Introduction

This review is part of my Best Top Credit Cards in Malaysia 2025 where I have listed down the best credit cards for different purposes/spending patterns.

If you are new to credit cards, I recommend that you click here first read my article titled Prelude To The Best Top Credit Cards in Malaysia 2025.

In the above said article, you will find a link to my Credit Card Tutorial 101 where you are told the basics of owning credit cards as there are risk associated with owning a credit card. Then again in my Prelude to The Best Top Credit Cards in Malaysia I also told you the risk of having a Visa or MasterCard Debit Card and why you should use Prepaid Cards even if you have credit cards.

Before I proceed any further, you must know that ALL Maybank Credit Cards do not earn us any Treats Points or Cash Back for transactions related to JomPay, FPX, Government and Topping Up eWallets.However, in my Best Top Credit Card in Malaysia 2025 I listed one exception where a Maybank Islamic Bank credit card does earns you Treats Points for government transactions!

As for Utilities (Electricity, Water, IWK & Gas), Insurance and Education related transactions in Ringgit Malaysia, you will only earn us 1X Treats Point.

Maybank 2 Gold/Platinum Cards Review

The Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum has been around for more than a decade and awarded The No.1 Best Cash Back Credit Cards over and over again by my readers, but only for the AMEX, haha.

There is basically no difference in terms of benefits between the Maybank 2 Gold Cards and the Maybank 2 Platinum Cards – both are Entry Level Credit Cards where the Platinum only makes you Shiok Sendiri, haha.

Today the Maybank 2 Cards come with a MasterCard and American Express. The MasterCard (some of us may have the Visa) is totally useless if you have other Visa/MasterCard credit cards and you can keep it in the drawer – Tip, do not activate the MasterCard or Visa and you won’t need to pay the SST 🙂

Why is the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX the best Entry Level Credit Card in Malaysia?

With the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX, you can earn both Treats Points and Cash Back. For Treats Points technically there is no cap for transactions on weekdays. However for cash back which you earn on weekends, there is a monthly cap of RM50, i.e. good for up to RM1K spending.

Cash Back with Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX

The best thing about Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX is that you are guaranteed 5% cash back for all transactions on Saturday and Sunday except for transactions related to Government, Utilty Bills and Topping Up eWallets (this means Grab Wallet, Lazada Wallet and Shopee Wallet). However, below I will show you how you can earn 5% cash back for utility bills and even some Local Council Assessment.

Now please differentiate between topping up Grab Wallet, Lazada Wallet, Shopee Wallet and other eWallets versus using your Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX to pay directly for Grab Rides, Grab Food, Lazada and Shopee where you do earn 5% cash back on weekends.

In respect to the above, if you are still blur, what it means is that you earn 5% cash back with the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX on Saturday and Sunday when you select the card as Payment Method for Grab Rides, Grab Food, Lazada (where you can pay bills including IWK, Water & Electricity) and Shopee.

Now we can also pay Etiqa premiums with AMEX on weekends to earn 5% Cash Back!

So basically, we can earn 5% cash back on weekends from Online Transactions and even bills payment via M2U (e.g. for Maxis, you select the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX to pay the amount you desire) in addition to over the counter (at Petrol Stations such as Petronas and Shell), restaurants (Starbucks, TGIF, and etc), Movies, Departmental Stores, Jewellery (Poh Kong, Tomie and etc) and many other merchants that accept AMEX.

Only a fool in Malaysia will tell you that AMEX is not widely accepted….. I just showed you above you can practically use AMEX for many essentials items including Petrol, Water Bills, Lazada and Shopee.

The only set back with the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX Cash Back is that the maximum cash back per month is capped at RM50; and the transactions eligible for the cash back are based on Calendar Month, i.e. starting from 1st day of the month to the last day (not Statement Date to Statement Date).

So to increase the cash back you can earn, you can then get another cash back credit card or your spouse get his/her own Principle Maybank 2 Gold/Platinum Cards.

