UOB PRVI Miles Elite

Last Updated: 4/10/2024

Recommendation: Poor

Annual Fee

RM600

Annual Income

Airport Lounge Access

8X access per year
International Lounges
Supplementary Access

RM100,000 per annum

Airline Miles Earn Rate

Local: 0.08 MPR
Airlines: 0.41 MPR

Overseas: 0.83 MPR

Payment Network

Review | UOB PRVI Miles Elite

The UOB PRVI Miles Elite was one of the best credit cards for accumulating air miles overseas, but this is no longer the case, and I am no longer recommending you to obtain this credit card. Read on to understand why.

Back in June 2023, UOB showcased three new credit cards as part of its acquisition of Citi Malaysia's consumer banking business. Notably, these new offerings from UOB bear striking resemblances to certain Citi cards:

UOB Zenith aligns with Citi Prestige
UOB PRVI Miles Elite mirrors Citi PremierMiles
UOB World is comparable to Citi Rewards World Mastercard.

I have reviewed each of these credit cards separately to provide additional insights on whether they deserve to be in your wallet, so do check out the Credit Cards section of my blog.

Before I continue, please take note that the UOB PRVI Miles and the UOB PRVI Miles Elite are two completely separate credit cards! I've had several emails regarding this confusion, and I thought that I should make that clear:

The UOB PRVI Miles Elite is a RM100,000 annual income credit card.
The UOB PRVI Miles is a RM60,000 annual income credit card.

Air Miles Conversion

After the devaluation of UOB's entire credit card lineup in September 2024, the UOB PRVI Miles Elite has suffered substantially in terms of value propositions.

With the UOB PRVI Miles Elite not offering any sort of points accelerator for popular spend categories such as Dining or Groceries, you are limited to a mere 0.08 MPR on all local spend. This makes it one of the worst credit cards in the industry for airline miles accrual.

As I've always said, it's inherently more important to ensure that you obtain a good credit card with a substantial local MPR earn rate, as you'll be spending 99% of your time locally. The only exceptions to this are expats working in Singapore or elsewhere, but even so, the currency conversion rate offered by the UOB PRVI Miles Elite is one of the highest in the industry, and is definitely not worth it.

As such, it is definitely a difficult credit card to recommend, especially when the UOB Visa Infinite offers the exact same 0.83 overseas MPR, but also offers a decent 0.41 MPR on Dining, which is actually useful.

While the 0.41 MPR offered for Airlines spend is decent, it isn't actually practical, given that we don't spend substantially on airlines anyway.

There will be some naysayers that argue that the purchase of one RM3,000 airline ticket is already equivalent to a substantial amount of Dining spend, but you should ask yourselves how often do you actually spend that amount?

Not to mention, with the CIMB Travel World Mastercard offering a 0.64 MPR on Enrich Miles and 0.53 MPR on other airlines miles, this does make the UOB PRVI Miles Elite even less attractive, considering both are at the same annual income category.

With the recent devaluation of UOB's credit cards, you now earn 0.83 MPR, factoring in the conversion rate of 12,000 UNIRM = 1,000 Airline Miles.

At 0.83 MPR, the UOB PRVI Miles Elite is tied with the UOB Visa Infinite, which offers a similar 0.83 MPR as mentioned earlier in my review and is also slightly better than the CIMB Travel World Mastercard. Of course, it is pointless to mention the Maybank 2 Cards Premier at this stage, given the fall of Maybank from grace and its laughable 0.5 MPR.

Also, rumour has it that the UOB PRVI Miles Elite overseas spend have significantly higher foreign transaction fees compared to other credit cards. This has been reported several times across credit card forums and chat groups.

Hence, you should keep this in mind when looking at the UOB PRVI Miles Elite as your main overseas credit card. I've read reports that people are seeing an average fee of 2.4-2.9%, compared to below 2.1% for other credit cards.

For the ultra-affluent who don't need to bother with airline miles redemption because you're used to paying cash for your business class and first class tickets, the CIMB Travel World Elite, which waives 1% of its overseas transaction fees, may be a more suitable option.

Be sure to check out my Enrich 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

I know how important it is to obtain information about lounge access at a glance, so if you're queuing up to enter a lounge in ASEAN, here's the important details about the UOB PRVI Miles Elite credit card:

Number of Lounge Access Passes: 8X per year
Supplementary Access: Yes, quota is separate from principal cardholder
Spend Conditions: No spend conditions

Lounge Access List in Malaysia:

Plaza Premium Lounge KLIA Terminal 1 Main Terminal Building
Flight Club Signature KLIA Terminal 1 Satellite Terminal
Plaza Premium Lounge KLIA Terminal 2 (Gateway@klia2)
Plaza Premium Lounge, International Departures, Penang International Airport
Plaza Premium Lounge, Domestic Departures, Penang International Airport
Plaza Premium Lounge, Langkawi International Airport

For the full list of lounges, please click here to visit UOB's website.

I've included a small list of eligible lounges you can access with your UOB PRVI Miles Elite credit card above, but for the full list, you can check out UOB's lounge access list here. Keep in mind that different credit cards from UOB may have different lounge access lists.

I find it somewhat strange that the Singapore's SATS lounges and other Singapore Changi Airport lounges are not in the list above, despite UOB being a Singaporean bank.

For supplementary cardholders, for now, it seems that UOB has no mention whatsoever in their T&C on whether supplementary cardholders are entitled for airport lounge access or other benefits such as the complimentary limo ride home from KLIA, but it seems that we can take the benefit of the doubt and assume that supplementary cardholders are entitled to lounge access.

Based on commentary by Lowyat forumers, it appears that each supplementary cardholder has an individual lounge access benefit, meaning each cardholder is entitled to 8X lounge access.

Check out my Ultimate Airport Lounge Guide to compare the airport lounge access benefits from various credit cards in Malaysia.

Here's also a pro tip: Your UOB PRVI Miles Elite is guaranteed lounge access to the Travel Club Lounges at KLIA Terminal 1 and KLIA Terminal 2. The latter remains the only lounge available at the P, Q gates which are for international departures and is a long walk from the lounge that everybody visits, the Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge opposite Aerotel at Gateway@KLIA2.

Final Thoughts

The UOB PRVI Miles Elite was once an excellent overseas spending credit card, quickly gaining traction and entering the wallets of fickle-minded consumers that are too eager to obtain a credit card that is probably only useful 1% of the time, which is overseas.

With the recent devaluation of UOB's credit card lineup, one thing is clear: you should steer towards the UOB Visa Infinite if you are keen on the UOB credit card ecosystem. Honestly, the dining accelerator UNIRM from the UOB Visa Infinite is a huge deal maker, and you'll definitely want to make the most out of your local spending compared to the poor airlines spend accelerator that the UOB PRVI Miles Elite offers.

Be sure to check out my Enrich Ultimate Guide, KrisFlyer Ultimate Guide and Asia Miles Ultimate Guide to compare the various credit cards for accumulating airline miles in Malaysia.