Best Credit Cards for Spend on Airlines, Hotels and Travel Agencies in Malaysia
- Refined Points
- Oct 11
- 7 min read
Some people call it “travel” spend. Others call it “pre-travel” spend. Whatever term you use, purchases on airlines, hotels, and travel agencies (think Agoda, Booking.com, and Trip.com) are typically among the highest ticket transactions one can put on a credit card.
In fact, I often find pre-travel spend to be far higher than what most travellers end up spending at the destination itself—especially for those going on full-service resort holidays or trips where accommodation eats up the bulk of the budget.
And with spend this large, you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the absolute best bang for your buck—or in Refined Points terms, the most miles per Ringgit spent.
Note that this article offers more in-depth views compared to my Ultimate Category Specific Guide which lists down which credit card offers the best MPR for each of these categories of spend.
The Easy Solution
Let’s start with the obvious. The simplest way to maximise rewards on pre-travel spend is to charge everything in foreign currency.
Take Japan as an example: if you’re booking flights and hotels, you’ll want to pay in Japanese Yen instead of Malaysian Ringgit. This way, you’ll earn the overseas MPR (Miles Per Ringgit) rate on your credit card, even after factoring in the 2–3% FX fee.
Here’s where many Malaysians fall short:
We’re cost-conscious by nature, so many avoid FX fees at all costs.
Plenty are unaware of how much more valuable overseas currency spend can be in terms of points and miles.
It’s also common for travellers to browse Agoda, Booking.com, or Trip.com in MYR for convenience. While that makes it easier to compare prices, it may not always be the smartest choice for maximising miles.
The Best Credit Cards for Pre-Travel Spend
Alright, let’s get into the cards worth considering. These are listed in no particular order.
1. Credit Cards With Built-In Travel Benefits
Some cards directly reward you for airline, hotel, or OTA spend.
UOB PRVI Miles Elite
This is my current go-to cross-border credit card. It offers up to 2.4 MPR on Agoda spend when you book via UOB’s dedicated link in SGD, THB, VND, or IDR. For all other foreign currency bookings, you’ll earn 2.25 MPR. If you pay in MYR, the earn rate drops to 1.75 MPR.
However, there are some caveats, and I've written an extensive article about this here to detail. Still, given that the UOB PRVI Miles Elite is practically the only credit card in Malaysia that bakes in a direct merchant MPR accelerator into it's credit card benefits, I'd say its the first thing to tick off my list.
The catch? You’ll often see higher room rates on the dedicated Agoda link, and you can’t stack this with Mastercard’s 12% off Agoda promo. Still, this is the highest MPR rate available today for pre-travel spend.
Separately, the PRVI Miles Elite also offers 0.41 MPR on airline transactions, making it one of the few cards rewarding both airline and OTA spend.
However, do not that the UOB PRVI Miles Elite does not count any spend on Japan accommodations as qualifying spend for this promotion. I'd actually suggest booking using your UOB Visa Infinite instead.
UOB's T&C states that:
Effective 23 September 2025, bookings for accommodations in Japan via Agoda using the UOB PRVI Miles Elite Card will not be eligible for Bonus UNIRM.
Standard Chartered Journey
At RM96k annual income, the SC Journey punches above its weight. It offers 0.5 MPR on airlines, hotels, and travel agencies, with the added perk of a very low conversion threshold—something CIMB could learn from.
In fact, the SC Journey offers a pretty decent RM65 cashback on Grab to the airport if you spend at least RM2,500 in pre-travel spend within 90 days of travel.
The challenge? Competition. At the RM100k level, stronger options like the UOB PRVI Miles Elite or CIMB Travel World Mastercard outshine it. Both cards are practically loaded with benefits and merchant offers as I'll talk about later below, and even the CIMB Travel World Mastercard has complimentary stay benefits.
CIMB Travel World & World Elite
Speaking of the CIMB Travel credit cards, these are amongst the hottest cards in Malaysia today.
The CIMB Travel World Mastercard earns a very respectable 0.64 MPR on airlines, while the World Elite earns 0.8 MPR—the highest in the industry for airline spend. Perfect for those happy to swipe RM10k+ on business class tickets without flinching.
If you're affluent enough to own the CIMB Travel World Elite, you literally get a double whammy of earning a very high MPR on airlines spend, while also getting the benefit of CIMB's 1% Admin FX Fee Waiver when booking hotels in a different currency. It doesn't completely erase the overseas FX fee markups, but it does help, especially for very high ticket purchases.
Other Mentions
Hong Leong Bank Visa Infinite P earns 0.33 MPR on pre-travel, but requires RM300k AUM. The non-AUM Hong Leong Visa Infinite only gives 0.25 MPR, and both cards only convert to Enrich Miles. Not very competitive.
