Credit card strategy: Thoughts on using both miles and cashback cards?

Am updating my credit card strategy right now and I'm thinking of going with DBS Women's World for online spend and UOB One for all other spend (and aim for the $2000 monthly spend to maximise cashback).

Curious if it is recommended to have both a cashback card & a miles card in your card strategy, instead of solely focusing on Miles / Cashback. I did consider a solely miles approach but UOB One's cashback requirement that I am able to hit feels like too good a deal to pass up.

Can anyone share their perspectives and experiences?

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thefrugalstudent

20 Nov 2021

Founder at thefrugalstudent.com

Hi Anon,

I'd say there's nothing wrong per se with going for a blended approach between miles and cashback, but it can be tricky.

The main concern that jumps out to me is miles validity. Miles are most valuable when they are used to fully redeem a flight ticket, and not to upgrade flights or pay for transactions. The value of miles increases the more 'luxurious' the class of ticket you're redeeming for, ie first class/business class rather than economy.

This means you often need to redeem miles in large blocks (70k+?) before they expire. Particularly, if you're using DBS WWMC, this is a concern because I believe the DBS points earned via this card is only valid for 1 year. After converting them to KF miles, I believe that adds another 2 years, so you have a total of 3 years to use up your miles. If you're splitting your cc strategy between miles and cashback, you may find it hard to accumulate enough miles to convert them before they expire.

Just something to consider.

Regards,
thefrugalstudent

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