Last Chance: Get 25,000 Grab Points on $1,000 Spend (Equivalent to 5% Cashback); How to Clock the Spend?

GrabPay Power Up challenge has been going on for the past few months, and this is sadly the last time it’d happen. Nevertheless, let’s make hay while the sun is shining, and given that 517 people have already accomplished this within the first 15 hours, the sun wouldn’t be out for long. 1,483 spots remain at the time of writing!

Register here with your smartphone, or find the challenge in your Grab app.

For those new to the promotion, you need to spend $500 online to get 5,000 points. Another $500 more of online spending gets you a further 20,000 points. So far, people have reported that a single transaction of $1,000 or more does get you both tiers.

Do note the terms and conditions specified by Grab, notably the exclusions on:

• MCC 6300 – insurance sales, underwriting and premiums
• MCC 9399 – government services 
• MCC 8220 – Colleges, Junior Colleges, Universities and Professional Schools

Read on for a way to side-step these exclusions.

Top up

First, make sure you get rewards on topping up your Grab. There are only a few options left for this as of December 2020.

Amex True Cashback Card is the only card that officially gives rewards Grab top-ups after various banks, Mastercard and Visa all blocked rewards for it. The Amex KrisFlyer cards, both Blue and Ascend, currently have an opt-in promotion where you’d get 1 mile per dollar spend on Grab top-ups up to a maximum of 5,000 miles.

If you don’t have these cards, you can try applying now. Amex’s turnaround time is pretty quick, and for the last challenge, my friend managed to apply and get the card in time before the challenge ended. Your mileage may vary, so I would keep an eye on the Grab challenge page which shows you the number of spots left.

Spend

If you already have things to buy online, great! This promo comes in really handy for your last minute Christmas shopping.

Otherwise, you may consider using it to pay for bills, and there’s a service that allows you to pay for things that normally do not accept credit cards such as tax, insurance or condo maintenance fees. As long as you can make your payment via bank transfer, it is likely that you can use this service to make payment. Learn more about ipaymy here.

Because you are paying through ipaymy, the MCC for the transaction is different and you will still receive points even though things like insurance are excluded from this promotional campaign.

Register for an ipaymy account here and get $30 off your first payment! That’s around $1,330 of spend you can put on your credit card for free and earn free miles/cashback!

(Note that Grab does not give base points for ipaymy transactions.)

Seth Wee was a licensed financial adviser representative from 2009 to 2025, with over 16 years of experience in Singapore’s financial advisory industry.

He started Sethisfy.com in 2019 to share practical insights on credit cards, banking products, and miles strategies, helping readers identify financial products that deliver the best value. Seth has been featured in CNA, Channel 8, Today, and a host of other publications. In 2025, he was also part of a panel at CPF’s Ready For Life festival.

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