Standard Chartered Spree Card – MoneySmart Review (2020)

Does walking through your favourite shopping mall set your heart aflutter? Then you might as well get some cashback from your shopping sprees.

There are more than enough credit cards offering perks for booking flights and buying groceries, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find a decent shopping credit card.

Your search is over (maybe). The Standard Chartered Spree Card offers cashback for retail spending, whether online or at brick and mortar shops overseas.

It’s a useful card to have on hand not only if you’re a serious shopaholic, but also if you tend to engage in heavy seasonal shopping, such as when buying annual Christmas gifts for a large family or indulging in some Black Friday sales. 

 

Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card terms & conditions

Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card
Annual fee & waiver	$192.60 (waived for first two years)
Supplementary annual fee	Free
Interest free period	Free grace days if you make full payment
Annual interest rate	26.9%
Late payment fee	$80
Minimum monthly payment	1% or $50 whichever is greater
Foreign currency transaction fee	3.5%
Cash advance transaction fee	6%, subject to minimum fee of $15 + finance charges at 0.082% per day
Overlimit fee	$40
Minimum income	$30,000 (Singaporean/PR) / $60,000 (non-Singaporean)
Card association	Visa
Wireless payment	Visa Contactless, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay

 

How the Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card works

In a nutshell, Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card is a cashback credit card to be used for online and offline shopping.

Here’s a rundown of its key benefits:

• 3% cashback on all online spending in foreign currency
• 3% cashback on all vPost spending
• 2% cashback on all online spending in local currency
• 2% cashback on all contactless and mobile payments
• 1% cashback on all other retail spending

Cashback is capped at $60 per month and there’s no minimum spending requirement to qualify for cashback. 

 

Who should use the Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card?

One of the card’s biggest strengths is that it does not have a minimum spending requirement, which means you can keep it on hand as a reserve credit card for spending that you don’t have a better card for.

To get the most out of the Standard Chartered Spree Card, you should always opt to pay for your local shopping online rather than at the shop itself, even if it is not being shipped to your home (which could end up costing more due to shipping) as it will earn you 2% cashback rather than 1%. Many brick and mortar shops now enable you to pay online and pick up your purchase at the shop at no extra charge.

You should also opt for contactless or mobile payment whenever possible as it will earn you 2% cashback rather than 1%. Check with the cashier what contactless and mobile payment options are available rather than handing over your card immediately.

Due to the lack of a minimum spending requirement, the Standard Chartered Spree card is also a good supplementary card to dole out to family members to use as a backup shopping card. You get up to five annual fee-free supplementary cards, so it will cost you nothing.

There are a few other cashback credit cards with no minimum spending requirements, including the Citi Cash Back+ Mastercard, Maybank FC Barcelona Signature Card, Standard Chartered Unlimited Cashback Card and Amex True Cashback Card. 

The first two cards offer a flat cashback rate of 1.6%, while the latter two offer 1.5%. While these cashback rates pale in comparison to Stanchart Spree’s online rates, they’re doled out for all spending and not just retail.

If you’re someone who shops often and does the bulk of your shopping online, you could potentially squeeze out more cashback by using Standard Chartered Spree rather than one of the abovementioned cards.

Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card promotions

30% off vPost shipping fees (until 18 Sep 2020)

If you use vPost for your online shipping purchases, you can get 30% off shipping fees for standard air shipments when you use the promo code SPREESP. This is on top of the 3% cashback you can get when you use the Spree card to pay for vPost purchases.   

SingPost promotions (until 31 Oct 2020)

Get 5% off SmartPac or Poly M products with your Spree card. You have to purchase at least 5 pieces of the same item though, so you have to get 5 of the SmartPac Box or 5 of the SmartPac Mini to be eligible for the discount. 

You can also get 10% off SpeedPost Priority (International) Service with the Spree card. It’s a particularly good deal if you run your own small home business and have goods to mail out. 

Free protection Allianz Cyber Insurance Master Policy (until 31 Dec 2020)

If you’re a frequent online shopper, you know that sometimes what you see online is not what you get. 

In the event that happens — if the item received is damaged, different or incomplete or goods not received within two weeks of the agreed delivery date  — you can get covered up to $500 per item and/or a total combined loss of $1,000. 

But you can only claim if you’ve done all you can to negotiate with the seller and are still unable to resolve it, you can then file a claim with Allianz. Remember to keep all proof of purchase and email messages. 

 

Alternatives to the Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card

Standard Chartered Spree’s most convincing competitors are either cashback cards with no minimum spending requirement or shopping credit cards.

Here are some alternatives to consider:

Standard Chartered Unlimited Cashback Credit Card – 1.5% cashback on all spending, with no minimum spending requirement and no cashback cap. This trumps Standard Chartered Spree if you’re looking for a card that rewards you for everything rather than just retail spending, or if you prefer to do most of your shopping offline. 

Due to the fact that the card imposes no cashback cap (unlike the Spree which has a $60 monthly cashback cap), it’s also a good option if you are making a large purchase, such as a wedding dinner or new car. Read our review here.

Citi Rewards Card – Get 10x rewards (equivalent to 4 miles) when you make online and shopping purchases, take Grab and Gojek rides or use online food delivery. Earn 1x reward on all other retail spend. In short, you enjoy an attractive earn rate on a wider range of spending categories than Stanchart Spree offers, including online and offline shopping. The biggest difference is that dealing with points is a lot more trouble than just passively receiving cashback every month. Read our review here. 

DBS Woman’s World Card – 10x points (equivalent to 20 miles) on online purchases, 3x points (equivalent to 6 miles) on overseas purchases and 1x point (equivalent to 2 miles) on other purchases. This card’s earn rate for online and overseas purchases is phenomenal. 

But you need an income of at least $80,000 per annum to qualify (on the bright side, you don’t actually need to be a woman to apply). And of course, points are always more hassle than cashback. If you qualify for the card and don’t mind dealing with rewards points, this is more worthwhile for online and overseas purchases than Stanchart Spree. Read our review here.

Do you have an opinion on the Standard Chartered Spree Card? Let us know in the comments!