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If you are a credit card owner who is looking to maximise your card spend to accumulate air miles, you’ve landed at the right place. Here are some hacks to help you collect more miles to offset your next flight booking.
If you have not heard, Changi Airport’s Changi Pay digital wallet provides passengers and visitors with benefits like contactless payments, discount vouchers, and more.
But one less-known advantage is its ability to help you maximise your frequent flyer miles. Learn how Changi Pay can help you get that business-class air ticket!
Pro tip: Read till the end for a Now Boarding-exclusive promo for new Changi Pay users!
1. Earn miles from your credit card spend and redeem them for premium-class air tickets
Is it your dream to turn left, instead of right, when boarding a plane? Turning right leads you to the packed seats of economy class, whereas left brings you to the hallowed ground of business and first classes, where seats convert to flat beds, there is direct aisle access from every seat, and gourmet dining awaits. Unfortunately, such a premium flying experience also comes with a premium price – business-class tickets usually cost at least three times as much as economy.
This could be you! Read on to learn how you can fly in luxury with Changi Pay. Image credit: Singapore Airlines
Fortunately, there is a way to get around these exorbitant prices and secure your business, or even a first-class seat, and that is through frequent flyer miles. The trick here is that you do not need to actually fly to earn these miles. All you need to do is to charge your everyday purchases to the correct credit card to earn credit card points, which can be exchanged for miles, which can, in turn, be redeemed for those precious premium-class air tickets.
2. Make your credit card spend work harder for you with Changi Pay
Payment via Changi Pay is accepted at many shopping and dining outlets within Changi Airport and Jewel, and is your secret weapon in earning even more miles.
Love shopping in Jewel Changi Airport? Perhaps you find yourself purchasing multiple things during your visit or while in transit at Changi Airport. Either way, you can make your credit card spend at several shopping and dining outlets in Changi Airport and Jewel work harder for you with Changi Pay. Here is how to do it with Changi Pay. Launched in October 2021, the Changi Pay digital wallet already provides passengers and visitors at Changi Airport and Jewel with benefits like the convenience of contactless QR payments with their mobile phones, a multitude of discount vouchers, and seamless earning of both Changi Rewards points and CapitaStar points, all at one go.
Pro-tip: Read till the end to learn how you can score a S$10 e-voucher when you sign up for Changi Pay, exclusively for Now Boarding readers.
But less heralded is the fact that you continue to earn miles at attractive rates with Changi Pay. The secret is that those QR payments via Changi Pay are coded by banks as online transactions. And it just so happens that online payments are some of the most lucrative types of transactions you can make with Singapore-issued credit cards, on a miles-earned-per-dollar-spent basis.
In the Singapore market, the best credit cards for online payments generally offer you four miles for every dollar you spend, and you might even get the occasional promotion where you can earn more miles than that.
So, for example, to redeem a return business-class ticket to Perth on Singapore Airlines, you’ll need 81,000 miles, which you can get after accumulating about S$1,688 of monthly online spending over one year, not including the aforementioned promotions. This might sound like a daunting amount of spending, but mile-chasing is all about the long game – remember that this spending is over an entire year, and that ticket becomes much more achievable.
3. Choose the credit cards that can offer you more miles for your spend
These are among the most lucrative cards you can use with Changi Pay to earn miles.
There are several credit cards from different banks that offer four miles per dollar for online spending. These include DBS’s Woman’s World Mastercard (which is available to men as well, despite its name) and Citibank’s Rewards Mastercard. Also worth checking out are the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa as well as HSBC’s Revolution Visa card—both give four miles for online transactions in categories like dining and shopping.
Do note that each card has a monthly cap on how much you can spend to earn those four miles—except for the DBS Woman’s World card which has a S$2,000 cap, the rest have a S$1,000 limit.
Link your credit cards to Changi Pay to start accumulating miles
So, what are you waiting for? Whip out your cardholders and wallets and start spending away with your credit cards. All you have to do to start earning those extra miles is to link your credit cards to your Changi Pay account after you’ve downloaded the iChangi app. And then choose to pay with Changi Pay when you are shopping or dining at participating merchants in Changi Airport or Jewel, and on iShopChangi. It is that simple. As a bonus, you’ll also get to benefit from the discount vouchers that are available on the platform – these vouchers are regularly refreshed so make it a habit to log in and check them out.
Sign up for Changi Pay now for Now Boarding-exclusive perks
But wait, there is more – if you have not already done so, sign up for Changi Pay now via the iChangi app, and you’ll receive an additional S$10 e-voucher!
Just email us at social@changiairport.com with your name and mobile number after you’ve signed up, and we will credit your account with the voucher after we’ve confirmed your registration. This offer is valid only for the first 100 new sign-ups between now and 30 September 2022, who email us with their details. Plus, all new sign-ups will automatically receive a free S$5 welcome voucher from Changi Pay.
So be sure to sign up for Changi Pay, link the correct card, and visit Changi Airport to start clocking those miles. Your business-class seat is closer than you think!
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