2. Cards With Merchant-Specific Travel Deals
Sometimes the best value comes not from MPR, but from stacking merchant promos with card rewards.
CIMB
Easily the market leader for travel promos. Recent offers included a jaw-dropping 50% cashback on airline spend (yes, really).
CIMB also ran an uncapped 10% off business class promotion on Trip.com, which Refined Points personally tested and confirmed.
Pair this with the CIMB Travel World or World Elite—already among the best cards for airline spend—and you’ve got one of the most compelling propositions in Malaysia.
HSBC
With its revamped Premier World and Premier Travel Mastercards, HSBC is leaning on several Agoda promos:
25% off (capped at RM850) for HSBC Premier Travel
20% off (capped at RM420) for HSBC Premier World
Decent discounts, but the cards themselves remain weak compared to peers. However, specifically in the case of HSBC's Mastercard portfolio, the caps and restrictions are toned-down compared to the Visa portfolio.
This shouldn't be surprising, given that both the HSBC Premier World Mastercard and Premier Travel Mastercards are both targeted towards HSBC's top tier affluent customers.
In short, if you already have a HSBC Premier World or Premier Travel Mastercard, you should take advantage of these offers, but if you're on the Visa end of things, I'd stay far away (see below).
Which Credit Cards Should You Avoid for Pre-Travel Spend?
I usually keep things positive, but let’s be honest: some banks deserve to be called out.
RHB
After gutting the RHB Premier Visa Infinite earlier this year, pre-travel spend is now siloed into its “LoyaltyPlus” bucket.
Translation: points don’t pool with your other spend, and your miles strategy becomes messy. Even though it technically offers 1 MPR on FX, better cards exist with cleaner mechanics.
That's just for RHB's top tier credit card. For all other credit cards in RHB's lineup, such as the RHB Visa Infinite, you're honestly better off getting a cashback card instead, given the absolutely lacklustre rewards system across the lineup.
HSBC
Capping rewards is fine when thresholds are high. CIMB and UOB do this responsibly. HSBC, however, sets laughably low caps that render its cards useless for pre-travel spend.
For example, the HSBC Visa Signature caps overseas points at 15,000 per month—that’s just ~RM2k spend!
On a different note, the popular HSBC TravelOne Mastercard, which awards 0.2 MPR for pre-travel spend, caps your points at 10,000 points (roughly RM2,500~ in spend) monthly. Not to mention, this is only applicable for LOCAL pre-travel spend!
HSBC's T&C states that:
The additional Reward points are capped at a maximum of 20,000 additional Reward points for foreign currency spend; 10,000 additional Reward points for local travel spend (hotel, airlines and travel agencies)...
Not to mention, with the ongoing issues surrounding HSBC credit cards in Malaysia, I wouldn't go anywhere near these credit cards for now.
Beware of Agoda’s “Pay Later” Currency Markup
Before I close off this article, here’s a gotcha many readers have flagged.
If you use Agoda’s Book Now, Pay Later and your chosen charge currency differs from the property’s currency, Agoda doesn’t simply through the hotel’s rate and let your bank convert it.
Instead, on your payment date, Agoda recalculates your final amount using the Bloomberg Generic Composite Rate plus up to an additional 5%—and there’s also a separate +5% rule when your charge currency differs from your display currency. In short: that “helpful” conversion can cost you more than you think.
This is why some travellers see a higher final charge than the price they thought they locked in. The safest move is to set the site to the property’s currency, select the property’s currency again at checkout, and avoid any conversion by Agoda altogether.
For Japan, that means browse and pay in JPY; for the EU, browse and pay in EUR, and so on.
My take: if you’re booking via Agoda and intend to use Pay Later, always pay in the property’s currency to avoid the Bloomberg +5% rules.
Personally, I’ve been leaning toward Trip.com these days because the promos stack better for my use cases—but I really wish UOB would roll out more Trip.com-specific offers, given UOB cards are my daily drivers.
Final Thoughts
Pre-travel spend is one of the most underrated areas to optimise. It’s high-value, high-frequency, and often overlooked.
If you’re a casual traveller booking the occasional flight or hotel, something like the Standard Chartered Journey is more than sufficient. It’s easy to use, low barrier to entry, and gets the job done.
But if you’re serious about squeezing every drop of value from your Ringgit, cards like the UOB PRVI Miles Elite and CIMB Travel World Elite remain top-tier choices—whether you’re stacking Agoda promos or outright earning the highest MPRs on airline tickets.
The bottom line? Don’t waste big-ticket travel bookings on subpar cards. Pre-travel spend is where you can truly accelerate your miles accumulation.
Plan your strategy ahead of your trip, align your card choice with your goals, and you’ll be boarding that business class seat much sooner than you think.
