Cheat Sheet: What Are The Best Cashback Cards For Working Adults In 2017?

Singapore: A country of card rebates

A savvy consumer is one who looks to get the best deal and most cash rebates from his/her spending. Over the weekend, a few community readers reached out to us to do a more detailed comparison on cards. As working adults, we spend almost on a daily basis. Thus, we dived deeper to compare the best Cashback cards in Singapore.

We focus on working adult scenarios

• Leaning more toward heavy categories such as F&B dining and Online spending
• With less emphasis on petrol discounts
• Regular monthly card spending between $0 to $1,000

One BIG problem with comparison sites in Singapore (eg. aggregators such as MoneySmart and SingSaver etc) which compares based on Cashback % and may not be complete due to not all cards being available and do not take into account monthly spending. We decided to do one based on scenarios instead as this is as accurate and unbiased as it gets.

Note: We do not get any commissions from any of these recommendations. You will start to realise also that very often, the best products do not give any perks (thus consumers discover them via blogposts like this rather than comparison sites)

For simplicity sake, we are focusing on the main 6 Cashback cards used by most Singaporeans today: DBS VISA Debit, OCBC365, UOBONE, CITI Cashback, BOC Family Card and AMEX True Cashback Card. We are NOT comparing the promotional deals for accounts that are usually for a shorter term. We will update this blog also as new information comes up regarding these credit cards, check back often! (updated 11 Sept 2017)

TL;DR: The best cashback cards

Here are the winning Cashback cards based on the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: Monthly spend $0 to $500 (DBS VISA Debit)

If you fall into this bracket, it would be important to just focus on saving more money, rather than spending rebates.

Thus the obvious winner here would be a really simple card like the DBS VISA Debit which gives you 5% cash back on all your various VISA Paywave purchases. This card is also recommended for those spenders who are unable to control their spending with Credit Cards.

Scenario 2: Monthly spend $500 (BOC Family Card)

This is actually a pretty interesting option for most young working adults and young families. Created by the Bank Of China, this card gives you a good selection of rebates for example 7% on all dining. You can refer to this chart below where we illustrate more of this here where you get close to $25 of cashback. Interesting to note, the OCBC365 card totally fails as you do not hit the minimum $600 monthly spend.

Find out more at the product page and apply here.

Scenario 3: Monthly spend $600 (BOC Family Card)

Again for this scenario, the BOC Family card wins again. Especially when it caters to a large selection of categories like weekday and weekend dining. Interesting to note, the OCBC365 card unlocks it’s Cashback and is rather close to the UOBONE card at around $20 of rebates. But BOC has around $30 cashback. Again if you are keen, find out more and apply here.

Scenario 4: Monthly spend $900 (CITI Cashback Card)

Used to be called the Dividend card, created by CITI, this card gives you a good selection of rebates and promises over 8%. You can refer to this chart below where we illustrate more of this here where you get close to $52 of cashback. Interesting to note, this is unlocked beyond the $888 spend that you need to hit all these bonus cashback, just beating the BOC option!

Find out more at the product page and apply here. (seems like MoneySmart has the biggest promo here so will link them here. We are independent of them)

Scenario 5: Spend $6,666 or more (AMEX True Cashback Card)

A classic card by AMEX, it gives you an unlimited, no minimum spend Cashback of 1.5%. You can refer to this chart below where we illustrate more of this here where you get close to $100 of Cashback. Why this strange number, it’s because if anything under this amount, you should use the other cards described above. And all the other cards have a HARD CAP at $100 per month. Interesting to note, if you are spending on wedding or banquet down payment, this could be a really interesting card to consider! You even get a bonus 3% for the first 6 months up to $5,000 spend. This could be really useful because there is NO CAP!

Find out more at the product page and apply here. (seems like ShopBack has the biggest promo here which gives you $50 cash so will link them here)

Conclusion: Find the best card which suits your monthly spend

As with any financial product in the market, here are the top things to consider before jumping on board.

• Do you spend $0 to $500 or more in a month?
• Can you pay your card bills in full? (if not, you should only look at debit cards)
• Think twice if you need it before signing up because of the sign-on gifts (e.g luggage, extra cashback etc)
• Card annual fees often can be waived off (between $150 and above per year)
• Take note of the different tiers that these cards provide and read the terms and conditions closely

With all these in mind, you should be in a good place to decide which card suits you the best. Stay tuned and check back often as we update these cards along the way! Join our community as well as we debate which cards are the best for you! Please leave us any comments or questions below, would love to answer them in an unbiased fashion. 😀