the Standard Chartered Rewards+ Credit Card for overseas and Singapore use. With 10X reward points for every $1 spent in foreign currency transactions, 5X reward points for every $1 spent on local dining, and 1 reward point for all other spending. These accumulated points can be converted to cash rebates or even flight miles. Besides reward points, the Standard Chartered Rewards+ also offers 1-for-1 Platinum Movie Suites Tickets with Cathay Cineplexes and exclusive dining privileges of up to 50% off at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore and The Fullerton Bay Hotel. Now, you can impress your date while you save! For those who use their cards for Grab rides in Singapore and overseas before 31 December 2018, you can also enjoy up to 15% off on your Grab booking.

Application Benefits: $100 cash back for new customers and $20 cash back for existing customers. This promotion ends 31 Jan 2019.

SingSaver Bonus Benefit: Additional $50 cash for new customers and $20 cash for existing customers. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For more information: Click Here

2) For The Travel Enthusiast

If you travel frequently, Citibank’s PremierMiles Visa Card would tickle your fancy. Earn 1.2 Citi miles per $1 local spend whereby 1 Citi miles = 1 mile with Krisflyer, Asia Miles, etc. Double up your earned miles overseas with foreign currency spent on retail purchases with Citibank’s current promotion from 10 October – 31 December 2018. Besides earning miles for your next flight, hotels, rewards or cash rebate, the PremierMiles Visa Card also offers complimentary access to over 600 airport VIP lounges twice a year with Personalised Priority Pass membership card. Also, receive complimentary Travel Accident Insurance on your travels.

Application Benefits: Get 30,000 bonus miles with annual fee payment + spend a min. of $7,500 within the first 3 months for new applications. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefit: Additional $200 NTUC/Takashimaya/Grab vouchers for new customers and $50 NTUC vouchers cash for existing customers. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For more information: Click Here

For those who love travelling luxuriously, specifically on Singapore Airlines, apply for the AMEX Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend Card and pamper yourself with great savings. Enjoy one night complimentary stay at any of the 101 Hilton Properties in Asia Pacific, and four complimentary lounge access passes to any participating SATS Premier and Plaza Lounge every year. Also, if you spend S$10,000 within 3 months of your card approval, you can receive 43,000 KrisFlyer Miles! Enough to redeem an Economy Class ticket to Maldives!!!!!!

Application Benefits: Get 5,000 miles upon first spend and S$10,000 within 3 months of card approval and receive 26,000 bonus miles + 12,000 on 1.2 earn rate. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefit: Additional $150 cash for both new and existing customer. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For more information: Click Here

3) For The Economical Singaporean

For savings on your daily expenditures such as groceries, bills, fast food, movies and more, enjoy up to 5% savings on Citibank’s SMRT Card with a minimum monthly spend of $300. Do your grocery shopping at FairPrice Xtra Kallang Wave and get 7.3% savings! Also doubling up as a transportation card, manually topping up your EZ-Link card is no longer necessary as the card offers an EZ-Reload feature with 2% savings with each top up. All accumulated savings go to SMART$ points, which can be redeemed for cash rebates, rides and shopping vouchers. You can earn a maximum of SMRT$600 annually.

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefit: Additional $200 NTUC/Takashimaya/Grab vouchers for new customers and $50 NTUC vouchers cash for existing customers. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For More Information: Click Here

For those who drive, apply for Citibank’s Cash Back Visa Card and enjoy fuel savings of up to 20.88% at Esso and Shell. This cash back card also offers 8% cash back on Grab, dining, groceries and fuel worldwide. Cash back is capped at S$25 per category per statement month, with a minimum spend of $888 per month.

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefit: Additional $200 NTUC/Takashimaya/Grab vouchers for new customers and $50 NTUC vouchers cash for existing customers. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For More Information: Click Here

4) For That Big Ticket Purchase

Those who wish to get more discounts on your expensive purchases can also apply for the HSBC Advance Card. Receive 2.5% cash back for expenditures more than $2000 a month, or 1.5% for spending below $2000. If you are a HSBC Advance banking customer, you will gain an additional 1% cash back too! Cash back is capped at $70 per calendar month, or $125 per calendar month if you are a HSBC Advance banking customer. So if you are eyeing that new iPhone or that computer, it may now be the right time to buy it. *wink

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefit: $150 cashback for new customers and $100 cashback
for existing customers, upon $600 spend in first 30 days. This promotion
ends 31 Oct 2018.

