Great Cards For Good Food

💳 This is part of the “The Best Cards to Use” series. Tap here for more great cards to use in other areas of spend!

Dining out can be pricey in Singapore, but there are ways to get good rewards during payment. Even better if you have friends or colleagues who aren’t in the credit card game and let you pay… free miles and cashback might taste better than the food.

Maybank Family and Friends

Maybank Family and Friends pop up frequently in my “Best Cards to Use” series, and for good reason: 8% cashback is as high as one can expect to get from cashback cards at present. Maybank F&F gives its high cashback rate on a variety of everyday categories, and dining is one such area of spend.

Maybank defines its Dining & Food Delivery category as restaurant dining, Foodpanda, and Deliveroo. This means that it specifically covers only eating places with the Merchant Category Code (MCC) of 5812, and not places with MCC 5814, typically given for fast food restaurants. This can be quite problematic because there are many eating places that look like a restaurant, and certainly charge prices like one, but still come with MCC 5814.

It’s an unfortunate caveat to an otherwise great earn rate for your dining expenses. There is also a minimum spend of S$800 a month required across all spend on the card, and a cashback limit of S$25 per category. This makes for a maximum of S$312.50 of dining spend that should be made with this card within a month.

UOB EVOL

To save the trouble of figuring out whether a place is 5812 or 5813 (or perhaps the occasional gastropub with 5813), you might want to consider the UOB EVOL which gives its high earn rate of 6.67% on online and Paywave transactions – the latter category being immensely useful for dining out.

The minimum spend is S$600 in a month, and there is a cap of S$20 of cashback attainable on the Paywave transaction. You would need to make a mixture of Paywave and online transactions to get the 6.67% earn rate.

Citi Cash Back

Citi Cash Back is a great card for groceries, but it also gives a decent 6% cashback rate for dining expenses. It includes both 5812 and 5814 for its earn rate, and removes a lot of the guesswork whether a particular eatery would qualify for 6% cashback. It also includes Caterers under MCC 5811 for good measure. There is a minimum spend of S$800 per month, and this can be accomplished easily since it gives 8% on groceries (think vouchers) and petrol.

OCBC 365

Also giving a decent 6% cashback with S$800 minimum spend is the OCBC 365 Credit Card. The card is becoming increasingly relevant these days after big improvements to its companion bank account, OCBC 360. With a high balance in your OCBC 360 account, meeting the Spend category’s requirement can actually net you a significant amount of bonus interest, and that can and should sway your credit card strategy.

StanChart Smart Card

I’ll throw in the StanChart Smart for good measure, since someone’s idea of dining out could be McDonald’s; I do enjoy a good buttermilk chicken burger every now and then. It offers you a good 6% cashback earn rate, or a great 5.57 miles per dollar if you’re into airline miles. The decent earn rates are let down by its very short list of merchants, and everything food related can be found right here: Burger King, KFC, Mcdonald’s, Subway, Coffee and toast, Fun toast, Toast Box, Ya Kun Kaya Toast

DBS Vantage

Until the end of 2022, DBS Vantage gives you either 4% cashback or 4 miles per dollar on dining transactions (MCC 5812) and drinking places (MCC 5813). This earn rate works for up to S$2,000 of spend in a month.

HSBC Revolution, UOB Preferred Platinum, Citi Rewards + Amaze

In the realm of mile-earning cards, these three would do well to give you 4 miles per dollar. HSBC Revolution and UOB Preferred Platinum will both give you this earn rate on contactless payments, up to a limit of S$1,000 of spend per month for the HSBC Revolution, and S$1,110 for UOB PPV.

Citi Rewards would too give you 4 mpd up to S$1,000 per month, but you have to add it to your Instarem Amaze Card and use that card instead. This converts the dining transaction to an online one which Citi Rewards gives its 4 mpd earn rate for.

Maybank Horizon Visa

Maybank Horizon Visa gives a 3.2 mpd earn rate, and unlike most mile cards, it requires a minimum spending which is S$300 per month. Like its cashback sibling, the Maybank card only gives its 3.2 mpd earn rate on 5812 transactions.

KrisFlyer UOB

Spend a lot each month? KrisFlyer UOB appeared on my “big expenses” list, and it's not hard to see why since it gives 3 mpd on an unlimited amount of eligible spend which includes dining. It also includes both 5812 and 5814, and for good measure 5813 too.

It requires you to spend at least S$800 per membership year on Singapore Air transactions (including Scoot and KrisShop), which may be an easy requirement depending on your travel habits.

Don't ignore wallet apps

There're also a bunch of wallet apps that'd work in conjunction with your credit cards to great effect. Another post for another day, so stay subscribed to the Telegram for more updates and great deals!

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