Cashback versus Miles or both?

Having just flown 2018 RJ, I'm going reaffirm my decision to go with the miles route.

I find that cashback, while simple to understand, is just that. A rebate of some form. Miles actually presents a kind of game that's easy to pick up but difficult to master.

Cashback, you spend, you get cash back. Done. Sometimes, you don't get a lot due to the lack of your minimum spend. Sometimes you get a lot, but then you get capped.

Miles, you spend, you get your miles. No matter how much you spend, a little or a not (I'm not about to go into the finer details here, such as the fact that spending $4.99 on a UOB Priv mile doesn't get you anything). Not only that, you are effectively not capped on how many miles you can earn. If you want to play the game simply, just spend normally and you'll eventually 'farm' enough miles to get a nice business class redemption. If you want to kick the notch up a little, spend time learning and maximizing the rules of the game, and your redemption comes a lot sooner than you think.

So, miles for me. As Aaron has mentioned, focus on one or the other, not both.

Focus on one. I will choose cashback as my spending is not that much per annum which then it is abit slow to accumulate points. Also always depends on your needs, if you are a mile person, just go for it. But focus either one would be good enough. Unless your expenditure is high and make sense split the amount into different cards.

The problem with focus is that you hardly get every situation in life that matches your focus.

I prefer have 1 main milecard and 1 main cashbackcard.

So all large spending and worthwhile spending - miles card for my miles

anything else- cashback card.

Less thinking and more on which one is less taxing to just whip out the card.

I prefer cashback as it is easier to manage. For me, I use HSBC Advance as it is fuss free too. There is a cashback cap though, so whenever I need to spend past that cap, that's where I will activate my miles card to pay for the excess.