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Time to ditch your ez-link card: Best credit cards for MRT/bus rides 2021

Time to ditch your ez-link card: Best credit cards for MRT/bus rides 2021
PHOTO: Unsplash

I remember owning my first ez-link card.

(It was something like that, just 50 per cent less cute.)

As a kid unaware of the world of credit cards, holding this card felt so powerful.

I remember being so fascinated by the fact that I was able to pay for my McDonald’s meal with it.

Nowadays, we seem to have a thousand and one ways to pay for our public transport.

With so many ways to choose from, I decided to look for the method that can maximise my public transport spending.

When I was using my trusty ez-link card, I was always happily redeeming curry puffs from my ez-link app.

I’ve since switched to credit cards as my go-to card to keep my wallet lean and to also reap some credit card benefits.

Disclaimer: The various credit cards all come with their respective terms and conditions. So please read through them before deciding which credit card to get!

TL;DR: Best credit cards to use as your ez-link card 2021

Credit Card Reward Things to Note
Best For Cashback
Citi SMRT Card Less than $300 monthly spend: 1.7 per cent

Monthly spend of $300 or more: 2 per cent
2 per cent SMRT$ for transactions of more than $30

1per cent SMRT$ for
transactions of $30 or less
DBS Live Fresh Card 5 per cent cashback for SimplyGo Min. monthly spend
$600

Cashback capped at $20 for Visa Contactless
Spend (includes SimplyGo)
Maybank Family & Friends Card 5 per cent or 8 per cent cashback Min. monthly spend
$500 (5 per cent) or $800 (8 per cent)
OCBC Frank Card 6 per cent cashback Min. monthly spend
$600

Cashback capped at $25 per category
UOB One Card 3.33 per cent cashback

5per cent cashback
Min. monthly spend
$500 or $1,000 (3.33 per cent), $2,000 (5 per cent)
                                                     Best For Miles
DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card 1.2 miles per $1 Miles awarded as DBS points

Min. spend of $1.67 required to qualify for 1 DBS point
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Card 3.2 miles per $1 Min. monthly spend
$300
UOB KrisFlyer Credit Card 3 miles per $1

or 1.2 miles per $1 (if conditions not met)
With min $500 spend on Singapore Airlines and related transactions per year
UOB Lady’s Card/ Solitaire Card 4 miles per $1 $120,000 min. income requirement for Solitaire
UOB PRVI Miles 1.4 miles per $1 -

Ways to pay for your MRT or bus rides

Besides the regular good ol’ ez-link top ups that we have been doing at the General Ticketing Machines, we now have two other payment methods for our public transport – ez-reload and SimplyGo.

Credit cards would offer card benefits for public transport rides that are billed via ez-reload or SimplyGo.

  Ez-link Ez-reload Simply Go
What Is It? The usual ez-link card used on buses and MRTs Using an ez-link card, but this service allows you to automatically top up your ez-link card when there is insufficient balance. A service where you can link your debit/credit card with the SimplyGo app, and pay for your transport with your credit/debit card.

You can earn credit card rewards such as cashbacks and miles along the way.
Cost Ez-link card: $5 Non-refundable deposit per card
Ez-link charm: Varies
NIL NIL
Rewards 1 point per 10 cents spent via ez-link. Varies, depending on what it is linked to. Varies, depending on credit or debit card used.

Best credit cards to use for your MRT or bus rides

Best cashback credit cards

Citi SMRT Card

The Citi SMRT Card offers up to 2 per cent cashback for ez-reload transactions, depending on the transaction sum and monthly card spend.

Citi SMRT Card
Monthly Spend Less than $300 1.7 per cent
$300 and more 2 per cent
Ez-reload Transactions $30 or less 1 per cent SMRT$
More than $30 2 per cent SMRT$

This card also offers up to 5 per cent savings on groceries, 5 per cent savings on fast food, movies and coffee, making it a great lifestyle card to own.

DBS Live Fresh Card

The DBS Live Fresh Card offers an attractive 5 per cent cashback for online and Visa contactless spend, which includes SimplyGo transactions.

It can also be paired with the DBS Multiplier Account to earn higher interest rates!

Do note that this card has a minimum spend of $600, and cashback is capped at $20 per category.

This includes the Visa contactless spend category, which is where your cashback will be from your public transport rides.

Maybank Family & Friends Card

Depending on your monthly spend, the Maybank Family & Friends card offers up to 8 per cent cashback for your bus or MRT rides.

This is one of the best cards to use for your transport as this 8per cent cashback rate applies to petrol and ride-hailing services as well.

It also includes groceries spend, fast food and food delivery, as well as online TV streaming services.

Do note that this only applies if your minimum monthly spend is at least $800.

Otherwise, it’ll be 5per cent cashback for spending of $500 and above.

OCBC Frank Card

The OCBC Frank Card is another popular card that offers 6 per cent cashback for transport spend.

Since its previous revision, its minimum monthly spend has been adjusted to $600 and its cashback cap to $75 per month.

Public transport spend would fall under the mobile contactless payments category, which has a $25 monthly cashback cap.

UOB One Card

The UOB One Card is another popular card given how it is usually paired with the UOB One account.

It offers up to 5 per cent cashback depending on the monthly spend.

This card is also perfect for those who love to take their Grab rides since there is an additional 5 per cent cashback on Grab.

The UOB One account has a couple of different categories to hit for different interest rates, so in case you’re confused, we’ve broken it down for you as well!

Best for miles

DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card

The DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card is one of the few cards that allow you to earn miles for SimplyGo transactions.

A fuss-free card to own, this card earns 1.2 miles per $1 spent.

The miles are awarded as DBS points, and a minimum spend of $1.67 is required to qualify for 1 DBS point.

It’s a good entry-level card for general spending for anyone into collecting miles!

Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Card

The Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Card offers up to 3.2 miles per $1 spend, making it one of the best cards to use for your public transport.

Cardholders can also get to enjoy these rates for any restaurant dining in Singapore, at petrol stations as well as Grab and taxi rides for selected taxi service providers.

Do note that there is a minimum monthly spend of $300 for this card.

UOB KrisFlyer Credit Card

The UOB KrisFlyer credit card offers up to 3 miles per $1 spend.

However, this is with a minimum of $500 spend on Singapore Airlines and related transactions per year.

Which might be a little difficult to hit given how we are still unable to fly overseas for the time being.

Otherwise, this card earns 1.2 miles per $1 spend.

UOB Lady’s Card/ UOB Solitaire Card

A popular card for the ladies , the UOB Lady’s Card offers a wonderful rate of 4 miles per $1 spend (20 miles per $5 spend) for SimplyGo rides.

The UOB Solitaire Card offers the same rates but has a $120,000 minimum income requirement.

This is a good card to consider for the ladies who are looking to own a card with benefits catered to females, such as having customisable categories to earn upsized rewards.

UOB PRVI Miles

There was a period of time where the UOB PRVI Miles Card offered a promotional rate of 4.4 miles per $1 spend.

While the promotion has ended, this card still offers 1.4 miles per $1 spend on your SimplyGo rides, making it still a good card to use for public transport.

Do note that this is only valid for UOB PRVI Miles Mastercard and Visa card, and does not apply to American Express cards.

How to fully skip physical cards: Link it to your e-wallet

If you’re someone who would want to flatten your wallet even further, you can consider linking these cards to your e-wallets instead!

Some popular e-wallets (or rather online payment systems) would include Apple Pay and Google Pay.

One can simply use their mobile phone or even smartwatch to tap in and out seamlessly on public transport now!

What a convenient world we live in today.

This article was first published in Seedly.

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