Best credit card to earn airmiles

mrhermano

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Joined
Oct 24, 2018
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7
Hi

I was wondering if anyone has ever posted a guide to the best credit card to airmiles and how much the yearly fee is? I know BCA have credit cards where you earn krismiles with singapore airlines. Has anyone tried it?
 
Yes I have the BCA one, its pretty good and easy to earn and redeem for SG

HSBC also has miles

In fact pretty much every card has promo with points, miles, airlines etc

All are usually standard fare across the board and all as much of a con as each other unless you are a huge spender and earner of points and then know how to cheat / use the system to redeem them - e.g on SG there is a certain way to book J class using miles alone which for some reason seems less than the way they push you to do it, don't ask me how, all I know is I kept the page link and you have to click on redeem and then search for the flight rather than book the flight then redeem or something?
I used to get Jak SG return J class for about 25k miles only but it seems more if you do it the way they prefer you to do it

Everyone has their own preference, but really if you are only going to SG and know your dates, if you book ahead then you can't really beat AA or Lion or even Batik and get it for few hundred thousand rupiah return if you book ahead, and really for 90mins it's not worth the extra fuss to go J class sometimes unless like me you have so many miles to redeem that you do it just to not lose them. Sure J class is nice but usually redeeming miles is a bigger con than earning them. Spend $100,000 to get 1000 miles and need 100,000 miles to get one way eco to SG or something

That's my opinion anyway
Stupid thing is I have the BCA Black card and I always use that since I am stupid and narsis and the SG card from BCA is a lesser status card but you get the SG miles, they won't match my SG card to my BCA level even though I have Krisflyer Elite gold, they will only go to PPS Solitaire and that's not up to BCA, that's up to SG to give me

So I like to use my BCA Black in reality and the SG card for online things. Yeh stupid I know but I am not so worried about the points really, and I get BCA points (none of which I have ever used in 10 years and no idea what or how)
All I know is I have millions of BCA points so I guess one day I should redeem them for a rice cooker or something
 
BTW there are many forums and blogs comparing cards / points etc even just Indo cards
 
Yeah we have BCA SQ and BNI Garuda. Works well.

With the BCA points it's very easy to 'pay' at ACE or so btw.
 
Yeah we have BCA SQ and BNI Garuda. Works well.

With the BCA points it's very easy to 'pay' at ACE or so btw.

What is the yearly fee for those cards? I also see they have lots of promos at different restaurant if you have the right credit card. Is it worth getting some of those or is the fee to expensive. I checked a few blogs, but I found it difficult to find out how much the yearly fee is.
 
‘She-who-is-in-control’ will NOT pay a fee for any card membership. Seriously. So she negotiates. Many card deals end up with a minimum spending, say 5 million over two months.

Yes, the discount and promos of the restaurants with certain cards is heavily used. It really adds up, easily between 10 and 30%. Also OVO cashback is quite interesting, and with OVO you can also pay GRAB.
 
Ok first of all, if you are an expat even with a job and KITAS, it can still be a pain to get a credit card, some banks even request you deposit funds and then give you a % of that as the limit

So don't assume you will automatically get a card, even with a KITAS

About the fees, even for the top level it is not much around 500,000rp a year but anyway they will refund it if you are a big spender or ask them too. I think even it will say somewhere that the fee is not charged if you use it a certain amount.

It is not a huge amount anyway, not like some cards that want $2,000 a year etc etc so you have a concierge to call and book you a flight in case you don't have a wife or a computer and want to pay full fare lol

Mostly the local banks have the best promo at the shops, malls etc, like BNI BRI, Permata, Danamon etc
BCA and HSBC have promos but I see mostly the local (Govt?) banks do more promos in the malls
 
Check the www on each bank for the terms and charges for the cards, they all show their range of cards available and benefits and costs
No need to check them all, they all are pretty similar, just depends if you want Batman or Tasmanian devil or Man Utd logo on your card or just plain Black / Titanium / Plutonium etc
 
Ok first of all, if you are an expat even with a job and KITAS, it can still be a pain to get a credit card, some banks even request you deposit funds and then give you a % of that as the limit

So don't assume you will automatically get a card, even with a KITAS

About the fees, even for the top level it is not much around 500,000rp a year but anyway they will refund it if you are a big spender or ask them too. I think even it will say somewhere that the fee is not charged if you use it a certain amount.

