AEON BiG Gift Card

AEON BiG Gift Card is a card that provides absolute cashless shopping experience to purchase any items at all participating AEON BiG store in Malaysia. It is also an ideal gift for your family and friends in any occasion.

You can use AEON BiG Gift Card just like cash. Cash amounts can be purchase in fixed denomination of RM 20, RM 50, RM 100, RM 200. Minimum value is RM 20 to Maximum value of RM 1500 per card. It can be purchased at Gift Card Centre in all participating AEON BiG store in Malaysia by using cash, credit cards, debit cards or charge cards.

These are the benefits of AEON BiG Gift Card:

1. No Joining fee is required. 
2. Issue Gift Cards instead of cash purchases.
3. Discount rate would be given for any cards purchased above RM 10K. 
4. Time saving at cashier lines. 
5. Customer can choose to use any amount to pay / make purchases. 
6. Stylish and easy to slip into the wallet. 
7. The perfect and convenient gift for any occasion.

You can always make balance enquiry for AEON BiG Gift Card in participating AEON BiG store Customer Service Counter or Check Out Counter. If you have credit card that gives you high cash back during weekends, e.g. Maybankard Dual, you can get the Gift Card during weekends and charge to your credit card. With this method, you'll be able to get 5% cash back everyday by using Gift Card to shop in AEON BiG.

OCBC Titanium Card Features Revision

OCBC had recently made an important announcement to revise its Credit Card features. The revision will be effective beginning from 29th November 2013.  There will be no more 5% rebate on dining, groceries, utility bills and petrol for OCBC Titanium Card.

Instead, OCBC Titanium Card holders can get 1% rebate on total retail spending with no limit. Besides, OCBC Titanium Card will be free for life and thus no more minimum 12 swipes per year requirement for annual fee waiver.

This is really a bad news to all OCBC Titanium Card holders especially those who just got approved. While continue getting 5% rebate until 28th November 2013, many of us will wonder which cards could be the replacement for OCBC Titanium Card?

My suggestion is to get Maybankard Dual, UOB One Card or Hong Leong Wise Credit Card depend on your spending pattern. Of course, we do hope that there will be another new card to be launched by other banks with similar features like the current OCBC Titanium Card.

Revision on Maybank TreatsPoints

When I received my Maybankard 2 statement last week, I'm shocked to notice that there was an announcement which Maybank is going to impose a 3-year expiration period on its TreatsPoints effective from 1st August 2013. 

TreatsPoints earned in a particular month are valid until the end of third year of the calendar month. Below table shows the points accumulated and the applicable expiry date:

Year	TreatsPoints Accumulation	TreatsPoints Expiry
Prior to July 2013	Up to 31st July 2013	31st July 2016
2013	1st August to 31st August 2013	31st August 2016
2014	1st January to 31st January 2014	31st January 2017

Besides, there is also revision on the value of TreatsPoints (TP). Previously 10000 TP can exchange for RM 50 Government Service Tax. However, from 1st August onwards, 12500 TP is needed to exchange for the same amount. So there is 0.1% reduction in the cash back, from 0.5% to 0.4%.

Standard Chartered and Maybank have revised their reward points this year. I guess other banks will review their current reward points and make necessary adjustment too. Let's wait and see.

How to Apply for a Credit Card without Income Document

Since Year 2012, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had tightened the rules to control the issuance of credit cards. I've shared about the minimum requirement to apply for a credit card previously. According to BNM's guidelines, if you are eligible to apply, you still need to submit income documents such as EPF statement, Form B or pay slips together with the application of new credit card.

However, not all banks impose such stringent requirements. Therefore, if you do not have income documents but still wish to get a credit card, there are 3 methods to do so:

1. Place FD in a particular bank and apply for credit card.
2. Sign up for EPF Skim Simpanan Persaraan 1Malaysia account and deposit RM 480 monthly into the account.
3. Sign up for a particular bank's product such as hire purchase or mortgage loan and request for credit card.

I'll go through the first method which is called FD pledging. There are a few banks that accept FD pledging, Maybank requires minimum RM 3000 FD placement while Hong Leong and AmBank require at least RM 5000 FD deposit. I would certainly recommend Maybank as the minimum FD amount is lower and Maybankard 2 is one of the best cards in the market.

These are the steps to apply for a credit card by pledging FD:

1. Visit the nearest Maybank branch, tell the officer that you would like to pledge FD to apply for credit card. 
2. Once FD placement is done, original FD slip will be kept by the bank, you will be given the photocopy version instead. Make sure that you apply for Maybankard 2 Gold.
3. After 1 week, the branch will call you up to sign for off set letter and pay for RM 10 stamp duty.
4. You should be able to get your credit card 2 weeks from the application date.

Please bear in mind that the credit limit of the card is equivalent to FD placement amount and if you withdraw the FD, you must cancel the card at the same time as well.

Special thanks to forumer komayong and kimo for sharing on the Maybank FD pledging.

