How to start collecting miles in Singapore.

What are miles?

Miles are the reward currency of airline loyalty programmes, such as Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer or Cathay's Asia Miles. You spend them on award flights, upgrades and partner rewards.

Most Singapore credit cards do not give you airline miles directly. They give you the bank's own points, such as DBS Points, UOB UNI$ or Citi ThankYou Points, which you later convert into miles. A few airline co-brand cards credit KrisFlyer miles straight to your account.

What does mpd mean?

Miles per dollar (mpd) is how many miles a card earns for each dollar you spend. A card that earns 4 mpd on a S$100 dinner earns 400 miles, if the spend qualifies. It is the number people use to compare miles cards.

The kinds of miles card

General spending cards

Earn on almost everything, typically somewhere around 1.2 to 1.5 mpd on local spend and more on foreign-currency spend. Simple, with few caps.

Bonus category cards

Earn a much higher rate, often 4 mpd, on specific spending such as online purchases, dining or contactless payments, up to a monthly cap. Outside the category or past the cap, they earn a low base rate.

Airline co-brand cards

Credit airline miles directly, with no conversion step, and often come with travel perks.

See which cards fall into each group in the card library.

The catches to know before you start

• Bonus caps. Bonus rates usually stop after a set amount of spend each month. Spend past the cap earns the base rate.
• Calendar month or statement cycle. Some caps reset on the 1st of the month, others on your statement date. Mixing them up is the most common way to overshoot a cap.
• Minimum spend. Some cards only pay the bonus once you spend a minimum amount in the period.
• Merchant category codes (MCCs). Banks decide whether a spend is "dining" or "online" by the merchant's category code, not its name. Some codes, often including insurance, utilities, government payments and e-wallet top-ups, earn nothing at all.
• Rounding. Some cards award points per block of spend, such as every S$5, so part of a S$9.90 spend may earn nothing.
• Conversion fees and blocks. Moving bank points to an airline usually costs a fee per conversion and happens in fixed blocks of miles, so it pays to convert less often, in larger amounts.
• Expiry. Bank points have their own expiry rules, and KrisFlyer miles expire a set period after they are credited. Convert when you have a redemption in mind, not just to clear your points.
• Interest. Credit card interest costs far more than miles are worth. Miles only make sense if you pay the full balance every month.

A simple first setup

1. Look at where your money goes. A month of statements shows your biggest categories, such as dining, online shopping or transport.
2. Pick one bonus card for your biggest category. Check its cap, its cycle and which categories count.
3. Add one general card for everything else, so spend outside the bonus categories, or past a cap, still earns a sensible rate.
4. Keep count. Track how much of each cap you have used, so you know when to switch cards. Our guide to tracking miles covers how.

Using your miles

Award flights usually get the most value from miles, especially in premium cabins. Check the airline's award chart and seat availability for your route before you convert, because conversions can take some time to arrive and cannot be reversed.