As we return to our pre-pandemic life, something that many Malaysians are excited to do more often again is travelling. Whether it’s flying overseas to meet up with business partners or visiting new places with loved ones, travelling can be a staple activity for some.
With that, frequent travellers might be interested to know that they can now earn air miles faster and fly business class for less with CardUp. CardUp is an online payment platform that lets you pay for your large life expenses such as rent, mortgage loan, renovation, education, and more with your credit card, even if credit cards are not traditionally accepted.
Many Malaysians may be familiar with using credit cards to make payments for everyday expenses such as dining and shopping but not all businesses or organisations accept cards. With CardUp, you can now use your existing credit card to settle most of your bills regardless of whether the recipient accepts credit card or not such as:
1. Rent and rental deposits
2. Mortgage loan
3. Renovation and construction
4. Education fees
5. Insurance
6. Car loan
7. Season parking
This is great news for credit card users who want to earn more rewards like air miles on their expenses. Let’s say, Jeffrey is a credit card user whose average monthly expenses include:
| Payment type | Amount (RM) |
| Mortgage loan | 3,000 |
| Car loan | 1,000 |
| Insurance | 500 |
| Renovation | 1,500 |
| Education | 1,500 |
| Total per month | 7,500 |
| Total per year | 90,000 |
Jeffrey enjoys going on holidays with his family. So, he researches air miles credit cards to get one that matches his lifestyle and spending habits.
With CardUp, Jeffrey can now shift his previously non-card expenses stated above onto his credit card at a fee of 1% which equals to RM900 per year. Plus he even earns card rewards on the fee!
From his expenses, he earns 90,900 air miles. According to CardUp’s rewards calculator, Jeffrey is able to redeem 1 return Business Class ticket to Tokyo, Japan worth RM10,616 using 81,600 air miles. This is all possible at a cost of only RM900 in CardUp fees which is less than the price of a single economy ticket!
To get started, you will need a copy of your tenancy agreement, which shows the tenancy period, rental amount, as well as your landlord’s bank account number.
As you can see, credit card users are able to maximise their rewards by earning more air miles and redeeming them for business class tickets.
Using your existing credit card, you can pay for any life expenses online even if the recipient doesn’t accept cards or have a CardUp account. They will receive your payment as usual via bank transfer with your name indicated.
You can also schedule recurring payments such as a year’s worth of rent payments in minutes and never have to worry about forgetting them.
Once your payment is scheduled, the recipient will receive the funds via bank transfer in as quickly as 1 business day.
Credit card users get a statement at the end of their billing cycle. Typically, you will be given a grace period to make payment upon receiving the statement. This defers their payment by up to 2 months in total, at no cost at all, leaving them with extra cash in the meantime.
By shifting most of your expenses to your credit cards, you can have an easy overview of your payments and its statuses. This lets you manage your expenses better.
CardUp has a dashboard feature that lets you see all past and upcoming scheduled payments on one page.
One of the biggest pros of using a credit card is having the opportunity to earn rewards as you spend. CardUp has helped their users earn more than 500,000,000 air miles. CardUp’s platform is very easy to use and you can rest assured that your data is safe with a PCI-DSS compliant and 256-bit encrypted platform.
CardUp users can easily manage their payments virtually with handy features like dashboard monitoring, real-time payment status updates, and more. At the same time, you get to accumulate air miles on your expenses faster to enjoy free flights.
This article is originally published in RinggitPlus.com