Most of you who are air miles fans would use your Maybank 2 Cards Premier, especailly the Visa Infinite, when we are overseas. However with Maybank inflating their air miles conversion rate by 40% in September 2022, the Maybank 2 Cards Premier is no longer the Best Credit Card for Overseas despite us earning 5X TP. Previously I have shared with those who satisfied my TnC on what is the current Best Credit Card In Malaysia For Overseas to earn KrisFlyer or Asia Miles.
If you are an air miles fan and you have been reading my articles for years, you will know that credit cards 5X, 8X or 10X Reward Points means nothing if the conversion rate to air miles is not good, e.g. HSBC 8X Reward Points are useless for air miles.
And the most important thing is – we are imposed fee of 4% to 5% from our overseas transactions if we are using a Visa Infinite!!! Long time ago I did a comparison between Alliance Visa Infinite versus Maybank Visa Infinite and UOB Visa Infinite and from the conclusion you would have learned that all these said Visa Infinite impose an effective fee of about 4% or more compared to spot rate! That’s why these cards can offer you really good conversion of Reward Points to Air Miles from your overseas transactions! And if you did not know, Visa also imposes a fee for overseas transactions in addition to what the bank charges! For example, if you read the TnC of Maybank 2 Cards Premier, it is clearly stated that there will be a 2.5% fee for overseas transactions, therefore by adding the Visa fee, it comes out to be approximately 4% or more!
But we air miles fan who fly First Class has no issues if we are imposed fees of 5% but not all of you are My Air Miles Disciples where you are taught not to be stupid and use your air miles for Economy Class tickets and even Business Class tickets!!! YES, sometimes it is also damn stupid to use our Credit Card Rewards Points for Business Class tickets……. because we can even purchase a Business Class ticket cheaper compared to what the air miles are worth! For example, certain Business Class tickets, 1 air mile may be worth less than 4 sen or even 3 sen!!! However, if you are not My Air Miles Disciple, you most probably would not understand the contents in this paragraph.
On the other hand, there are those who are dam calculative where they are holding the Maybank 2 Cards Premier but rather pay their overseas transaction using cash and earn nothing, hahaha. Well, to be frank, the conversion rate we get from our local Money Changer is very very very good compared to overseas Money Changer, say in Australia.
In respect to the above paragraph, this article is not about being calculative where one wants to save a few Ringgit or hundreds of Ringgit as it makes no difference to our lives. Either you have money in your old age or you don’t and it depends on what you invested when you were young; but if you do not invest but practice pay now and earn later you will have less in your future. Today it is even worst, we have Pay Later which is a debt…….
The purpose of this article is about security and convenience.
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