UOB Preferred Visa Review (2026): Still Easy 4 Miles Per Dollar?

Note: UOB Preferred Platinum Visa was renamed to UOB Preferred Visa. The benefits are largely unchanged since the last revision in October 2025.

If you’ve been checking out lists of best miles cards in Singapore, it’s hard not to come across UOB Preferred Visa. The card has had a reputation of easy 4 miles per dollar with simple requirements, but after a major revision come October 2025, is UOB Preferred Visa still a must-have card for collecting miles?

4 miles per dollar nearly anywhere with mobile contactless payment

Just like most things in life, “fuss-free” and “high rewards” tend to be opposing concepts. UOB Preferred Visa bucks this trend somewhat, giving its 4 miles per dollar in a relatively convenient manner.

All you have to do is:

1. Add your UOB Preferred Visa card to your phone/smartwatch
2. Make payment with your mobile wallet (e.g. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay etc.) at a contactless payment terminal

It is worth repeating again that you must add the card to your smartphone wallet and using the physical card itself will net you only 0.4 miles per dollar, so leave it somewhere safe at home. But beyond the incredibly easy condition of using your phone or smartwatch to pay, there is no minimum spend to worry about.

4 miles per dollar on SimplyGo transactions

While the latest revision is mostly a nerf, an improvement done to the card is that UOB Preferred Visa now gives its 4 miles per dollar earn rate on SimplyGo transactions, making its mobile contactless category even more universal.

Getting 4 miles per dollar on your bus and MRT rides is a much welcomed feature, though it is also outshone by DBS yuu’s addition of SimplyGo to its 10 miles per dollar earn rate.

SimplyGo transactions are accumulated within a calendar month and miles will be awarded on the 7th of the following month. To be perfectly clear: you do not need to worry about your bus/MRT rides being less than S$5 per transaction because UOB will total up your entire month’s spend on SimplyGo transactions and rounding will only be done once.

Note the eligible MCCs for online transactions

For online transactions, UOB Preferred Visa is significantly less straightforward. You will need to make sure your transaction falls within one of the eligible Merchant Category Codes (MCC):

Category	MCC Codes
Department Stores and Retail Stores	4816, 5262, 5306, 5309, 5310, 5311, 5331, 5399, 5611, 5621, 5631, 5641, 5651, 5661, 5691, 5699, 5732–5735, 5912, 5942, 5944–5949, 5964, 5966–5970, 5992, 5999
Supermarkets, Dining and Food Delivery	5811, 5812, 5814, 5333, 5411, 5441, 5462, 5499, 8012, 9751
Entertainment and Ticketing	7278, 7832, 7841, 7922, 7991, 7996, 7998–7999

Having a prescribed list of eligible MCCs makes the card a lot less convenient to use than cards like Citi Rewards which lets you earn 4 miles per dollar on anything except excluded ones, and this is also why I rarely use UOB Preferred Visa for my online transactions.

Still, the range of MCCs is relatively wide here. With support for dining-related MCCs such as 5812 and 5814 as well as a range of shopping MCCs, the card also has little issue when you use wallet apps like Kris+ or ShopBack to pay at restaurants and certain retailers.

Spend caps make the card less suitable for bigger spenders

Since October 2025, UOB Preferred Visa has had category caps on its online and contactless payment categories:

Category	Spend Cap
Mobile Contactless Payments	S$600 (UNI$1,200 or 2,400 miles)
Online Transactions	S$600 (UNI$1,200 or 2,400 miles)
Total	S$1,200 (UNI$2,400 or 4,800 miles)

While the maximum you can earn with the card is 4,800 miles a month, this is assuming you spend S$600 for the mobile contactless category, and S$600 for the online category.

Spending S$1,200 in a single category will only earn you 2,640 miles which is made of 2,400 miles for the first S$600 spend, and only 240 miles for the next S$600 because the category cap has been exceeded. You can use the calculator found later in this article to see the effective earn rate.

Other cards that offer 4 miles per dollar typically have spend caps of around S$1,000 per month, so S$600 is on the lower side. This might be a non-issue for smaller spenders, but if you are constantly hitting at least S$1,000 of spend per month you might to consider UOB Visa Signature instead.