For more information: Click Here

If you are an extravagant spender and the Advance Card does not fulfil your needs due to its cap, consider the AMEX True Cashback Card. At 1.5% cash back with no cap and no minimum spend, receive greater cash back for your purchases if you spend above $4,667.

Application Benefits: 3% cashback on up to a total of S$5,000 spend for the first 6 months for both new and existing customer. This promotion ends 31 Dec 2018.

SingSaver’s Bonus Benefits: Additional $150 cash for both new and existing customer. This promotion ends 31 Oct 2018.

For more information: Click Here

SingSaver’s Exclusive Bonus Benefits

To enjoy SingSaver’s Bonus Benefits, apply for your cards directly through SingSaver. More information on promotions and cards can also be found on the website! For those who have applied for the cards, do not forget to fill up the gift redemption form to register for SingSaver’s exclusive benefits!

We have provided a table as a summary of the discounts exclusive to SingSaver for the respective banks below.

*All promotions are valid till 31 October 2018 and subjected to T&Cs.

Shopback is rebating you with $10 when you book a movie ticket (no min spend) at Cathay Cineleisure till 31 Sep 16

Want to catch a movie for free?

Well, you can do it almost for free with this trick.

Cathay Cineplexes has collaborated with Shopback to offer you $10 cashback in additional to the usual 2% cashback when you book a movie ticket via the Shopback’s platform. There is no minimum spending requirement which means, you can just purchase a movie ticket and get almost everything back for free.

A 2D movie ticket at Cathay Cineplexes cost:

$9 on weekday (Mon – Thu)
$13 on weekend (Fri – Sun, including PH)

That also means that the cost of a movie ticket to you on weekend is $3 ($13 – $10) or free on weekday (getting the full $9 cashback).

Cathay Shopback

Share this news with your friends and save on BOTH tickets!

Terms & Conditions

From now till 31 September, enjoy extra $10 Cashback when you book your Cathay movie ticket(s) via ShopBack. For new ShopBack account signups created on this page (www.shopback.sg/cathay-special) only. One redemption per account only. All Cashback will collated and credited into individual ShopBack accounts by October 2016. Refer to Cathay merchant page for instructions on how to earn Cashback (www.shopback.sg/cathay).

How to Earn Extra Cash in Singapore

Growing your side-income is way better than thrift. Why? Because there is a limit to how much you can cut from your cost of living, but not how much you can earn. Here’s a quick rundown on how to earn a bit of extra cash on the side:

For “Quick Fix” Cash, Think Service and Not Skills

If you need quick cash (not a long term side income or business), focus on what people immediately around you want. Don’t just fixate on finding something that matches your skills or forte. For example:

Say you are a qualified accountant. Your first impulse, when it comes to making a spot of extra cash, might be to offer accounting services. Or it may be something closely related, such as offering tutoring services for someone trying to pass business accounting.

However, in your fixation on keeping it “skills oriented”, you may miss more immediate opportunities. These opportunities can be as simple as painting someone’s walls for S$500, being a mystery shopper for insurance companies, or even helping to install Windows in a bunch of workstations. Look for simple, one-off things that people around you need all the time.

Invest for Dividends

You don’t need to be a stock market expert to make money with shares. An easy way to generate passive income is to identify shares with high dividend yields, and then buy and hold.

(Some shares provide dividend pay-outs, often every six months.)

A financial advisor can help you identify such shares. Alternatively, you might choose to buy a simple index fund (e.g. the Straits Times Index Fund). There is no trading (having to buy low and sell high) in this approach to stocks, so you will not need to track stocks all day and get stressed out.

Provide Referrals

Many companies pay referrals when you bring in a customer. These companies can range from financial services to even specialist retailers. Think of it as being an unofficial, commissioned salesperson – when you refer someone to the company, and they buy something, you get a small cut of it.

