One of the main reasons to use your credit card for your shopping overseas is for the air miles. Certain credit cards, which are also known as air miles credit cards or frequent flyer credit cards, enable you to accumulate frequent flyer miles with purchases made on your cards, such as online shopping, travel and even transport like Grab. With these air miles, you can redeem free air tickets or get great discounts for your next airfare.

Cashback credit cards let you earn some cashback when you use your credit card to pay your bills, such as telco, medical and utilities bills, while others give you the most cashback for dining, online shopping and other stuff like petrol. There are certain credit cards which focus on giving you the best cashback benefits for overseas spending such as the UOB EVOL Credit which provides you with up to 8% cashback on weekend dining, entertainment and Grab rides for your weekend trips.

Rewards credit cards are all about you collecting points and redeeming them for specific things that you like i.e. air tickets to your dream destination, dining, shopping and staycation vouchers, and even Apple gadgets, Dyson Tower Fan, wireless in-ear earphones and other popular tech merchandise.

So every time you use your credit card locally or overseas, you’ll get to collect points, which usually can be converted to air miles or vouchers and trendy gadgets. The more you spend, the more points you get, and the more attractive the redemption item is going to be.

Annual fees are usually charged by most credit cards and it’s kind of like for the convenience of you enjoying using the card to make your purchases. Of course, there are administrative costs, which are also included as part of the annual fees, for maintaining your credit card account.

Many banks do offer a waiver of your annual fee when you make a request through phone calls or email.

Dynamic currency conversion fees or DCCs in short, make up that extra percentage of your monthly credit card bill when you use it to pay for something you bought overseas.

If you choose to have the convenience of being able to see how much you’re paying in Singapore dollars just for that particular product or service you get on your overseas vacation or business trip, instead of just paying in overseas currency, you’re actually wasting precious money that you can spend on something else, or simply save it for rainy days.

These foreign transaction fees are very much “hidden” most of the time as many banks do not list them upfront unless it’s part of a promotion that they charge lower fees than the standard market rate.

Sometimes, the dynamic currency conversion fees are included in the foreign transaction fee too, if you’ve chosen to pay in SGD for your overseas purchases. So picking cards that offer waivers or discounts for these foreign transaction fees do matter if you mind paying for these fees.