About BEST-OCBC Platinum Credit Card

alibaba1984 · Post by **alibaba1984** » Mon, 05 May 2014 10:43 am

hi, all. First time apply for credit card here. I applied for a few credit cards in different banks and so far only one bank approved which is the BEST-OCBC Platinum Credit Card.

Knowing that this is a Store Credit Card and may i know what are the differences between Bank Credit Card (Only have the bank logo) and Store Credit Card (Bank logo + Store logo like BEST) in Singapore?

Can I use the BEST-OCBC Platinum Credit Card anywhere including oversea of this card can only use in BEST store only.

Worst case scenario, if I haven't activate this card, does it count to my account or do I need to do/pay anything if I just ignore it before the activation?

Thanks.

Post by **Strong Eagle** » Mon, 05 May 2014 11:03 am

You can use the card anywhere. If you go to Best you will be able to finance larger purchases on your card, usually with no interest if you pay the full balance on time.

Branded cards like this are a way to make you buy from the company. I had an OCBC Ikea card which allowed me to finance a couple of thousand dollars of furniture at no interest if I paid on time.

alibaba1984 · Post by **alibaba1984** » Mon, 05 May 2014 3:12 pm

oic, it seems like these type of branded credit cards (like BEST-OCBC Platinum MasterCard, NTUC CC ...) are much more easier to be approved than others ....?

aster · Post by **aster** » Mon, 05 May 2014 7:08 pm

They shouldn't be, but who knows.

If you plan on spending a lot on CCs (or even $2k/mth) then with the right planning you can accumulate a lot of air miles...

Beeroclock · Post by **Beeroclock** » Mon, 05 May 2014 10:12 pm

aster wrote:They shouldn't be, but who knows.

If you plan on spending a lot on CCs (or even $2k/mth) then with the right planning you can accumulate a lot of air miles...

i used to go for air miles but nowadays it seems less attractive, especially if you willing to fly on discount economy fares, the points are not worth so much whenever I compare points vs cash for my bookings. So I prefer cards where I can get cash rebates at places I regularly spend.

zzm9980 · Post by **zzm9980** » Tue, 06 May 2014 12:19 am

Beeroclock wrote:
aster wrote:They shouldn't be, but who knows.

If you plan on spending a lot on CCs (or even $2k/mth) then with the right planning you can accumulate a lot of air miles...
i used to go for air miles but nowadays it seems less attractive, especially if you willing to fly on discount economy fares, the points are not worth so much whenever I compare points vs cash for my bookings. So I prefer cards where I can get cash rebates at places I regularly spend.

Key line here:

especially if you willing to fly on discount economy fares

A single one-way trip on Tiger from HKG to SIN has convinced me I'm definitely "not willing" lol. I'd pay full-price economy on Cathay or SQ over that sh!t-show any day.

Actually, Air Asia is OK to anywhere within 2 hours except KL as the budget terminal sucks.

Beeroclock · Post by **Beeroclock** » Tue, 06 May 2014 6:40 am

Yeah I chose air Asia for budget short haul. But usually I'm looking at SG-Australia on SQ or Qantas... Provided you can fix the dates and take a sale fare, then more than half of it is airport taxes. The only time I found decent value with points in recent years was for a Christmas flight when I couldn't get any sale fare.

aster · Post by **aster** » Wed, 07 May 2014 2:32 am

It's quite easy to clock up a massive 8k miles for $2k spend each month. 4 miles/$ is HUGE and imo is worth more than any rebates currently available...

zzm9980 · Post by **zzm9980** » Wed, 07 May 2014 5:25 am

aster wrote:It's quite easy to clock up a massive 8k miles for $2k spend each month. 4 miles/$ is HUGE and imo is worth more than any rebates currently available...

Yep! I used to use the Citi PremierMiles card for 3/$1 Overseas spend, and would easily clock in 9-10k points per business trip (1-2 a month) just on hotel and food spend. I think used SQ for all of my short-mid haul personal flights (say, Jakarta/Bali to HK on the distance/point scale).

Beeroclock · Post by **Beeroclock** » Wed, 07 May 2014 9:46 am

zzm9980 wrote:
aster wrote:It's quite easy to clock up a massive 8k miles for $2k spend each month. 4 miles/$ is HUGE and imo is worth more than any rebates currently available...
Yep! I used to use the Citi PremierMiles card for 3/$1 Overseas spend, and would easily clock in 9-10k points per business trip (1-2 a month) just on hotel and food spend. I think used SQ for all of my short-mid haul personal flights (say, Jakarta/Bali to HK on the distance/point scale).

Ok thanks, I just got a bit cynical of miles after some incidents and made a knee-jerk reaction to just take the cash rebates and bank the value immediately...

Let me see... In the past, the value I achieved for my miles was around $80-100 for 10,000. And if you can get 4 miles/$spend, so that equates $90/10,000*4*100% = 3.6% , which yes I must agree is a good return !

aster · Post by **aster** » Wed, 07 May 2014 7:20 pm

zzm9980 wrote:Yep! I used to use the Citi PremierMiles card for 3/$1 Overseas spend, and would easily clock in 9-10k points per business trip (1-2 a month) just on hotel and food spend. I think used SQ for all of my short-mid haul personal flights (say, Jakarta/Bali to HK on the distance/point scale).

Banks often give extra miles for overseas spend because they make heaps more money when they get to do currency conversions on your transactions. They make even more in non-USD overseas purchases because your transaction is first converted into USD, and then converted yet again into SGD.

There is a way to get 4 miles/$ on local spend though, at least for the first $2k spend each month. Still, that's 8k miles each month at a massive 4:1 earnings ratio.

aster · Post by **aster** » Wed, 07 May 2014 7:23 pm

Beeroclock wrote:Ok thanks, I just got a bit cynical of miles after some incidents and made a knee-jerk reaction to just take the cash rebates and bank the value immediately...

Let me see... In the past, the value I achieved for my miles was around $80-100 for 10,000. And if you can get 4 miles/$spend, so that equates $90/10,000*4*100% = 3.6% , which yes I must agree is a good return !

I believe the value is much higher than that. If you just look at redemptions in economy class though then that might be about right. But overall there is a huge difference when it comes to business class for one simple reason: it costs 4x as much to buy a business class ticket using $$$... but only 1.5x as much when redeeming miles.

Hence, the true value is in redeeming in a higher class of travel. Imagine having to spend 40k miles for something that you can buy for $1k, or 60k miles for something that would normally cost $4k.

Brah · Post by **Brah** » Sat, 31 May 2014 10:30 pm

I couldn't find the "Best Credit Card" thread so posting this here.

Seen this comparison?
http://www.enjoycompare.com/compare-pla ... dit-cards/

the lynx · Post by **the lynx** » Mon, 02 Jun 2014 9:53 am

Brah wrote:I couldn't find the "Best Credit Card" thread so posting this here.

Seen this comparison?
http://www.enjoycompare.com/compare-pla ... dit-cards/

http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic ... c-120.html

Brah · Post by **Brah** » Tue, 10 Jun 2014 9:21 pm

Thank you, just saw this now

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