Bonus 1% P.A. Interest with OCBC 360 Account - Extended to 30 September 2018
The OCBC 360 Account is one of my preferred saving accounts of choice since it gives up to 3.05% p.a. in bonus interest on up to S$70,000 of your account balance. It also gives an additional 1% p.a. on the first S$70,000 if your account balance is S$200,000 and above (but this is something you should ignore since there are better ways to invest your money). There is currently a promotion (which reminds me a little bit of the previous promotional mechanics) which offers an extra 1% p.a. interest on incremental balance based on the month on month average.
Making Sense of the new Subscription Programme by Grab and FairPrice - SCORE
Stacking the Uber benefits from the LiveUp membership as well as Standard Chartered's 20% cashback promotion has been the way to go for us Singaporeans but with the Grab-Uber merger (even though it might not go through that quickly since it has apparently infringed on the Competition Act) on the horizon, we may need to reevaluate our strategies. SCORE is a new subscription-based membership which offers members exclusive privileges (read: discounts) on Grab as well as FairPrice. While I am personally not particularly interested in the LinkPoints or FairPrice benefits that come with this membership, I am curious about the ones that you can use on Grab.
UOB to downgrade UOB PRVI Miles Visa Card from Visa Infinite to Visa Signature
As some of you may know, the UOB PVRI Miles Visa Card is a Visa Infinite credit card even though it is not marketed as one - the card face simply shows Visa (without Platinum, Signature or Visa Infinite branding under it). It seems that from 01 April 2018 however, UOB will be making it a Visa Signature card officially. There will be no changes to the earn rates and you will continue to earn miles (in the form of UNI$s) on local and overseas spend at 1.4 and 2.4 miles per dollar respectively.
Why I moved away from UOB's Suite of Credit Cards - from Five Cards down to One
UOB used to be one of the banks to go to for credit cards (especially for us mile-chasers) and at one point in my life, I have held over five credit cards from this bank alone. I loved that the fact that the UNI$s (the name for UOB's point currency) accrued from all cards were pooled into a singular account (which means you only paid the FFP transfer fee once) and how they seem to have a card for every significant purpose. However, in my opinion, the bank has gone downhill from where it was, at least where credit cards are concerned.
The Shutterwhale's Travel Guide to Beijing - What to See and Where to Go?
Beijing is my favourite city in China so far and I absolutely love the food, the sights and more importantly, the rate of progress in this bustling city. Now, I am sure that many of you would associate the city with pollution (you know, the things you read off the internet) but I assure you that the air quality in Beijing is indeed getting better. Find out where to go and what to eat in this amazing city!
Mandarin Oriental finally unveils an Official Loyalty Program (Kinda!) - Fans of M.O.
The Mandarin Oriental does not have an official loyalty program for the longest time and frequent travellers believe that your stay history is somehow tracked by individual PMS systems that are located in each property but forgive me if I am not convinced. Now, the Mandarin Oriental has finally unveiled an official loyalty program which really should be deemed as a membership program for two main reasons - there are no membership tiers and you do not get rewarded (at least not officially) when you stay more.
The Shutterwhale for iShopChangi: Pre-ordering and Picking up Travel Essentials before your Flight - Exclusive Discount Code!
On my latest trip to Japan where I checked out Japan Airlines' Business Class product for the first time, I decided to take up iShopChangi's offer to check out their duty-free e-store which has over 10,000 products from across 500 different brands and it allows me to purchase things like wines and spirits to high-end electronics from Bose and DJI. Instead of being able to just purchase these products prior to your flight, iShopChangi allows all eligible passengers to select from the e-commerce portal 30 days in advance and up to 18 hours before your flight. In fact, if you do not wish to lug your purchases with you throughout your trip, a convenient home delivery service can also be arranged for selected beauty and electronics purchases that are more than S$380.
Get 100 More Chope-Dollars with each fulfilled Reservation - Redeem for chance to win S$88!
In celebration of the upcoming Lunar New Year ahead, Chope is giving you the opportunity to earn 100 more Chope-Dollars on your next reservation. More importantly, it is allowing you to use some of your Chope-Dollars for a chance to win extra Chope-Dollars (yes, pretty much like gambling really), Shopee credits, Chope Shop credits as well as S$88 Cash - unfortunately bonus KrisFlyer Miles is not one of the prizes though.