How Credit Cards Earn Miles: mpd and Monthly Limits Explained
At 4 miles per dollar
Card ads call this .
Quick questions 4
Is 1.4 mpd good for a general spend card in Singapore?
General spend cards in Singapore typically earn somewhere around 1.2 to 1.6 mpd on local spend, so anything at the upper end of that range is competitive for spending that does not fit a bonus category.
Does mpd include the sign-up bonus?
No. mpd describes ongoing earning. Welcome bonuses are one-off rewards with their own minimum spend and time limit.
Do refunds count against my bonus cap?
It depends on the bank. Some deduct refunded amounts and the points they earned, which can free up cap room, while others handle it differently. Check your card's terms for how refunds and reversals are treated.
Does spending past the cap earn anything?
Usually yes, but only at the card's base rate, which is often lower than a dedicated general spend card.
Read the full guide
Every miles card is sold on its mpd, miles per dollar. The headline number is real, but it only applies to some spending, and only up to a monthly limit. Here is how earning actually works, so you get the miles you expect.
What mpd means
mpd means miles per dollar: how many airline miles one dollar of spending earns once your bank points are converted. A card earning 1.2 mpd turns $1,000 of spending into 1,200 miles. At 4 mpd, the same spend becomes 4,000 miles.
Because most cards earn bank points rather than miles, mpd is a converted figure. The bank awards its own points, and the transfer ratio to the airline decides how many miles those points become.
Local, overseas, and bonus rates
Most cards publish more than one rate:
- Local base rate: what you earn on ordinary spending in Singapore dollars.
- Overseas or foreign currency rate: often higher, to reward spending abroad or in foreign currency online. Remember foreign currency fees, covered in our overseas spending guide.
- Bonus rate: the headline number, such as 4 mpd, which applies only to specific categories or payment methods and only up to a monthly cap.
Why high rates always come with conditions
High earn rates are how banks compete, so they limit the cost with conditions. The usual ones are:
- A monthly cap on how much spend earns the bonus rate.
- A category restriction, decided by the merchant's category code rather than what you think you bought.
- A payment method requirement, such as online transactions only, or contactless mobile payments only.
- A list of excluded transactions, often including insurance, education, government services, utilities, and e-wallet top-ups.
Spend outside those rules and the card falls back to its base rate, which can be well below a general spend card.
What a bonus cap is
A bonus cap limits how much spending earns a card's bonus rate in a given period, usually a month. Beyond it, every dollar earns the base rate instead.
Caps are usually expressed in one of two ways: as a spending limit (for example, bonus miles on the first so many dollars each month) or as a points limit (a maximum number of bonus points per month). Both have the same effect.
Calendar month or statement month?
This detail catches out even experienced users. Some cards reset their cap on the first day of each calendar month. Others reset on your statement date, which could be the 12th or the 23rd.
If you assume the wrong one, you might hold back a big purchase waiting for a reset that already happened, or push a purchase onto a card that is still capped out.
Tip: Write down the reset date for every card you hold. In CardMatchly you can set each card's statement day so cap tracking follows the right cycle.
What overspending a cap really costs
Imagine a card that earns 4 mpd up to its cap and a low base rate after. Every dollar spent past the cap on that card earns only the base rate, while a general spend card in your wallet might have earned noticeably more on the same dollar.
The loss on one purchase is small. Over a year of habitually tapping the same card, it adds up to thousands of miles, often the difference between an economy and a business class redemption.
How to manage caps without a spreadsheet
- Know each card's cap and reset date. This is the foundation.
- Rank your cards per category. For each type of spending, know your first choice and your fallback once the first choice is capped.
- Track spend as you go. Log purchases, or check your bank app before large transactions.
- Split large bills. When a merchant allows it, split a big purchase across cards so each one stays within its cap.
- Switch once you are capped. Move to your fallback card for the rest of the cycle.
This is the work CardMatchly automates. Log a purchase and it tracks how much bonus room each card has left, then ranks your cards for the next purchase. See how it fits into a multi-card strategy.
Points blocks and rounding
Some cards award points in blocks, for example per $5 spent, and round each transaction down. On those cards a $9.99 purchase earns the same as a $5 purchase, and a $4.99 purchase can earn nothing at all.
Other cards calculate points per dollar or on the monthly total, which is kinder to small transactions. If you make many small purchases, like coffees or bus fares, the rounding rule can matter as much as the headline rate.
Tip: Small, frequent purchases usually belong on a card that does not round down harshly. Save block-based cards for larger bills.
Your effective mpd is the number that matters
Your effective mpd is the miles you actually earned divided by what you actually spent across all your cards. It includes every capped-out month, every excluded merchant, and every rounded-down transaction. Raising that number, not collecting cards with big headline rates, is the goal.
Want to see real earn rates for specific cards? Browse all cards for the latest figures we track.
General information, not financial advice. Banks set their own rates, limits, fees and rules, and change them from time to time, so check with the bank before you apply. CardMatchly is independent and is not paid by any bank.