thou i owned almost all the major banks' credit cards, i'm nv a fan of using them to accumulate pts for the exchange of things as gg for the upfront discount is definitely more worth it. however, it jus so happened dat i've to make a bulk purchase today, n there's no discounts available, no freebies to exchange, not even lucky draws promotion for any of the credit cards. hence, given my character, i went to do a research on which card is the best to use (for the accumulating of pts) in such a situation.
jus a summary of how each bank award pts...
DBS: every $5 = 1 pt
Std Char: every $5 = 1 pt
HSBC: every $1 = 1 pt
Bank of china: every $1 = 1 pt
OCBC: every $1 = 1pt
Citibank: every $1 = 1.2 miles (as i accum krisflyer miles wif this)
UOB: i dun get pts as i use the ONE card
so after figuring out each bank's reward pts system, i moved on to coverting the actual pts needed to exchange for an item into monetary value. in order to make a fair comparison, i tried to extract the same item (a $10 F&B voucher) from each bank and this is the outcome:
DBS
andersen $10 voucher = 360pts = $1800
Stan Char
ben&jerry/watson/crystal jade $10 voucher = 350pts = $1750
HSBC
anderson/delifrance/haagen dazs $10 voucher = 1800pts = $1800
BOC
watson/cold storage $10 voucher = 3000pts = $3000
OCBC
anderson $10 voucher = 1800pts = $1800
so morale of the story is all banks maintain the same "reward exchange rate" and there are not much differences (except BOC which is ridiculously ex). this further prove my pt dat it's definitely more worth to go for upfront discount as the pts system is crap. who'll spent $1800 jus to redeem a $10 voucher?! lol~~