It is not a huge amount anyway, not like some cards that want $2,000 a year etc etc so you have a concierge to call and book you a flight in case you don't have a wife or a computer and want to pay full fare lol

Mostly the local banks have the best promo at the shops, malls etc, like BNI BRI, Permata, Danamon etc
BCA and HSBC have promos but I see mostly the local (Govt?) banks do more promos in the malls

Thanks for your help. At least my wife can get one and I can use her card :)
 
BCA SQ Infinite, UOB PRIV Miles and CIMB World have the best IDR to point earnings: IDR 5000,- to 1 airmile. Next up is DBS Signature which gives 1 mile per 8000 domestic spend or 2 miles per 10k international. BCA SQ signature works out ok for spending around 20jt with 1 mile per 10k but 1000 bonus miles after 20jt, so spending around 20jt nets 6667 IDR per mile. Going to 30jt a month you actually go down to 7500 IDR per mile as the bonus miles is a one time thing and not multiplied (spend 40 get 2 x 1000 bonus).

HSBC sometimes has very good multipliers (spend 10/20/30jt get 4/5/6 times bonus miles) which can net you 10k miles in one go but their exchange rate on international spending is really bad and it’s usually on specific spending (hotel/resto/shops), pumping up your spending by paying the company electricity bill isn’t going to work.

Haven’t worked out the Citibank premiermiles one, might be worth looking into.
 
My brother in law has the Citi with premiermiles. Rather convenient to borrow because some restaurants have good deals. (It really is amazing you can still choose to have the card swiped here with no check of signature whatsoever, instead of PIN only.)

Anyway, he says the miles never expire and esp. abroad he gets a good mileage (haha); 1 mile for 5.000 rupiah or so. (One person for free to the US west coast once per year.) He uses SQ; it did surprise me they support so many airlines since my US Citi credit card option at the time was only for OneWorld.
 
Something we didn't mention btw, is airport lounge access. Very convenient, esp. if you're waiting for a delayed Lion/AA/CitiLink/.... flight. But they do change a lot, esp. in Jakarta; suddenly a lounge has disappeared or a card is not accepted anymore. (Should improve with terminal 2 out of the picture.) Some cards also offer free access for two people.
 
If you are able to get a US card, there are often very good signup offers. Some require a certain $2-4k spend in the first 3 months.

There might be an annual fee, of $75-99 per year, but it’s sometimes waived the first year.

I used to hate annual fees, but if I can get a one way Biz class ticket from the US to Asia for under $100, I’ll jump at it.

I’m currently working on getting the whole family’s trip to Indonesia next summer using miles. Now if I could only find some JAL first seats...
 
Lufthansa Miles and More is my goto card. Star alliance includes Singapore Airlines, which also has a card for Indonesians.
 
BCA for SG miles, either their SG Krisflyer infinite or Visa / MC black, or the Amex Platinum assuming they approve you
 
Or HSBC but I think thats airmiles I forget which airline
One of the others does Garuda miles
Personally I find the BCA SG hookup to be the best / easiest to earn and redeem

I can average about 6-8 business class return CGK SIN return every year with BCA
Including the lounge access in Changi which I have the Krisflyer elite gold anyway, but check in 3-4 hours before your flight and drink and eat to your heart's content
 
BCA Singapore for me too. Link it to Krisflyer/pps membership. Good value for flying around Asia. SQ tie up with Star Alliance is not as good as advertised though and hard to get flights on United or Lufthansa in Europe or US.
 
The front desk clerk at Soekarno Hatta Cathay Pacific enrolled me in Asia Milesprogram (I am with Maybank Infinite...so according to Maybank's website I can transfer purchase points to Asia Miles). AM's website was horrible to use...and only after registering i found out through the AM's facebook page that many people have complaints about them...so I'm curious if anybody here ever uses Asia Miles..
So far I've also seen so many discounts, promos, BOGO, etc with BCA card...(Platinum and Black, sometimes Batik)...Maybank pretty much sucks in this area, but I was offered free of annual fee, so I guess it's not too bad.
 
I was interested in applying for Citibank PremierMiles but they just informed me that Citibank Indonesia plans to close its doors later this year (he said August 2022) and they will be bought by UOB.

PremierMiles seemed like the best option for me, so now I'm lost on what other good options there are. I want to use miles for my infrequent trips to the US (yearly or bi-yearly) and also hopefully local airlines like Garuda etc.

Any suggestions?
 
Don't
Can't beat BCA / Kris Flyer
But I'm sure someone gonna pipe up now about Megabank or Bank Kampung Fairyland or something. Lol
 

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