The Best Miles Cards for Malaysian Wallets and BolehMiles’ Strategy 2025 (Aug 2025 Update)

In BolehMiles’ maiden post, “How Viable is the Malaysia Miles Game?“, we said that while the Malaysian miles game is more challenging compared to other countries, it remains a viable option across various income levels, with the lowest barrier of entry of RM2,000 per month.

In the post Cashback vs Miles, we examined why miles cards can be better than cashback cards. It is important to scrutinise the advertised cashback rates. For instance, a card may promote a 15% cashback rate, but upon closer inspection of the fine print, the actual effective cashback might only be 2.4%.

Over time, we’ve also published numerous credit card reviews and posts on miles strategies. The amount of information can feel overwhelming, especially for beginners.

Today, we’ll summarise our key insights, recommend the best miles cards for 2025, and share strategies to help you maximize your miles-earning potential.

Overall Strategy

Use multiple cards

We recommend using at least 2 to 5 cards to maximize miles-earning opportunities. Just pick the ones that match your spending habits.

Understand Miles Valuation

There are essentially three categories of miles, ranked by value and scarcity (low to high): 

1. Enrich
2. KrisFlyer & Asia Miles
3. Alternative Miles (Alt Miles)

Remember, value isn’t just about redemption value. It also depends on a lot of other factors, such as flexibility of redemption, travel preferences and financial situation. Read our post on “How Much is One Enrich Worth?” to get a better understanding of valuing miles.

We like to analogize these miles as Carbs, Meat, and Seafood, to give you a better perspective:

• Enrich Miles is like Carbs: Abundant and filling, but don’t go overboard.
• KrisFlyer/Asia Miles is like Meat: Good for the soul and more valuable.
• Alternative Miles is like Seafood: Flexible and nutritious, can adapt to various tastes.

If you are new to the miles game, start by learning one program. Loosely speaking, Enrich is good for domestic and short distance regional travels. Krisflyer and Asia Miles are good for long-distance travels. Read more on the strategy here.

Always refer to the miles per ringgit (MPR) metric

Every bank in Malaysia has its own odd and quirky point system, so you might find it confusing and difficult to remember. HSBC says 1 AirMile is not 1 Mile, UOB says 12,000 UNIRM is 1,000 Miles, and so on.

So don’t get distracted, stick to the more objective metric: Miles Per Ringgit (MPR). At BolehMiles, we focus solely on MPR to keep things simple.

Don’t forget about redemption

Accumulating miles is just the first part of the game; the real difficulty comes in how you redeem them. For the best redemption values, we recommend to aim for Business Class (J) tickets and above. But don’t be shy to redeem for Economy Class (Y) tickets, you can still find value, depending on the situation.

Now, finding award availability for your desired date can be tricky, which is why flexibility matters.

Flexible bonus points are better when it comes to redemption. Cards from CIMB, UOB, and Maybank offer more versatile miles options, while still allowing transfers to Enrich, should you wish to do so.

For more details, check out our post on “Airline Transfer Programs.”

Spend Categories

There are 4 general categories to consider when choosing miles cards, depending on your spending habits:

1. Local Spend (Baseline Cards) – Ideal for day-to-day expenses and local spends.
2. Overseas and Airline Spend – Best for maximizing miles on flights, hotels, and overseas purchases.
3. All-Rounders – Optional, but with the right strategy, these cards can earn you the most miles.

Local Categorised Spend

If you’re new to the miles game, start by picking at least 2 cards from this category that align with your spending habits. For example, if you want to pay for Food Delivery (e.g GrabFood), you can pick Maybank Krisflyer Amex Platinum or Alliance Bank Visa Virtual.

