Oh Dear | Alliance Bank Visa Infinite Adds Plaza Premium First Access
Just when I thought Alliance Bank had already completely lost the plot, the bank has finally swung back and....has lost the plot even further 😂
Effective 15 November 2026, Alliance Bank Visa Infinite cardholders will receive three annual visits to participating Plaza Premium Lounge or Plaza Premium First locations. The existing Travel Club Lounge benefit will be discontinued, with those visits folded into the revised arrangement.
Let's just pause for a moment to thank Travel Club Lounge for absolutely nothing. It was an extremely poor lounge proposition in general, and I don't think it has significantly improved ever since it even opened.
It's worth highlighting that I'll only be covering the Alliance Bank Visa Infinite in this article for two reasons. First, the Alliance Privilege Visa Signature is a cashback credit card. Second, the Alliance Bank Visa Signature is a horrendous cashback credit card that doesn't even deserve mention 😂
Anyways, for existing cardholders, this is clearly an improvement, as Plaza Premium First is a considerably more attractive place to spend time than the lounges previously covered by the standard allowance.
I've covered Plaza Premium First lounges extensively in Refined Points, and you can find my latest review of the Plaza Premium First Bangkok below.
But looking beyond the enhancement, I think Alliance may be creating a rather expensive problem for itself.
The obvious interpretation is that a struggling credit card has finally received a worthwhile upgrade. Fair enough. However, the more interesting question is what customers will actually do after receiving it.
Will they start spending meaningfully on their Alliance Bank Visa Infinite? Or will they retrieve it from the drawer, use their three Plaza Premium First visits, and continue putting their purchases on another bank’s card? My money is on the latter.
What Changes From 15 November 2026?
Alliance Bank is revising the lounge benefits of both its Visa Infinite and Alliance Privilege Visa Signature cards.
Card Type(s) | Existing Entitlement Until 14 November 2026 | Revised Entitlement From 15 November 2026 |
Alliance Bank Visa Infinite Credit Card | 2× Plaza Premium Lounge access per calendar year, plus 1× Travel Club Lounge access per calendar year | 3× Plaza Premium Lounge or Plaza Premium First access per calendar year |
Alliance Privilege Visa Signature Credit Card | 4× Plaza Premium Lounge or Plaza Premium First access per calendar year, plus 2× Travel Club Lounge access per calendar year | 6× Plaza Premium Lounge or Plaza Premium First access per calendar year |
Neither card receives more visits overall. Instead, the existing allowance becomes usable at a more attractive selection of lounges.
For the Visa Infinite, the standard three visits can now be used at participating PPF locations. For the Alliance Privilege Visa Signature, the number of visits usable at PPL or PPF increases from four to six.
Alliance’s product page explicitly describes Plaza Premium First access worldwide, subject to its participating-lounge list. Access remains restricted to eligible principal cardholders. Visa Infinite cardholders who meet RM120,000 in annual retail spending qualify for unlimited participating PPL and PPF access in the following calendar year. Those who do not meet that threshold receive the standard three visits.
The important distinction is that the RM120,000 spending requirement applies to unlimited access. There is no corresponding qualifying spending requirement attached to the standard three visits.
Now, while I'm confident that Refined Points readers' who spend more than RM120K per year won't go anywhere close to the Alliance Bank VI, I just wanted to add a casual reminder here incase you do: you are severely undermining your ability to extract value from credit cards.
A Premium Benefit Needs More Than an Accessible Income Requirement
The Alliance Bank Visa Infinite requires a minimum annual income of RM60,000, equivalent to RM5,000 a month. That places it at the accessible end of Malaysia’s Visa Infinite market, alongside the spectacular CIMB Visa Infinite. Despite the branding, this is a card within reach of a broad emerging affluent audience, rather than a tightly restricted wealth banking product.
Now consider what Alliance is giving that audience. The operator currently advertises PPF KLIA entry from RM221. This is a published starting price, rather than a verified three-hour walk-in quotation, but it provides a useful retail benchmark.
For illustration, let us apply an assumed 30% haircut to that price: RM221 × 70% = RM154.70 per visit.
Three visits would therefore represent RM464.10 per fully utilising cardholder under this assumption. To be absolutely clear, the 30% discount is my modelling assumption. RM154.70 is not a disclosed Alliance Bank contract rate, and this calculation does not establish what the bank actually pays. Negotiated pricing, visit duration and overseas lounge charges may differ substantially.
Nevertheless, it illustrates the commercial question: What additional revenue is Alliance expecting these visits to generate?
Annual fees and broader banking relationships can certainly help fund benefits. The card’s published principal annual fee is RM438, with a first-year waiver, so it would be wrong to ignore fees and declare every lounge user unprofitable.
Equally, counting an existing customer’s annual fee does not prove that the new benefit will persuade that customer to spend more.