As I mentioned, the Maybank 2 Gold/Platinum Cards are ENTRY LEVEL CREDIT CARD, which means if your spouse earns RM30K per year, he/she should qualify for the Maybank 2 Gold Cards (on condition her Credit History is clean and he/she has no other credit card).

So say you are purchasing an item costing RM1.5K from Harvey Norman, you can then use your Maybank 2 Cards Platinum AMEX to pay RM800 (because you already used up RM200 for petrol) and the balance RM700 use your spouse’s Principle Maybank 2 Gold Cards AMEX, get it? It be stupid of you to pay RM1.5K with your own Principle Maybank 2 Cards Platinum AMEX as you would have spent more than RM1K per month.

5X Treats Points Monday to Friday

I am now going to show you why the Entry Level Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum Cards AMEX is better than Maybank 2 Cards Premier Visa Infinite and AMEX Reserve.

Say you have a transaction of RM5K at a Private Hospital on a Wednesday. With your Maybank 2 Cards Premier AMEX Reserve you will only earn 10K Treats Points (2X TP for every RM1 spent locally) which you can convert to 1K KrisFlyer Miles.

With the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum Cards AMEX, we can earn 5X Treats Points for every RM1 spent for transactions on Monday to Friday where THERE IS NO CAP which means it is unlimited. Therefore with a RM5K transaction on Wednesday, you will earn 25K Treats Points which you can convert to 1,250 KrisFlyer Miles which is more than the AMEX Reserve!!!

But since you are reading my blog, i.e. http://www.GenXGenYGenZ.com, I must teach you also the basic so that you can compare any credit cards out there based on your spending pattern, especially if you are an Air Miles Fan.

First thing you must know is – always determine how much you need to spend to earn 1 Air Mile.

For the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX, the conversion rate is 20K TP = 1K Air Miles and we earn 5X TP for every RM1 spent Monday to Friday (except for transactions mentioned earlier). Therefore, this means we earn 1 KrisFlyer Mile for every RM4 spent locally.

So from the examples above, I just proved to you that the Entry Level Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum AMEX is better than the AMEX Reserve as far as accumulating air miles is concerned from Local Transactions.

A major con about Maybank credit cards that earns us Treats Points is that they have this ridiculous 100M Air Miles quota per month for all cardholders where this said quota for the last few months habis on 1st of each month!

If you would like to learn more about Maybank Treats Points TnC for Air Miles Redemption, please click here to my article titled Revision To Maybank Air Miles Redemption TnC Effective 12th April 2024 – You Better Plan Ahead Because Only You Are To Be Blamed If You Can’t Redeem A First Class Ticket When You See It Because You Were To Greedy Worrying About Expiry And Not Having Them On Standby.

However, if you do spend RM5K per month, it is best you get the credit card(s) for Air Miles listed in my Best Top Credit Cards in Malaysia 2025.

Conclusion

Despite the Maybank 2 Cards Gold/Platinum being an Entry Level Credit Card, it is still one of the best Cash Back credit card you can hold to earn guaranteed FREE Money on weekends.

The Maybank 2 Gold/Platinum Cards AMEX is one card you should have regardless if you are earning RM36K or RM200K per year and the most important thing of all – IT IS FREE FOR LIFE WITHOUT ANY CONDITION.

And once you have the Maybank 2 Gold or Platinum Cards, make it a habit to ask when paying anything – do you accept AMEX? Better still just use your AMEX to tap without asking, if the transactions fails then use a Visa or MasterCard, hahah. You might be surprised….. Speed 99 accepts AMEX (where I can earn 5% cash back for fags, hahahaha).

Last but not least, the beauty part of having any AMEX card is you get to call CS Toll-Free and I have reiterated over and over again to only call the number behind your card. But for whatever reason you have no access to your card because it was stolen, AMEX Toll Free number is 1800-88-1801 if and only if you are calling in Malaysia.

Click here to read and learn about The Best Top Credit Cards in Malaysia 2025