HeyMax First: “Fly First Earn Later” By Getting Miles Upfront

HeyMax has announced an upcoming membership programme called HeyMax First that they describe succinctly as “Fly First Earn Later”. Just like how Buy Now Play Later (BNPL) lets you get something upfront and pay the bill over the next few months, HeyMax First allows members to get miles upfront, book their desired flight, and earn the miles back later.

It’s certainly an intriguing proposition, but it does come with equally interesting pitfalls. Regardless, the first 10,000 to waitlist for the programme get a membership fee waiver for the first year and I see little harm in securing a spot just to try it out when it launches.

Accessing miles upfront

When HeyMax users sign up for HeyMax First, they pick a membership tier to join. Each tier differs based on the number of miles accessible, the membership fee per year, and the access fee per mile:

Tier	Miles Pool	Annual Fee	Refundable Access Fee
Silver	30,000 miles	S$99	3¢ per mile
Gold	100,000 miles	S$299	2.7¢ per mile
Platinum	300,000 miles	S$699	2.5¢ per mile
Reserve	1,000,000 miles	S$1,999	2.3¢ per mile

For instance, if I pick the Gold tier, I’d have to pay an annual fee of S$299, and this gives me access to a 100,000 Miles Pool. A return trip in business class via Singapore Airlines cost 80,000 when I book it through EVA Air, so I can opt to “borrow” 80,000 Max Miles from my Miles Pool, transfer it to my EVA Air Infinity MileageLand account and book my flight.

I would have to pay a refundable access fee of 2.7 cents per mile I’ve chosen to access, and this comes up to S$2,160 for 80,000 miles.

Earning miles back later

Subsequently, I can get back my access fee by earning Max Miles. This is done the way the same way other HeyMax users earn Max Miles – by buying things through HeyMax and using the Chocolate Visa Debit Card.

For every 10,000 Max Miles a user earns back, they can get their access fee refunded. In my hypothetical Japan trip example, I will get S$270 of my refundable access fee back for every 10,000 Max Miles I manage to accumulate.

First 10,000 members will get a first-year fee waiver

To kickstart the programme, HeyMax is offering the first 10,000 sign-ups a fee waiver for their first year’s membership fee. And yes, this includes the S$1,999 per year Reserve tier. You can waitlist for the programme here, and the members will start getting access in Q2 2026.

You’d need a HeyMax account to join, so if you haven’t already done so you can sign up below for a sign-up reward:

So what happens if I can’t earn back my miles within the year?

The “beauty” of this programme is that users don’t have a deadline for them to earn back the miles within a year. As long as you renew your membership – paying the membership fee, of course – you can take your time to earn back your miles.

If you don’t renew, however, any remaining access fee you have not earned back will be forfeited.

Isn’t this just buying miles?

While HeyMax stresses that this isn’t meant for buying miles, there really isn’t any way they can enforce this aside from a few measures.

One such measure is the cost of such an endeavour. Even the lowest access fee of 2.3 cents per mile is costly enough to deter most people from simply paying the fee for miles that they don’t intend to earn back.

Another is that members who choose not to renew their HeyMax First membership would not be allowed to rejoin the programme, making their miles-buying a one-off opportunity.

The lack of high-earn Max Miles cards can make earning back miles a long-drawn affair

On paper, this sounds like a pretty neat trick, but the devil’s in the details. From the perspective of someone totally new to miles who seems to be the intended audience, I’m not sure this removes hurdles for them to fly in premium cabins on miles.

One pitfall I think such users would face is that there are currently no high-earn cards for Max Miles. While 4 miles per dollar cards are the norm when it comes to earning airline miles – plus 8 or 10 miles per dollar options for specific use cases – the sole card we have for earning Max Miles is the Chocolate Card which maxes out at 2 Max Miles per dollar (and this is with a S$100,000 Chocolate Finance balance).

Maxing out that card with S$1,000 of spend each month would result in just 2,000 Max Miles per month, translating into 40 months for my 80,000-mile Japan trip to be repaid. It is likely I will drop out of HeyMax First before I get back most of my access fee, or have to continually pay a membership fee as “interest” for “borrowing” the miles in the first place.

Interestingly enough, I guess there is another parallel to be drawn with BNPL – if you need BNPL to afford the item you’re buying, it’s probably best you don’t buy the item at all.

Possibly best for people who already have some miles

In my opinion, the scheme is perhaps best for those who have already collected some miles to begin with, and need a little more in a short period of time. Someone might already have 70,000 miles worth of HSBC or Citi points, and need just 10,000 more miles to quickly redeem a flight or take advantage of promotional fares/transfer bonuses. I think such a profile would benefit most from HeyMax First which would allow them to “borrow” a small amount of shortfall and have a realistic chance of making “full repayment” within a year’s time to avoid further membership fees.

FAQs of HeyMax First

You can see the FAQ document published by HeyMax here.

Will you be using HeyMax First?

Things tend to change over time, and it’d be interesting to see how HeyMax First (and HeyMax in general) evolves. Perhaps higher earn cards are in the works, and maybe other means of “repayment” become possible… say points transfer from other banks to Max Miles?

Until those happen, I feel that this service is best used for borrowing relatively small amounts of miles which could be useful in a pinch. Newcomers to the miles game, however, should be aware that it could be potentially difficult to earn back the miles in a timely manner, resulting in “interest” as a result.

Would you be using HeyMax First? Let us know in the comments or Telegram.

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The problem HeyMax First is trying to solve

One issue about the miles game is that it can be quite intimidating to those who are new. Want to fly to Japan in business class on miles? It’s easy, just spend using your miles card, collect enough miles maybe after 15 months, then search for award space on the airline you want (possibly 3 to 12 months out), and book it with the miles you’ve got. Just a short 2 years or so from getting your first ever miles card, you’re on your business class flight!

With HeyMax First, the pitch is that you get the miles first for flight booking,