First Look: “New” StanChart Journey Replaces StanChart X Card

The Standard Chartered X Card launched to much fanfare a few years ago. It came with a princely 100,000 miles sign-up gift, and was even sent to cardholders in this needlessly extravagant box that lit up:

It quickly faded into obscurity as StanChart started to cut back on both its sign-up bonus and packaging. The sign-up miles dwindled and the packaging became more humble, eventually becoming just a boring envelope other “normal cards” delivered in. Without a compelling use case and the apparent lack of effort from the bank to make it a relevant card, I guess you could say that the X Card has been on quite a rocky journey the past few years.

New 3 miles per dollar bonus categories

From 19th May 2023, the StanChart X Card would be replaced by the new StanChart Journey card. The main thing that has changed would be the card’s earn rates.

X Card had an earn rate of 1.2 miles per dollar, and there would be no change to this. However, StanChart Journey is adding bonus categories for 3 miles per dollar instead, and this is given on online spend for:

• Grocery/food-stores with MCCs 5411, 5462, 5499 and 5921
• Food deliveries with MCCs 5811, 5812 and 5814
• Transport merchants with MCCs 4111, 4121, 4411 and 4789

It’s a relatively short list, and 3 miles per dollar isn’t exactly exciting when we have 4 or even 6 miles per dollar options for such spend. The maximum miles one can earn from these categories is 3,000 per month, making the maximum spend S$1,000.

Brief overview of changes

There are some other less significant changes, and here’s a gist of what I could find that is different:

	X Card	Journey
Earn Rate	1.2 miles per dollar on local spend 2.0 miles per dollar on foreign spend No bonus categories	1.2 miles per dollar on local spend 2.0 miles per dollar on foreign spend 3.0 miles per dollar on bonus categories
Bonus Categories	N/A	Online only Grocery/food-stores with MCCs 5411, 5462, 5499 and 5921 Food deliveries with MCCs 5811, 5812 and 5814 Transport merchants with MCCs 4111, 4121, 4411 and 4789
Lounge Visits	2 Priority Pass lounge visits a year	2 Priority Pass lounge visits a year (unchanged)
Annual Income Requirement	S$80,000	$30,000
Annual Fee	S$702	S$194.40
Card Type	Metal Visa Infinite	Plastic Visa Signature

Existing X Card cardholders will enjoy the new benefits immediately, and get to keep using our swanky metal cards until they expire.

Sign-up promo

At launch, the sign-up promo is 45,000 miles for new StanChart cardholders:

At a cursory look, I think you can safely skip the annual fee first and choose the fee waiver option instead because S$194.40 for 10,000 miles isn’t that great a deal in my books. That aside, the rest of it looks like a great deal. Having a bonus of 5 miles per dollar means you can get 6.2 miles for every dollar spent, and even 8 miles per dollar for spend made on the bonus categories. This will max out at S$5,000 of spend and you should definitely try to maximise this.

There is also an extra 2 miles per dollar for spends made in foreign currency, which means you get get as much as 8.2 miles per dollar for every dollar for overseas transactions. I imagine it could even go up to 10.2 miles per dollar for all the taxi rides and food deliveries we make in a foreign country.

I would analyse the worthiness and value of this deal versus other StanChart promos in greater detail, so stay subscribed to the Telegram for more updates.

Conclusion

StanChart finally has an entry-level miles card to compete with contemporaries like Citi PremierMiles, DBS Altitude, OCBC 90°N and UOB PRVI. Now we have to see whether the bank is interested enough in the miles space to offer a flagship high-earn card of at least 4 miles per dollar soon.

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