This can also work in business to business (B2B) dealings. For example, many small courier services will be willing to give you a small referral fee, if you find a shop willing to sign a service contract with them.

It is best to do this with businesses you know well or have worked with before. While lucrative, it may not be worth your time to learn about a product from scratch to sell it.

Use a Credit Card with Cash Rebates

If you pay your credit card in full (and you should) try using a cashback card. This returns a percentage of what you spend as a rebate, typically 3 – 6%. Assuming you use the card for essential purchases, and make full repayment each month, you would be getting money for an expenditure you had to make anyway.
You do need to make sure the cashback card matches your purchases, and the cashback limit (the maximum possible rebate) is not too low. You can find the best cashback credit card for your needs on SingSaver.com.sg.

(This article is brought to you by SingSaver.com.sg)

How To Shop On Groupon Like A Pro

Call me a penny pincher.

I love to shop and i do so almost every day – that, however, doesn’t seems synonymous with my attitude towards saving money.

How would a stingy person (if you’d like to call it) like myself still have the tenacity to do shopping everyday? And I don’t mean buying groceries but rather spending on a “want” that is not what you deemed as daily necessities. I do my shopping from the brick and mortar shops to online shopping and i never fail to keep my credit card away for a day.

Here’s the secret: I achieved a sense of satisfaction for being able to spot deals and maximize the utility value of my money. I often make advance purchase, say a voucher on Groupon that would allow me to redeem the offer within a stipulated period.

Being a frequent shopper, i would need to make sure i don’t pay more for what is required right? Every dollar saved is a dollar earned.

How does the idea of saving up to 70% or more on a deal sounds? Too good to be true?

Here’s how:

1. Every month, Groupon will usually (well, at least for the past few months) conduct a 3 hour sale where you can enjoy additional discounts of 10 to 20% if you enter an exclusive promo code.

That’s usually the time i spend a few hours on my computer searching Groupon for items that i need.

Wait. Pause and rewind.

(Skip this if you want to buy the CEO of Groupon a cup of Starbucks’s Caffè Latte)

2. Before you even go directly to the Groupon’s website, first create an account on ShopBack. (a website that provide you with cashbacks) Shopback provides you with cashbacks for over 100 online retailers and for Groupon, you have a neat 4 per cent cashback that you can enjoy. All you need to do is to launch the Groupon’s page from Shopback’s website before doing your shopping.

3. That is not all. You can save even further by using a credit card that provides you with rebates on your purchase. A good one you can consider using is the OCBC Frank Card which allows you to earn a 6 per cent rebate on Groupon. (There is a $60 cap and you need to make a $500 min spend a month)

How much have you saved? Now do your maths.

Using the $49.90 for $100 Cash Voucher for Dim Sum at Wo Peng Cuisine as an example:

To summarise:

Shop during Groupon’s 3 hour sale and get 18% additional discount. ($49.90 * 18% = $9.00 discount)
Use ShopBack to earn cashback of 4%. (4% * ($49.90 * 0.82) = $1.60 cashback)
Use OCBC Frank Card to make payment (6% * ($49.90 * 0.82) = $2.50 cashback)

Instead of paying $100 to dine at Wo Peng Cuisine, i paid only $36.80 after taking into account of the discounts and cashbacks. That is a whopping 73.2% of savings.

I have already accumulated a few hundred dollars in cashbacks without much effort.

For now, sign up for an account on ShopBack and make use of Groupon’s 3 hour sale from 7 – 8 July 2015 and save up to 18% on Dining, Beauty and Leisure Deals with the promo code: “PROMO18“. Arm yourself with a credit card that gives you the best benefits.

(This article is contributed by Jenny, a reader of Money Digest)

Time for online shoppers to get on cashback websites

Joey Lim from coupon-cashback site ShopBack Singapore explains how cashback websites are changing the way South-East Asians shop online. ShopBack is one of the largest coupon-cashback websites in the South-East Asian region.

Online shopping has redefined retail and changed the way people spend their money. With more and more online shoppers cashing in on the cashback trend, shopping habits have evolved further beyond simple price comparison between online shops. Shoppers are now counting on the magic combination of letters and numbers that form coupon codes to help them save money on their online purchases.