Points are awarded on S$5 blocks

One of the few catches of this card would be how UOB awards points. Despite being widely regarded as a 4 miles per dollar card, UOB Preferred Visa should be more accurately described as a “20 miles per S$5 card”. This is due to UOB giving 10 UNI$ or 20 miles per S$5 spent, rounded down.

For instance, if you spent S$9, you would expect to receive 36 miles (S$9 × 4) from a 4 miles per dollar card. UOB Preferred Visa would recognise this as a S$5 transaction instead, giving you 20 miles. This results in the transaction yielding just 2.22 miles per dollar.

It isn’t as bad with larger transactions though. A S$499 transaction, for instance, should get 1,996 miles (S$499 × 4) with a 4 miles per dollar card, and UOB Preferred Visa will give 1,980 miles (S$495 × 4). This is an earn rate of 3.97 miles per dollar, a negligibly smaller number than the expected 4 miles per dollar.

As mentioned earlier, this per-transaction rounding does not affect SimplyGo transactions which are rounded based on the total monthly spend.

Calculator

To see the effect of category caps and S$5 blocks, you can use the calculator below:

Using HeyMax for spend tracking and online spend

You can link the card with HeyMax to track your spend, and the tool helpfully tracks both your mobile contactless spend as well as your online spending.

HeyMax also sells vouchers on its app/website with every transaction coded as MCC 5311 which works with UOB Preferred Visa’s online category. Those who rely on UOB Preferred Visa more for in-person spend could find this very useful in making use of the card’s online category for offline expenditure, saving their mobile contactless S$600 allowance for other things they spend on.

Points are credited when transaction is posted, pools with other UNI$ cards

UOB Preferred Visa is quick to credit points, with UOB$ credited as soon as the transaction posts. This means that you can get your points as quickly as a few days later, depending when the merchant posts the transaction with the bank.

The card gives 10 UNI$ per S$5 spent, and since each UNI$ = 2 miles, this works out to a 4 miles per dollar rate.

UNI$ earned by UOB Preferred Visa can be redeemed together with other cards like UOB Visa Signature and UOB Ladies, making it easy to use multiple UOB cards at the same time. Points expire 2 years after being earned, and UOB TMRW’s app helpfully displays any points that may be expiring soon.

Limited choice of airlines

Unfortunately, UOB has a very limited choice of airlines its points can go to, with only Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific on its redemption catalogue.

It’s not a dealbreaker since Singapore Airlines covers a lot of travel scenarios for Singapore-based residents. However, the lack of access to other frequent-flyer programmes does mean fewer optimisation opportunities. For example, EVA Air’s Infinity MileageLands can often be used to book Singapore Airlines award flights at a lower mileage cost, which allows cardholders to extract better value for the same flight.

Because cards like HSBC Revolution and Citi Rewards allow transfers to EVA Air, they can, in practice, outperform UOB cards for travellers who are willing to put in a bit more effort to maximise value.

Comparison with UOB Visa Signature

Given the high overlap this card has with its older sibling, the UOB Visa Signature, you may wish to see this comparison between both cards to see which would be a better fit for your spending habits. You can, of course, own both cards and use either when the situation calls for it, or even both if you have more spend within a month:

The Verdict

The UOB Preferred Visa isn’t as generous as it once was, but it should still find its place in many people’s card libraries. You still get an easy 4 miles per dollar on everyday mobile contactless spend (including SimplyGo) and a relatively wide range of online transactions. Coupled with no minimum spend and fast points crediting, UOB Preferred Visa is very usable card for many.

That said, the S$600 category caps, S$5 block rounding, and limited airline transfer options are disadvantages that may be bigger issues for some. These changes make it far less appealing for bigger spenders or anyone who actively optimises miles, especially when cards like HSBC Revolution and Citi Rewards offer many more transfer partners and better flexibility.

In short, this is a good primary card for newcomers or those who value simplicity, but for seasoned miles chasers, it works better as a supporting card given its limitations.

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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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