How to Pay TM Bill with Maybankard 2 AMEX

Previously you need to enrol for Express Autopay if you wish to pay your utilities with AMEX. However, now you can pay your TM bill (Streamyx or Unifi) via maybank2u with AMEX!

I'll walk you through on how to add your TM bill to favourite payee and make payment:

1. After you login maybank2u, go to Quick Link on the upper right hand corner, choose Bill Payment from the drop down menu and click Go.

2. On the Bill Payment page, go to 3rd column and 3rd row, click Add favourite payee.

3. From the drop down menu, choose Telekom Malaysia Berhad and click Continue.

4. Key in your TM account number and account holder name, then click Register.

5. Click Request a TAC number, check ur SMS, key in then click Confirm.

6. After registration is successful, it will display the registration information and status.

7. To pay for TM bill, go to Bill Payment page, click Make a Payment to a favourite payee.

8. Select Telekom Malaysia Berhad from the drop down menu and click Continue.

9. Key in the amount to pay, select Maybankard AMEX as the payment from, click Continue.

10. Double check the payment details and then click Confirm.

11. Payment status will show successful if everything is correct.

RM 5 Cash Back with AMEX in Petronas

Maybankard 2 AMEX offers the highest cash rebates in the market, the only drawback is that it is not widely accepted by merchants in Malaysia. The reason behind is due to AMEX imposes higher charges to merchants compared to Visa and Mastercard.

Good news to AMEX card holders! Petronas petrol stations now accept AMEX cards and AMEX gives out RM 5 cash back to every principal cardmember when cardmember spends for RM 70 and above in a single receipt in Petronas petrol stations within Klang Valley. The campaign started from 15th December 2012 and ends on 15 February 2013 with a total RM 200000 of cash back.

If you spend RM 70 in Petronas in weekends with Maybankard 2 AMEX, you'll able to get RM 5 cash back plus the 5% rebate and 5x TreatsPoints, you actually get 14.5% cash back! However, each principal cardmember can only enjoy up to RM 5 cash back, so you only can use it once.

Too bad this campaign is only applicable to Petronas within Klang Valley, not Petronas nationwide. I hope that such campaign will cover more regions in the future.

Get Extra Rebate for Online Shopping

Online shopping is progressing steadily in Malaysia, especially those websites that sell vouchers for food and services. Do you often shop online to get vouchers, clothes or gadgets? If you do, you would notice that ipay88 and MOLpay are the most common payment gateway used by these websites.

In my previous post, I mentioned that ipay88 started to accept AMEX card but recently when I tried to use Maybankard 2 AMEX for the transaction, it always prompted a message, "This merchant does not support AMEX." What a disappointment! Anyway, don't worry, you still can get 5% discount through ipay88 and MOLpay (Groupon, Mydeal, Milkadeal, Jackcow) by using OCBC Titanium Card except Living Social & Groupon.

If you have AmBank CASA with AmOnline banking enable or AmBank Cards, you can get additional 6% instant discount in Jackcow portal.

There's a card from UOB, called UOB Vox which are tailored for the young generations. Vox card holders can enjoy 5% cash rebate on all online purchases up to RM 1000 every month except insurance, government utilities & bill payments only.

Besides, Vox card holders also can convert purchases of RM1,000 and above to a 6-month 0% Easy Payment Plan (EPP) with 1% upfront interest by calling UOB Card Center after purchase is made. Vox card holders are able to get cash rebates of up to 3% on retail purchases as well.

An example of a cash rebate payout:

	Customer A	Customer B	Customer C	Customer D
Previous Month's Statement Balance	RM1 - RM500	> RM500 - RM5,000	> RM5,000 - RM8,000	> RM8,000
Current Month Spend (for example)	RM1,000	RM1,000	RM1,000	RM1,000
Cash Rebate Rate	0.20%	0.35%	1%	3%
Cash Rebate Earned	RM2.00	RM3.50	RM10.00	RM30.00

Lastly, UOB Vox card holders also can enjoy SMART$ Rebate just like UOB One card. In my opinion, it is a great card to own if you are a fan of online shopping. The UOB Vox card is just like the e-version of UOB One card.

Maybankard 2 Posting Date & Transaction Date Discrepancy

Maybankard 2 AMEX offer 5% cash rebate on every Saturday & Sunday. What happen if the transaction date and posting date are different (transaction on Sunday, posting on Monday)?

When Maybankard 2 was launched not long ago last year, this was an issue which a transaction with posting date not on Saturday or Sunday was not eligible for 5% cash rebate although the transaction date was on weekend. By then, card holders had to complain to Maybank card center and provide transaction receipts as proof.

Now I checked back last 2 months' statements. There were some transactions with posting date and transaction date discrepancy but Maybank had fixed the issue. These transactions were eligible for cash rebates.

If you are still worried, you can keep the transaction receipts and calculate the cash rebates on the month's end to see if it is correct.