Table of Contents
It’s become a habit for me to organize my wallet to decide which card to use when travelling abroad for maximized rewards and savings, so I thought why not make a post every time I do that, so this post is about me sharing what card I am using on travel based on the card I have.
This may not be the ideal combination for everyone because I may not have cards you have or vice versa, and we may prioritize different things such as miles or cashback.
Main Cards
Card that I will use by default in most general cases.
TNG Visa Debit Card
The TNG Travel Cashback Campaign 2.0 is valid until 31 August 2025 and for any transaction above RM200 there will be a 2% cash back.
However, since it introduced 1% conversion fees in 25 April 2024, this mean the effective cashback rate will become just 1% for transaction above RM200, no cashback between RM100 ~ RM199 and -0.5% in fees for small transaction below RM100.
Uses Visa exchange rate which network fees are included.
Charles Schwab Debit Card
This card let me spend USD directly from my Charles Schwab brokerage account with 0% conversion fees, and it use Visa exchange rate.
When I need cash I will also withdraw from ATM using this card because it will reimburse ATM withdrawal fees, which mean I can withdraw just the right amount I need.
Unfortunately recently USD has been weaken deliberately by Trump administration, which mean it would be more wise to spend MYR than USD in this period, but since majority of my wealth are pegged to USD there’s no option for me to avoid spending it.
Alternative Cards
Cards that I also bring along with me but probably won’t be use as much.
GXBank Debit Card
The foreign transaction fees of 1.2% is waived until 6 November 2025, and there is a 1% unlimited cashback, and you will pay using the Master exchange rate which included the network fees.
While it has similar 1% cashback to TNG Visa Debit Card, from my experience Master network fees are usually 0~0.5% higher than Visa network fees, at least for JPY/MYR pair. That’s why I will probably just use TNG Visa instead of this.
Cards I May Use If I Have Them
- AmBank Enrich Visa Infinite – 1 Enrich mile per ringgit spent overseas, that’s equivalent to 4% cashback, even with the 1% conversion markup, it’s still about 3%, but the card required annual spending of RM100k to waive the RM500 annual fees, the break even number for this card over TNG/GXBank is RM25,000 so it’s actually no that hard, and would be worth it if you can spend consistently above that number.
- CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite – The miles earning is equivalent to 1.56% cashback after all fees considered, but required RM250k AUM, so the trade off is the opportunities cost on that RM250k investment, it would be stupid to earn a little bit more air miles while your investment with CIMB lose way more than that. (Or worse yet, you invest some random CIMB fund just to have this card, extra stupid, lol.)
- UOB PRVI Miles Elite – When conversion fees considered the air miles benefit are equivalent to 2.33% cashback, which make it one of the highest benefit card, great option if you already have and using the card, but at just 1.33% more than TNG/GXBank, this mean the first RM47,000 you spent are just the break even to the annual fee, if you don’t consistently spend significant above that amount overseas then maybe it’s better to stick with TNG/GXBank and don’t apply this card.
Cards I Am Not Using
I may or may not have below cards but I’m not using them.
- AmBank Enrich Visa Platinum – 0.5 Enrich mile per ringgit spent overseas is equivalent to 2% cashback, after the 1% conversion markup, this make it indifferent to the TNG Visa Debit Card but the TNG Visa gives cashback instead of miles making it a better option over this.
- Alliance Visa Infinite – Rewards are too low as a travel credit card, but I do use this card to book hotel with Agoda because of the Visa Infinite discount.
- CIMB Travel Platinum – The air miles benefit of this card is only equivalent to 0.6% cashback when conversion markup is added, no reason to choose 0.6% in miles when I can have 1% cashback with TNG / GXBank
Notes
It’s an unfortunate while I have been analyzing benefits from so many credit cards but for my upcoming trip to Japan in July ended up not using any credit cards during the trip.
This has been the case for about the last 2 years, bank have been cutting benefits of credit cards, making most of the card just doesn’t worth it for most of us, the prepaid debit card has been great because they are giving benefits to grow their user base, but I also observed some cutting from them too.
Anyway, I’ll stop right here instead of turning this into a ranting post, if I missed out any cards that you think it’s great please let me know, I’ll look into them.