Card	Category	Miles per Ringgit (MPR)
HLB Visa Infinite	Dining	1.00 Enrich
Public Bank Visa Signature Read Review	Pharmacy Public Transport Education EV Charging Gym Green Spends	1.00 Enrich
Alliance Bank Visa Virtual	E-wallet Online Spend (including Insurance, Utilities, Food Delivery)	0.53^ Enrich
CIMB e-Card	PayWave Online Shopping Auto-billing (including Telco/Insurance/ Online Streaming)	0.96* Enrich 0.8* Alt Miles
SCB Journey	Dining	0.5 KrisFlyer & Asia Miles
Maybank KrisFlyer Amex Platinum	Online Spend Food Delivery	0.5 KrisFlyer Miles
UOB World Read Review Apply	E-wallet	0.62# KrisFlyer & Asia Miles

Overseas and Airlines Spend

We recommend having at least 1 card for foreign currency spending—it’s great for travel, online transactions, or if you live overseas (e.g., Singapore).

Note that foreign transaction losses apply when you transact in a non-ringgit currency, which can range from ~1% to 2.5% over Mastercard Rates.

Card	Category	Miles per Ringgit (MPR)
UOB Visa Infinite Read Review Apply	Overseas Dining	0.83 Overseas/ 0.41 Dining Krisflyer & Asia Miles
UOB Priv Miles Elite Read Review Apply	Overseas	0.83 Krisflyer & Asia Miles
CIMB Travel World Elite Read Review	Overseas Airlines Duty-Free	0.80 Enrich/ 0.67 Alt Miles
CIMB Preferred VI	Dining Overseas	0.92 Enrich/ 0.76 Alt Miles^

All Rounders

These Maybank card covers the most spending categories. Note that there’s a monthly miles redemption quota and many experienced users to developed a love-hate relationship with them.

Card	Category	Miles per Ringgit (MPR)
Maybank Platinum Charge Card	Local* Overseas* Grocery Petrol Online Dining Food Delivery	0.89 / 0.71 Alt Miles/ KrisFlyer Asia Miles
Maybank MUVI	Local* Overseas* Grocery^ Online Dining Food Delivery	0.40 KrisFlyer Miles [MU Win Day]

*Except Insurance, Utilities, Education.
^Groceries earn 0.4 MPR all the time.

FAQs

1. Can I just stick to one card?  Too many cards is hard to keep track.
Yes, you could go with one “all-rounder” card like the Maybank Platinum Charge and you probably will do just fine. But you may find yourself loosing sleep over Maybank’s miles redemption quota. Or you will be frustrated when a restaurant does not accept Amex when you up earning zero miles using by using Touch n Go.

We don’t think the “one-card-only” strategy is optimum. Because it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket — it limits your miles potential and learning opportunities. You can start with one card, then work your way up.

2. Influencer says she earned 1 million timeless bonus points in 1 year. Should I buy her ebook?

Big numbers, sounds impressive. Note that 1 million timeless bonus point is ~67,000 Enrich. Still a respectful amount of miles but let’s keep it objective. Stick to MPR. As for the ebook…

3. Malaysia credit cards charge hefty foreign currency fees, not worth it one lah.

Yes, besides the issuing bank’s FX fees (if any), you’ll also face fluctuating FX costs influenced by market conditions It can range ~1% to 2.5% over Mastercard Rates. You can access the Mastercard exchange rates here.

In our UOB Visa Infinite and UOB Priv Miles Elite reviews, we offered our perspective that FX fees under 3% is an okay cost of miles (to us) based on our miles valuation. Remember, value is subjective to everyone. Check out those reviews, workout the math and decide for yourself.

Conclusion

There you go, our recommendation of cards for earning miles in 2025.

Keep in mind, this isn’t an exhaustive list—there are other miles cards available in the market. Also, we haven’t considered other card benefits such as lounge access, hotel perks, flexing aesthetics, etc.

MPR rates change over time and have decreased in recent years, so be sure to stay updated.

We’ve also prepared a 2025 Miles Credit Cards cheatsheet — a quick-reference file that you can download from our BolehMiles Telegram channel. Be sure to join us!

Until next time!