Credit-card issuers offering a variety of benefits

Cash back, discounts and travel benefits may tempt you to go for a credit card.

Cash back, discounts or travel benefits - all may tempt you.

In this time of high oil prices, cash back from spending on filling up your car's petrol tank may be attractive to anyone covering a lot of kilometres.

Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) (SCBT) offers platinum cardholders 1-per-cent cash back when fuelling at any service station, with no spending limit. But if you fill up at a Caltex petrol station, the cash-back offer rises to 5 per cent, although with an Bt8,000 maximum spending limit per month; for this, you must first register by SMS or telephone.

SCBT platinum cardholders spending in supermarkets are also eligible for cash back of 1 per cent of the bill except at superstores, discount stores, HomePro and HomeWorks. When the card is used at other outlets, you receive double points for each Bt20 spent. Cardholders can redeem the points to pay for tickets from any airline. Benefits also include a Bt40 discount on movie tickets when spending on Thursday or Friday at Paragon Cineplex, Esplanade Cine-plex, EGV Cinema and Major Cine-plex. There is a limit of two tickets per card per day, available until July 31.

Citibank, another leading credit-card issuer, classifies its cardholders in various categories offering different benefits.

Its Platinum Select Card offers 5-per-cent cash back on all spending, and the Platinum Reward Card offers two to 10 times the reward points for each Bt25 spent, depending on the outstanding debt on the card account. The Royal Orchid Plus Platinum Select Card gives you one mile for each Bt20 spent.

Frequent travellers may prefer American Express, which has "The Fastest Way to Fly THAI" as its marketing slogan. Members holding THAI American Express Platinum Cards can receive 5,000 mileage-reward points on first spending of any amount within 30 days and another 5,000 when they purchase a THAI ticket while using the card for the first time.

Also, for each Bt25 spent using Royal Orchid Plus, members receive one mileage point. On spending of Bt100,000 or more, they receive 25-per-cent more bonus mileage points on all additional spending until the end of the year.

SCBT is now offering its platinum-card members one KrisFlyer mile for every Bt10 spent if they fly with Singapore Airlines or any other Star Alliance member. But after June 30, the promotion will change to Bt20 for one KrisFlyer mile.

Krungthai Card is also focusing on travel benefits. The KTC-Travel Visa Platinum Card offers discounts of 5-9 per cent to cardholders buying domestic air tickets with THAI, Bangkok Airways or One-Two-Go or a Royal Orchid Holidays' tour package.

The KTC-Royal Orchid Plus Visa Platinum Card also offers one mileage-reward point for each Bt20 spent, with no expiration.

The KTC-Big Camera Visa Platinum Card offers a 3-per-cent discount when purchasing cameras and lenses, a 30-per-cent discount on photo developing and a 50-per-cent discount on photography courses and workshop registration fees.

United Overseas Bank (Thai) has different offers such as Hole-in-One Rewards for any member who claims that he or she made a hole-in-one at any golf course in Thailand. The lucky winner will get a Bt10,000 prize.

In general, platinum-card benefits offered by Thai commercial banks are not as attractive as those of foreign banks. However, there are some interesting promotions, such as Kasikornbank, which offers a buy-one-get-one-free package when customers buy a Thai AirAsia domestic round-trip ticket using their card for payment.