Interloper View

The banks are cutting back on the benefits of credit cards in Malaysia. These are the ones I know: OCBC Titanium card started with 5% for groceries, food and petrol but reduced it to 1% without limit. However, this year they changed the cash back to 0.1% for all purchases except for online purchases which still gets 1 %. UOB One card followed with by taking off the cap of the maximum cash back available for each month but reduced the cash back for week days to 2% (plus 1% UOBCash for BHPetrol).  Cash back were removed for spending at pharmacies. Breakdown of new cash rebates are as follow: Category Weekday Weekend Cap Note Petrol 2% 5% RM500.00 Additional 2% if pump at BHPetrol with cap of RM 400/- Cinema (GSC only) 2% 5% Groceries 1% 2% RM1,000.00 Aeon Big, Tesco, Cold Storage, Jaya Grocer and Giant Telecommunication 1% 2% RM300.00 Maxis, Digi and Celcom Others 0.20% 0.20% I was not able to confirm is there is reduction in UOB$ earned for BHPetrol on weekdays, it...

cohdra_100_4264.JPG By cohdra (Morguefile) I received a notice with my last OCBC credit card statement that they are revising the cash back rate from five percent in selected categories (and one percent for everything else) to a flat one percent for everything. As part of the change, they removed the cap of RM 50 per month cash back. What is not mentioned in the announcement was whether they are changing any other benefits for the card. The bank also removed another benefit of reimbursing the GST with an annual spending of RM10k and above.   Based on what I read on the Facebook page for OCBC, many customers are not happy with the change. Several customers threatened to cancel the card and encouraged others to do the same.   Based on my spending, the cash back will be substantially lower since my monthly cash back is well below the RM 50 limit with very few exceptions. However, based on what I know about other cards, the cash back is still one of the best in the ma...

I previously reviewed the different credit cards that are available in Malaysia and ways to get money back from these cards. A lot has changed since my last review. I have not really gone back to do an in depth analysis. The baseline at the moment for value based on either cash back or prize redemption is 0.5%. The service tax by the Malaysian government adds an additional RM50 per principal card and RM25 per supplementary card.each year. image ©  Adrian van Leen  for  openphoto.net  CC:PublicDomain  Due to the competition in the market, most annual fees are waived. The only exception I found is the Citibank Cashback card. When you first sign up for the card, the annual fee for the first two years are waived. However, when I asked for a waiver, they refused. Instead of approving a waiver, they offered a different card. The other option from them was to sign up for an additional service from them for another year waiver. I refused either option and was b...

There are many options for making money on the Internet. One such way is through blogging and also Adsense. I have been reluctant to follow this path previously because of concern on how to get payment but I found a very effective way of getting payment via Western Union Cash. There is a very good article found here on how to do it. A couple of things that needs to be done before you can make money. You need to blog about something that people are interested in - i.e. build content. Once you have the content, you need to market. Meaning, you need to get traffic to your site. The couple of ways to promote your web site are: Participate in forum. In one case, I just did a post and within minutes I got more than 100 hits. (of course this was a one time hit). Make sure that when you post in the forums, it needs to be appropriate content for the forum. Use the webmaster tools from Google to submit your site map. This can help get your site index by Google's search engine. How...

I just received a flyer from Direct Access indicating that you can get 2 % rebate on your purchases from any of the petrol stations. However, there are a few condition: The maximum expense on any one month is RM2,500/- (or RM 50/-) rebate. I did not see how long the offer will last. With this offer, we can potentially get the maximum of 3.5% rebate from petrol (that is 2% from the card and another 1.5% from the Smiles card - Esso and Mobil). This is an update to my earlier posts: Interloper View: Getting Money back from your Credit Card and Interloper View: Getting Money back from your Petrol

When filling up petrol for your car in Malaysia, it is possible to get some money back. The rate of return can be increased with the combination of credit card (see my previous post on getting money back from your credit card ). BHP Petrol (previously known as BP) You can accumulate points either using BHPs own card or using Genting's World Card. Swipe your Genting card after your credit card - some of the stations require you to go to the counter. If you accumulate the points using Genting's Worldcard , it is equivalent to cash Points will expire after 3 yrs. 100 points = RM 1/- Unfortunately the points can only be redeemed in Genting Highland. Return rate is 1%. Additional Note: You can accumulate more points for other participating merchants. Shell Points can be obtained using Bonuslink . Very important note that you are required to Swipe your Bonuslink card 1st before your credit card (different from all other stations). Failing which you will not accumulate any points...

When looking for credit card, I look at how I can get money back, so far I found two ways: Redeem the points for Vouchers. Money back. The following are the credit cards in Malaysia I have reviewed and thought I will share them with you: Hong Leong Bank Supplementary card fee - RM 40/- Uses points (1 point for RM1/-) - Accumulate points that can be redeemed for vouchers. Redeeming for KFC Voucher the rate is 0.42%. You can get additional points from other bank services such as loan. Citibank Malaysia Cash Back card Annual Fee: RM 90/year Supplementary card: RM 60/year 0.2% on the expenses. -- Shell Card Annual Fee: RM 90/year Supplementary card: RM 60/year Fuel Rebate of 1.5% - only from Shell (non Fuel purchase 0.5%) Public Bank Annual Fee: RM 75/year Supplementary: RM 45/year Rate of return: Total Monthly Retail Purchase Tier % Up to RM3000 0.3 Up to RM10,000 0.5 RM 10,001 and above 0.6 AmBank Annual Fee: RM75/year Suppleme...