While cashback websites are not exactly the latest response to the online shopping boom, they are relatively new in South-East Asia where the number of online shoppers is steadily increasing each day, thanks to rising affluence and access to technology. These cashback websites are simple to understand: they partner with hundreds of merchants and secure a certain percentage of cashback for shoppers who click through them. The only change is the point of access to the desired shop page – after that it’s just the wait to see money flow back into your bank account.

Uncertainty and Unfamiliarity

In a BBC News article “Cashback websites: How do they work?”, Burns addresses the doubts of consumers, many of whom are wary and suspicious of the promises that these cashback websites make. In response to consumer accusations of money delay and obscure placement of information, she cites Quidco’s managing director Andy Oldham, who admits that there is cause to reconsider how important details like cashback percentage and timeline are presented on the website. Quidco is one of the biggest cashback sites in the UK, with 2 million members and counting.

“It all sounds too good to be true” seems to be the common consensus amongst online shoppers. Such hesitation and misunderstanding could potentially hurt profits but cashback websites are already one step ahead of consumers; many are doubling efforts to make their website layout as simple as possible to suggest clarity and transparency. Prominently displayed video tutorials, reviews and visual guides are just some of the several methods employed to assuage consumers’ fears and make online shopping more enjoyable.

That being said, we understand how many online shoppers can get overwhelmed by the multitude of choices that the cyberworld of shopping offers – it’s a game of meticulousness, powered by the desire to get the best deal. Price comparison online can be tedious but add another few cashback websites to study and most are ready to give up. To prevent yourself from burning out before you even begin to cash in, Sarah Pennells from savvywoman has collated some of the main considerations when looking for cashback sites, as condensed here:

Percentage of cashback and merchant variety
Possible membership fees
How quickly you’ll be paid your cashback
How much cashback you have to earn before you’re paid
How you’re paid

Not all cashback sites are created equal so it’s definitely worth your time doing a little research to find out which ones are most suitable for your intended purchase. Some collaborate with the same merchant, but offer different cashback rates, so be sure to hunt down the one that will help you save the most.

Shopping Smart but Safe

When in doubt about a certain cashback website, Williams from US News suggests googling for reviews and complaints. Chances are, other people have already used their services and can give an honest review of the site – whether it’s the real deal or just a potato chip bag half-full of air, promising everything but delivering lesser than expected. Another warning from his article – “If you go to a cash-back site once and make a tiny purchase but never shop there again, you may never see your money”. It’s important to understand the math behind the business. Big purchases like plane tickets are guaranteed to give you a substantial amount of cash back in just one bill while shopping for clothes once may not be enough to reach the minimum cashback threshold.

Keeping all this in mind, cashback sites can really help shoppers accumulate substantial savings in the long run, especially those who shop online often. If the bulk of your buys are made online, consider using a cashback site to help you stretch your dollar – you’ll have less problems sticking to your budget because of all the little savings. Results may not be as fast but slowly and surely your savings from discounts will increase.

Everyone’s Cashing In

The steady rise of cashback websites in South-East Asia marks a concrete change in the expectations of local consumers. Regular sales just aren’t enough anymore – people want bigger discounts, better deals and the best price possible for even small purchases. It’s a competitive market but no doubt a lucrative one, if cashback companies know how to manage consumer demands. It’s all about the extra mile now, with sleek user-friendly web designs and excellent customer service to cater to the growing number of shoppers interested in the concept. The challenge for these businesses is to differentiate themselves from others; to constantly renew and improve to stay ahead of competition and meet consumer needs.

The verdict’s out: Cashback websites are here to stay and both companies and consumers stand to benefit. With some foresight for companies and savvy discernment on the part of consumers, the e-commerce cashback industry looks set to get bigger and produce more impressive results. If you’re curious to find out more about cashback rebates, here’s an introductory video on how ShopBack works:

(This post is brought to you by Shopback Singapore)

1) For The Gourmand, Shopaholic and Movie Buff

2) For The Travel Enthusiast

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