Pro-tip: Meet Spend Requirement of Bonus$aver With CardUp or ipaymy

Last Updated: 16th August 2025

Been using a Bonus$aver account or recently signed up because of the attractive promo? Perhaps you have yet to sign up because you’re worried about meeting the spend requirement of the account. 

In any case, the good news is that you can use payment services like CardUp or ipaymy to easily clock the spend requirement of Bonus$aver to earn more interest. 

Spend requirement gives 1.5% p.a. bonus interest

Bonus$aver’s Card Spend category gets you 1.50% p.a. bonus interest.

You must spend on either the Bonus$aver credit card or the debit card, and the problem with either of the two is that they give no rewards at all. This results in quite a sizeable amount of opportunity cost – at a hypothetical 6% cashback rate you are losing out S$60 each month if you spent S$1,000 on a Bonus$aver.

Insurance premiums have been reported to work

There have been multiple reports that insurance premiums work for the bonus interest. Insurance premiums are not found in the exclusion list of the Bonus$aver account. If your insurance policies accept Mastercard payment, this would perhaps be the best way to meet your spend requirement because insurance premiums don’t typically earn rewards with other cards, making your opportunity cost zero, and insurers usually do not charge a fee for such payments.

There is another “hack” that I’ve heard of for the Spend category, but I am still trying to verify its viability.

CardUp or ipaymy payments work

Otherwise, CardUp and ipaymy payments work. Check out the guide if you are new to either service.

This means one could pay bills like income tax, car loans or even mortgage that don’t normally attract credit card rewards and get the bonus interest of the Bonus$aver account.

By putting expenses that don’t typically earn card rewards on your Bonus$aver card via CardUp or ipaymy, you can then put your retail expenses on other cards that give you high earn rates.

Another benefit is also how fuss-free this can be since you can just settle the spend requirement in a single transaction rather than worry about whether you have met the minimum when the end of the month is nearing. Setting up a recurring transaction will also allow you to automate the process.

Some calculation

Assuming your fee is 2.6% (CardUp’s default fee), making a bill payment of S$974.66 would be enough. This is because the fee will be S$25.34, making a round S$1,000 spend on your Bonus$aver card. In short, your bill payment + CardUp/ipamy’s service fee both count towards meeting the S$1,000 spend.

In return for paying a fee to CardUp or ipaymy, you have unlocked extra 1.50% p.a. interest rate. If you have S$50,000 in your Bonus$aver account, you get approximately S$62.50 in interest within a month. You would then also be able to reserve your retail spend for your other high cashback/miles cards.

Since the fee can vary due to promo codes, use this formula to determine the sweet spot of bill payment to make so that you achieve either S$500 or S$2,000 of spend:

S$1,000 ÷ (1 + fee amount ÷ 100)

For example, S$1,000 ÷ (1 + 2.6 ÷ 100) = S$974.66

Feel free to exceed this amount if you wish, but this number (based on 2.6% fee) would keep your fee at the minimum.

Use promo codes to reduce fees paid

You can usually pay less than 2.6% fee by using promo codes offered by either CardUp or ipaymy. If you’re new to either service, check out the guide on both services and also the following new user promos below:

Rest of the guide

Check out the rest of the Bonus$aver guide here.

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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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