Grab to Send out Physical GrabPay Mastercard (Linked to GrabPay Wallet) for Users - Check Your Account!

After offering early access to the digital GrabPay Mastercard back in June 2019, Grab has now allowed selected users to request for a physical GrabPay Card (which will be delivered 7-10 working days) today. While these cards will be linked back to your GrabPay Wallet, the physical cards do not contain any numbers apparently for security reasons - this reduces the risk of fraudulent transactions in the event that you misplace your card.

Photo Credit: Grab

As you may already know, Citi and Grab will be issuing co-branded credit cards in the region and this physical (debit) card that you can request for via the Grab app is not a co-branded card. While this may sound like great news to utilise the balance in your GrabPay Wallet, many have noted that top-ups made within the Grab app are now being categorised under a different name (and possibly a different merchant category code). What this means is that we will probably see credit cards excluding top-ups as eligible spend that counts toward bonus miles and cashback. With that being said, it is safe to assume that credit cards such as the American Express Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend Credit Card (using my referral link will get you 7,500 more KrisFlyer miles) will continue to award bonus miles on these top-ups but of course the usual cap applies per statement month. The American Express Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend Credit Card is actually a decent card to hold and even though the base earn rate of this card is only 1.2 KrisFlyer miles per dollar (it goes up to 2.0 KrisFlyer miles per dollar in June and Decemeber when you charge non-SGD transactions to the card), it comes with a number of benefits like a free night stay at any participating Hilton hotels (including Conrad Bangkok!) in the region each year.

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It is unclear what will happen to the credit cards that are currently offering cardholders the opportunity to earn 4 miles per dollar on top-ups but there is definitely a huge possibility that these transactions will be flagged out differently under an alternative merchant category code, and be excluded eventually. I do not talk about cashback cards much on my website nd that is mainly because I do not own any of such cards personally. However, if you are interested to save more on Grab rides, the OCBC FRANK Credit Card allows you to enjoy 6% rebate on eligible online retail transactions (yes, Grab rides are included), up to S$60 in rebates per month when you charge a minimum of S$400 worth of eligible spend on your card. According to OCBC, top-ups are not eligible for the 6% rebate (since they come through with an MCC of 7399) but Grab rides (coming through with an MCC of 4121) will.

According to sources online, you can now add the digital GrabPay Card to Samsung Pay (no love for us Apple users yet) and use it where NFC or MST is accepted. If you already have the digital GrabPay Mastercard activated on your account, it is likely that you can now request for a physical card through the app. I have personally requested for one earlier today and was informed that it would be delivered to my residential address between 7-10 working days. While I am not hopeful about the situation from a miles accrual perspective, I am actually quite interested to see the physical card (and getting the digital one on my iPhone, whenever that happens).