Credit Card | Minimum Annual Income | Principal Annual Fee |
CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard | RM24,000 | Free for life |
AmBank Enrich Visa Platinum | RM24,000 | Free for life |
CIMB Visa Signature | RM36,000 | Free for life |
Hong Leong Sutera Platinum | RM36,000 | RM120 |
CIMB Visa Infinite | RM60,000 | Free for life |
Alliance Bank Visa Infinite | RM60,000 | RM438 |
Maybank Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Amex Platinum | RM60,000 | RM300 |
UOB World Mastercard | RM60,000 | RM600 |
HSBC Visa Signature | RM72,000 previously; currently RM102,000 | RM600 |
The relevant question is whether the stronger lounge proposition produces enough additional spending, fee retention or relationship value to justify its cost. A premium benefit can be commercially sensible on an accessible card. But there needs to be a convincing reason for customers to transact with the bank after enjoying it.
With Alliance, that reason remains frustratingly difficult to identify.
Three Lounge Visits, Then Back Into the Drawer
Let's roll back time a little bit. Alliance Bank previously attracted attention through its 8X TBP earning rate on e-wallet reloads.
Readers who followed my earlier coverage will remember that the Visa Infinite once had a clear role in an Enrich miles strategy, so much so that influencers with zero knowledge of how airline miles work managed to sell "courses" on an Alliance Bank credit card strategy 😭
Then the proposition deteriorated. Some former users may have cancelled. Others may still hold an active card while having moved their spending elsewhere. For someone already keeping the card active, bringing it to the airport requires almost no additional effort.
Walk into PPF. Present the card. Enjoy the meal. Then use a different credit card for the hotel, shopping and dining overseas.There is no inconsistency in that behaviour. Customers are simply following the incentives Alliance has created, and in Malaysia, it is extremely common to hold multiple cards for lounge access.
As such, the bank is making the lounge benefit more attractive without first fixing the reasons people stopped spending on the card.
And please, let us not pretend that “10X TBP overseas” automatically solves this. At 15,000 TBP for 1,000 Enrich points, 10X TBP works out to 0.66 MPR. Does Alliance Bank really think that it's own customers, whom they've attracted for gaming reasons (E-Wallets) simply don't know the difference between value and a gimmick? It's a hard sell.
More importantly, I have repeatedly criticised the comparatively poor redemption value we obtain from Enrich. For the trips and redemptions I care about, approximately 0.66 Enrich MPR is a thoroughly unconvincing reason to direct overseas spending to Alliance when stronger alternatives exist.
Alliance may see higher benefit usage without a corresponding recovery in meaningful card spending. That would be a costly way to discover that customers liked the lounge more than the credit card.
Alliance Could Be Paying to Introduce Customers to CIMB
The longer-term risk is even less flattering. Once someone experiences Plaza Premium First, their expectations change. The experience becomes part of what they want from a travel card. If Alliance later makes access harder to obtain, that customer may not quietly return to an ordinary Plaza Premium Lounge. They may start searching for another bank.
Unless Alliance rebuilds the wider proposition, I would not be surprised to see a future correction through qualifying spending requirements, stricter annual fee or waiver conditions, narrower overseas PPF coverage, or eventual withdrawal of the benefit.
Those are my expectations of what could happen, rather than changes Alliance has announced. But consider what follows if that correction arrives.
Customers who originally kept Alliance for e-wallet rewards, and subsequently rediscovered it for PPF, now have another reason to compare the market. In doing so, they may discover that competing cards offer the lounge experience they want alongside a more useful rewards proposition.
These are the main alternatives available without an AUM requirement:
Card | Minimum Annual Income | Allowance Usable at PPF | Spending Requirement for Lounge Access |
CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard | RM24,000 | Up to 4 visits annually | RM3,000 quarterly spending unlocks 1 visit per qualifying quarter |
Alliance Bank Visa Infinite | RM60,000 | 3 visits annually; unlimited after qualifying spending | None for the standard 3 visits; RM120,000 annual retail spending unlocks unlimited access in the following calendar year |
CIMB Travel World Mastercard | RM100,000; RM60,000 for eligible CIMB@Work customers | Up to 12 visits annually | RM6,000 quarterly spending unlocks 3 visits per qualifying quarter |
Maybank World Elite Mastercard | RM190,000 | 12 visits from the PPF/PPL/Sky Lounge allocation | No qualifying spending requirement for the standard lounge allowance |
CIMB Travel World Elite Mastercard | RM250,000 | 12 visits annually | No qualifying spending requirement for the standard lounge allowance |
These are combined lounge allowances, rather than additional PPF-only visits. CIMB Travel credit card allocations are shared between principal and supplementary cardholders, and I've obviously omitted the RM3,250 annual fee AMEX Platinum Charge Card.
