If I don’t want to watch the miles arena too closely can I still enjoy miles hacking, and what are the bare basics “starter pack” cards I can go for?

Citipremier Miles hands down. Just because the miles don't expire. And also, it's a fuss free don't need to track kind. I am not for having different miles card for different categories, makes things very confusing for me. Even for cashback, I am also only using HSBC Advance and UOB One.

Citi Rewards Visa/Mastercard for 4 miles per dollar

• UOB Preferred Platinum Visa- for 4 miles per dollar on contactless spending

• UOB PRVI Miles Visa/Mastercard - For general spending at a rate of 1.4 miles per dollar & 6 miles per dollar for flight ticket purchase

• UOB lady's card for 4 miles per dollar for Grab and Train rides

Currently this is the 3 cards you can consider:

UOB Prvi - 1.4 MPD for general spending

UOB Preferred Visa - 4MPD for contactless payment, capped at $1K

OCBC 90oN Card - 4MPD for overseas spending, no cap until 29 Feb 2020

To me, you need 3 cards and 1 more if you can.

1) DBS Altitude Visa Card

2) DBS Altitude AMEX Card

3) Citi Premiermiles Visa Card

4) Citi Premiermiles AMEX Card (high income req, so a bit of a bummer)

The strategy is just charge everything to these cards. If that month Citi has a promotion, just charge to Citi's cards. If DBS has a promotion, just charge to DBS's cards.

As points from these cards don't expire, just keep charging to these cards and you should have a sizeable amount of miles in a few years time. Boost the number of points by paying annual fees too.

This way, you can don't need to worry about what cards give you what mpd la and no need to every year monitor the soon to expire points.

You do need to make an effort to know how many miles for the dream redemption you want though.

You'll need 3 cards: an online card, an offline payWave card, and an offline general spending card.

Online:

• DBS Woman World Mastercard

• Citi Rewards Visa/Mastercard

payWave:

• UOB Visa Signature

• UOB Preferred Platinum Visa

General spending:

• Bank of China Elite Miles Mastercard

• UOB PRVI Miles Visa/Mastercard

• Citi PremierMiles Visa

• DBS Altitude Visa

See: https://milelion.com/credit-cards/guide/

Two cards

1) UOB Priv Miles card (best return on a general use basic)

2) Citi Premiermiles card (Miles do NOT expire)

I uses these 2 cards. UOB for most spending because it has the best returns.

And Citibank Premiermiles because the card earn miles that do not expire.

I like to accumulate them for future, in case I need to splurge on some special events or for some love ones.

These 2 are my favourite cards and I almost abandoning all my other cards (OCBC, SCB, Maybank, BOC) unless they have special promotions that they inform me via email or sms. ​​​

Hi Vivienne, I would think it's still possible to enjoy miles hacking with a more "passive" approach. And the fastest way is through gaining sign-up bonuses. I would recommend staying up to date with all the sign-up bonus that are on offer, especially to new-to-bank customers. You can keep track of them either via:

• SingSaver or MoneySmart. They regularly share sign-up bonus from the various banks, say $250 for signing up for a Citibank card as a new-to-bank customer.

• Milelion Roar telegram broadcast channel (https://t.me/milelionroars). They post all (I think?) promotions almost in real time, as well as compile a Weekly Deal Summary to ensure you do not miss out on any promotion. Best of all, it is a channel so no spams! Only the best stuff shared there.

As for the starter pack, there is indeed an article of the same title (https://milelion.com/2019/09/21/miles-game-starter-pack-four-credit-cards-you-need-to-get-going/). It lists the various categories of spend and the cards that would help you maximise the miles earned. Hope it is not too much of an hassle keeping up with various perks of these cards when you have them in your wallet.

All the best!

It depends on your spending habit.

For general cards, consider Citi PremierMiles at 1.2 miles per dollar. For stacks in $5, consider UOB PRIV Miles @ 1.4 miles per dollar.

For online spending, consider Citi Rewards @ 4 miles per dollar, capped at $1k monthly.

For shopping and entertainment, consider OCBC 90°N CARD @ 4 miles per dollar.

Personally, I am not overly enthusiastic into the miles game, hence I use Citi PremierMiles. =)

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