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Topup your Mileslife account with prepaid credits and get…

February 21, 2019
by Cheaponana

Mileslife is an app that is uniquely designed for the miles seeker. Add your credit card to the app, and use it to pay at participating restaurants to earn miles that are directly credited to your favourite airlines’ frequent flier programme – e.g. Singapore airlines Krisflyer, United MileagePlus, Eva Air Infinity MileageLand, Qatar Privilege Club etc.

For this current promotion, there are only 3 different amounts to topup – $300, $500 or $999, but multiple topups are allowed, up to a maximum topup amount of $19980.

February’s promotion is exactly the same as January!

Do so with your credit card and enjoy a triple dip!

What’s triple dip?

You top up $999 using your credit card (e.g. Citibank rewards card) and you get 2500 miles from Mileslife (2.5X)
You earn $999*4 mpd from your UOB Preferred Platinum Visa or Citibank rewards card=3996 miles
You get $999*8 mpd from Mileslife app for spending at participating restaurants=7992 miles

For $999 purchase, you get 14488 miles (which is 14.5 mpd!). Of course if you topup less the returns will be less – for $300 topup, it will be 14 mpd, which is still pretty decent!

Some Terms & Conditions to note:

There is no expiry
Bonus miles will be credited into your account within 15 days.
Topup is capped at $19980 per account

Who should go for it?

If you have insufficient miles for a ticket redemption that you are eyeing and require them urgently, then topping up is an option because firstly, the time taken for the miles update is short (15 days, which is faster than transfers from some credit card programs). Secondly, there is no fee for the transfer of small amounts of miles (compared to say Citibank Premiermiles credit, which charges $25 per transfer of credit card points or miles).
If you have an upcoming dinner treat, either out of your own pocket or company’s, then that can help you to deplete your prepaid credit.
If you are looking to spend a lot of money on your new credit cards where you get bonus miles from the credit card companies just for spending e.g. Singapore airlines Krisflyer Ascend credit card where you get 15000 miles from AMEX side for spending $6000 within the first 3 months of card approval! Call that quadruple dip, and you get 52,200 miles for this $6000 topup!

A word of caution, try not to buy too much prepaid credits to keep because you may forget to use them, or worse still, if the app closes down, there’s no way you can get your money back.

How to sign up for Mileslife?

The regular signup bonus for Mileslife is 1,000 miles after a spend of S$39 (take note that you need to sign up through a referral link and not just download the app – you will get NO BONUS MILES). Remember to use the referral code CPNN (to enter in the Account-Voucher section), to get 1000 miles after a S$39 spend. Just key it in before you make any purchases or add in your frequent flier account. Otherwise, just click here to sign up!

Important changes to Bank of China Elite Miles World…

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019
by Cheaponana

The shiny gold Bank of China Elite World Mastercard was definitely the most popular miles credit card in 2018, when they offered 2 miles per dollar for local spending and 5 miles per dollar for spending in foreign currency. However, that promotion had ended by 31 Dec 2018, and now the earn rates are 1.5 mpd for local spending and 3 mpd for overseas spend.

There is hardly any information on this credit card online unless you refer to blogs. The Bank of China website is rarely updated. Their mainpage still shows their Chinese New Year angpow promotion for 2018! Furthermore, their online banking is archaic – each time you sign up for a new credit card, you need to go down to the branch to have it “linked” to your online banking system – something which I cannot fathom in this day and age.

I chanced upon this Terms and Conditions on the Bank of China Elite Miles World MasterCard which is available online here and given that was published on 28 Dec 2018, this was not widely publicised to its cardmembers! Worse still, there are certain changes inside the T&C which are so subtle and not highlighted to cardmembers which I really frown on.

Change to the definition of “overseas spend”

The above shows the definition from the T&C booklet given when I first signed up for the credit card. “Overseas spend” means card transactions posted in foreign currencies – this simply means that one can buy stuff from Amazon US for instance, charge in USD and earn as an “overseas spend”. However, the definition below now reads “Overseas spend means all card transactions made overseas“. This is same same but different! It means that one has to be overseas, swipe the card at a shop before one can earn the 3 miles per dollar!

2. The expiry date of the BOC Reward Points has been brought forward to 30 Jun 2019

When the card was first launched, there was some confusion as to whether the miles would expire in Jun 2019 or 2020 (refer to Milelion’s post here). Eventually, it was settled as 30 Jun 2020 for miles that were accumulated in 2018 as what was sent in the old hardcopy T&C (as seen above). However, if you refer to the new table in the latest T&C, you will realise that the dates have been revised to 2019 Jun. And hence, every single mile that you earn from now till 30 Jun 2019 will expire on 30 Jun 2019.

3. Removal of Plaza Premium Lounge Benefit?

Previously, this card offered 4 free visits to the Plaza Premium Lounges for the principal cardholder (benefit till 30 Jun 2019). However, this clause seems to have been removed from the latest T&C. Well, this would not be a major issue for most people who are mile-chasers since there are many credit cards with free priority passes tied to the card and they will accord free lounge visits to various other lounges.

Bottomline

Bank of China is a very large bank in China. However, there are definitely some issues with its operations in Singapore, especially with their local outdated webpage. Now, they are behaving like some other banks which like to change their Terms and Conditions subtlely without any major announcements since they reserve the right to “amend, vary or modify the award and computation of BOC Rewards Points under these Terms and Conditions, including the withdrawal or alteration of the Card Sign-up Promotion at any time, from time to time without prior notice and/or assuming any liability to any part”. However, if one were to look past all these, the earn rate of this credit card is still great since 3 mpd for overseas spend is still the highest in the field, and DBS Women’s World Mastercard also has a similar expiry date for the DBS points earned. If you want to keep this card, then do set a reminder to clear out your miles annually.

The new Krisflyer Spontaneous Escapes with Business Class redemptions…

February 15, 2019
by Cheaponana

The 2019 February Edition of Krisflyer’s Spontaneous Escapes promised to “offer never-before redemption deals”, and it truly has been very different from previous months. For one, the number of destinations offered is the most to date. The list is so long that it took me some time to look through. Secondly, this is the first time that they are offering Business Class seats at Economy class rates! As for Economy seat redemptions, these are at 50% discount to the usual rate!

Looking at the table below, it appears that the greatest savings is 60.5%, which is for SIN-KUL. However, for such a short trip, most people will think it is hardly worth it to redeem a business class ticket for this! The next best route in terms of savings will be destinations in Europe, which come at a discount of 58.7% as compared to the usual redemption rate. However, one must be aware there are no flights from Singapore offering business class seats. Alternatively, flights to destinations in Australia and New Zealand are also at a very good deal at 54.8% discount, and there are return flights to places like PER, ADL, SYD, MEL and AKL!

The important thing to note that these redemptions are deemed as “promotional” rates, which are treated like the cheapest air tickets, meaning there is strictly NO cancellation or amendments to travel plans. There are also no stopovers, and flights have to be confirmed by the redemption date.

One thing that is NOT mentioned in the Terms & Conditions though – flights have been to be available at time of booking to enjoy the discounted rate. Waitlisted flights that clear almost immediately will be subjected to the normal rate.

One last thing, there’re also discounted fares from SIN-LAX on premium economy – the only ones offered this month! At 38000 miles, these seats come at a 44% discount, and can be booked from for travel from 1 Mar – 30 Apr!