The Travel World and World Elite allowances also cover eligible Mastercard Travel (DragonPass) visits, which I'll be covering soon in a separate article.
And yes, the CIMB Travel Platinum deserves a proper explanation. Its RM24,000 income requirement is lower than Alliance’s. I have no problem acknowledging that, because my objection is to the way the benefit is structured. CIMB requires RM3,000 in qualifying quarterly spending to unlock one visit. There is an explicit exchange: use the card, meet the condition, receive the benefit.
CIMB also introduced PPF access with its Travel card series in October 2022, before the current KLIA Contact Pier PPF opened in March 2023. This has been an established part of its travel proposition for years.
For Alliance, the concern is that PPF becomes a substitute for repairing an otherwise unconvincing card. The irony would be real funny. Alliance funds customers’ introduction to PPF, customers develop a taste for it, and a later restriction sends them researching CIMB.
A larger customer exodus is a risk, rather than an established outcome. But it is a risk Alliance should have considered before confusing a more attractive perk with a stronger banking proposition.
Existing PPF Users Could Pay the Price Too
The consequences extend beyond Alliance’s own customers. Because the revised benefit includes participating overseas PPF lounges, it also widens the group of cards competing for access to the international network.
Card | Entry Requirement | Allowance Usable at Participating Overseas PPF Lounges | Main Conditions |
Alliance Bank Visa Infinite | RM60,000 annual income; no AUM requirement | 3 visits annually; unlimited after qualifying spending | Principal only; RM120,000 annual retail spending unlocks unlimited access in the following calendar year |
CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard | RM24,000 annual income; no AUM requirement | Up to 4 visits annually | RM3,000 quarterly spending for 1 visit per qualifying quarter |
CIMB Travel World Mastercard | RM100,000 annual income, or RM60,000 for eligible CIMB@Work customers; no AUM requirement | Up to 12 visits annually | RM6,000 quarterly spending for 3 visits per qualifying quarter |
CIMB Travel World Elite Mastercard | RM250,000 annual income; no AUM requirement | 12 visits annually | Shared lounge allocation; no qualifying spending requirement for the standard allowance |
Maybank World Elite Mastercard | RM190,000 annual income; no AUM requirement | 12 visits annually | 6 per half-year; allocation shared with accompanying guest |
CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite / Visa Infinite-i | CIMB Preferred relationship with at least RM250,000 AUM | 8 visits per programme year | 4 per half-year; shared across eligible Preferred cards and the member’s assignee |
Alliance Privilege Visa Signature | RM48,000 annual income and at least RM300,000 AUM | 6 visits annually from 15 November 2026 | Eligible principal cardholder only |
HLB Opus Visa Infinite Privilege | Private invitation | Unlimited visits, and unlimited guests | Subject to the participating-lounge list and programme terms |
“Worldwide” means participating locations, rather than every lounge carrying the PPF name. It also does not include separately controlled experiences such as Hong Kong’s Infinity Room.
For me, the biggest concern remains KLIA. I already consider PPF KLIA substantially weaker than its counterparts in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Jakarta. That is my assessment of the experience, and it makes the prospect of further crowding particularly unwelcome.
KLIA still benefits enormously from being a more comfortable alternative to the ordinary Plaza Premium Lounge next door. The breathing room is a substantial part of its appeal, but put more pressure on that space and the weaknesses become harder to overlook.
More guests can mean longer waits for dining tables, slower food service, busier showers and less comfortable seating availability. Maintaining quality then requires sufficient staffing, kitchen capacity and investment.
Final Thoughts
At this point, one has to seriously wonder what Alliance Bank’s credit card management team is trying to achieve here. If the overall idea is to reduce margins, they're definitely on the right track.
This is a card that once gave customers a clear reason to transact, particularly through its e-wallet earning proposition. After weakening that proposition, the bank is now adding a more attractive lounge benefit without adequately addressing why customers should move their spending back.
Frankly, these decisions give me the impression that the people managing the portfolio do not fully understand how their own customers use credit cards.
The former e-wallet optimisers are precisely the customers who know how to separate benefits from spending. Give them three PPF visits without a qualifying spending requirement, and many will have every reason to enjoy those visits while continuing to transact with another bank.
The longer-term consequences could be worse. If Alliance eventually restricts access, customers who have developed a taste for PPF may simply find another issuer offering it. The bank risks funding the introduction, leaving competitors to capture the subsequent spending.
Meanwhile, existing lounge users face additional pressure on an experience whose appeal depends on maintaining quality and comfortable visitor numbers.
Taken together, this looks like poorly coordinated product management: weaken the reason to spend, improve the reason to consume benefits, and leave the commercial logic unresolved.
Getting the card out of the drawer is easy. Giving customers a reason to pay with it is the job, and that is where Alliance continues to disappoint.
Comments