Standard Chartered Journey

Refined Points Metric (RPM): 5.67

Recommendation: Good

Annual Fee

RM600

Annual Income

Airport Lounge Access

Unlimited access
Local Lounges only

RM90,000 per annum

Airline Miles Earn Rate

Local: 1 Airline Mile = RM10.00

Dining: 1 Airline Mile = RM2.00

Airlines: 1 Airline Mile = RM2.00

Overseas: 1 Airline Mile = RM2.00

Payment Network

Review | Standard Chartered Journey Credit Card

The Standard Chartered Journey credit card is a high-end premium travel card catered towards medium-high income earners with a minimum annual income of RM90,000 per annum.

The credit card boasts several niche features while still maintaining a decently attractive air miles conversion rate.

In this review, we dive deeper to dissect the air miles conversion rate, lounge access, and other travel-related benefits to see whether the credit card deserves a spot in your pocket.

Air Miles Conversion

The Standard Chartered Journey credit card has a typical Local/Overseas spend miles earning rate, with special added on accrual rates for Dining and Travel spend.

Given that there is no capping present on both dining and travel spend, there is actually substantial potential to earn a decent amount of airline miles with the Standard Chartered Journey credit card.

However, one must also be realistic when looking at the MCC categories that grant extra "Miles" points. If your annual income is just above RM90,000 and you're looking to obtain the Standard Chartered Journey credit card, you're looking at a monthly income of around RM7000-8000.

This is a substantial amount of income, but how much can you actually spend on travel spend particularly? Most people don't spend thousands of ringgit on travel spend every month. All travel spend also includes purchases on third party aggregators such as Agoda, Booking.com and Expedia.

However, the dining spend is definitely a positive note of the Standard Chartered Journey. If you enjoy a RM30 meal twice a day, this means that you're spending RM60 daily. In 30 days, you're looking at a general dining spend of RM2000 a month, which only earns you a total of 10,000 "Miles" points. This translates to a total of 5,000 Airline Miles, which is not half bad.

As shown above, Standard Chartered confuses its customers by naming their points system "Miles", but in actuality, you are NOT earning Airline Miles with every swipe of your credit card. If you have been on my blog for some time, you should know the difference by now, but if you don't, then let me explain further.

Each bank has its own classification or naming for its points system. Maybank has "TreatsPoints". CIMB has "Bonus Points". Standard Chartered has "Miles". You get the idea.

This is extremely deceiving to the blind consumer, as they would assume that they would earn 1 Airline Mile for every RM1.00 spent, which is NOT the case! Instead, you earn the following:

1 Airline Mile = RM2.00 for Dining, Travel & Overseas Spend
1 Airline Mile = RM10.00 For Local Spend

Notably, with this earning rate, the credit card has an even worse air miles accrual rate than the RM24,000/annum CIMB Travel Platinum credit card for local spend, which awards 1 Airline Mile for every RM6.25 spent. However, the flaw of the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is that it does not award extra points for Dining spend, but rather, only Travel spend.

As you can see across the credit card industry, most banks are accustomed to providing additional points when spending on specific merchant categories. For example, the UOB World Card grants you extra points on groceries. Meanwhile, the Alliance Bank Visa Infinite grants you extra points for E-Wallet, Groceries and Dining.

With this segmentation of points happening in the credit card industry, it's always important to look out for which MCC you spend the most amount of money in. If you're someone that tends to stay at home regularly, then owning a credit card that grants you extra points for Dining would not be useful.

In my humble opinion, the best credit cards for airline miles are also the best credit cards which provide a larger MCC footprint for earning extra points. For example, the Alliance Bank Visa Infinite grants you 8X TBP for E-Wallet reloads. You can can practically use your E-Wallets anywhere in Malaysia, so this basically covers everything.

Standard Chartered stated in its T&C that its conversion partners include Malaysia Airlines' Enrich, Singapore Airlines' Krisflyer, Airasia BIG Points and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.

Nevertheless, while I applaud Standard Chartered's move to grant extra points for dining and travel spend overseas, I do think they could do slightly better in the overseas points accrual rate department.

For a RM90,000 annual income credit card, the Standard Chartered Journey is just a little shy under RM100,000, which opens the door to plenty of other credit cards that come with excellent overseas airline miles acrrual.

For example, the CIMB Travel World Mastercard which requires a minimum annual income of RM100,000 has an overseas earn rate of 1 Airline Mile = RM1.50.

Similarly, the UOB PRVI Miles Elite which has been gaining traction lately, grants you 1 Airline Mile for every RM0.90 spent, which is absolutely crazy!

Be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide, KrisFlyer Ultimate Guide and Asia Miles Ultimate Guide for comparisons on the airline miles earning rates for various credit cards.

Airport Lounge Access

Lounge access is mediocre in some areas but positive in other areas for a RM90,000 per annum credit card.

Number of Lounge Access Passes: Unlimited Access
Supplementary Access: No
Spend Conditions: No spend conditions

Standard Chartered advertises that the Journey credit card has unlimited access to airport lounges in KLIA Terminal 1 and KLIA Terminal 2. In reality, the lounges covered are extremely limited, and I can even list them out for you.

Lounge Access List by Standard Chartered Journey Credit Card:

Plaza Premium Lounge CP21 (KLIA Terminal 1)
Plaza Premium Lounge Gateway@klia2 (KLIA Terminal 2 Arrivals)
Flight Club (KLIA Terminal 2)

So you essentially have unlimited access to three lounges in the entire Plaza Premium network. Lounge access is also only offered to Principal cardholders. Wow.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that the Standard Chartered Journey is going above and beyond to grant you unlimited lounge access. This is something even a RM250,000 annual income credit card couldn't give you!

However, let's think realistically. How many times do you logically enter lounges annually? Is the lack of access to more lounges a worthy sacrifice for unlimited lounge access?

If you ask me personally, I would probably stop visiting the same lounge after 3-4 times because of boredom already, so I'm not sure what Standard Chartered has in mind when drawing up the lounge access benefits for this Journey credit card.

Final Thoughts

While the Standard Chartered Journey Credit Card provides for a decent overseas airline miles accrual rate and has special accrual rates for dining and travel spend, it pales in comparison to other credit cards slightly above it's annual income range.

I personally wonder if it's a good idea to consider the Standard Chartered Journey, when so many good credit cards are just a whisker away in terms of annual income. In fact, it might even be a good idea to pledge some FD and have access to the UOB PRVI Miles Elite, which grants you plenty of lounge access passes at international lounges, while granting you a stellar airline miles earning rate overseas.

With a hefty RM600 annual fee that is only waivable upon spending RM60,000 each calendar year, you should only strongly consider this card if you are living abroad.

In fact, for Malaysians working across the causeway in Singapore, the Standard Chartered Journey credit card could be a decent option for accumulating airline miles.

Be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide, KrisFlyer Ultimate Guide and Asia Miles Ultimate Guide for comparisons on the airline miles earning rates for various credit cards.