CardUp has just announced a new partnership with HeyMax that lets you earn Max Miles when paying some of your larger bills through PayNow.
This could be useful if you have upcoming mortgage, insurance, property tax or condo management fee payments. Instead of making a normal bank transfer and earning nothing, you can pay a CardUp fee to receive HeyMax Max Miles.
How it works
The process is fairly straightforward:
- Set up an eligible bill payment through a CardUp Personal account.
- Choose PayNow as the payment method.
- Select the Max Miles earning tier you want.
- Pay the applicable CardUp fee and taxes.
- CardUp sends the payment to the recipient, while HeyMax credits the Max Miles to your nominated HeyMax account.
The Max Miles are calculated based on the bill amount. CardUp fees and taxes are not included in the amount used to calculate your rewards.
CardUp says the Max Miles should be credited within 10 business days after the payment has been completed. In this case, a payment is considered complete only after the recipient has successfully received the funds.
The two earning options
There are currently two tiers available. However, the promotional rates are not unlimited. They apply only to the first 10,000 Max Miles earned cumulatively per user.
This is a combined cap across:
- The Standard and Accelerated tiers
- All four eligible payment categories
- The CardUp email address and nominated HeyMax account associated with the user
Once the 10,000-mile promotional limit has been used, the normal fees of 1.65% for Standard and 7.65% for Accelerated apply. The terms say the cap applies to unlimited redemptions until the limit is reached, so you can split the allowance across multiple eligible payments if you want to.
Standard Tier
- Promotional fee: 1.25% (usual fee stated as 1.65%)
- Promo code: STANDARD125
- Earn 0.7 Max Miles per S$1
- Eligible for mortgage, insurance, property tax and condo/MCST payments
- PayNow only
For example, a S$10,000 eligible payment would earn 7,000 Max Miles. At the promotional fee, the CardUp fee would be S$125 before any applicable taxes.
This is the more sensible option if you want to earn some miles without paying a very high fee.
Accelerated Tier
- Promotional fee: 5.85% (usual fee stated as 7.65%)
- Promo code: FAST585
- Earn 4 Max Miles per S$1
- Eligible for mortgage, insurance, property tax and condo/MCST payments
- PayNow only
At 4 Max Miles per S$1, you can make up to S$2,500 of Accelerated Tier payments before earning 10,000 Max Miles and hitting the promotional cap, assuming you have not used any of the allowance under the Standard Tier. The 5.85% fee on S$2,500 would be S$146.25 before any applicable taxes. If a payment would take you beyond your remaining allowance, check the final fee shown by CardUp before confirming, as the terms do not clearly explain whether the entire payment or only the excess would be charged at the prevailing rate.
This is a much more expensive way to buy miles. It may make sense if you have a specific high-value redemption in mind, but I would not use this tier just because the headline miles figure looks attractive.
The marketing page says “up to 4 Max Miles per S$1”, but the dedicated CardUp terms define the Accelerated Tier as 4 Max Miles per dollar. The terms should take priority if there is any inconsistency.
What can you do with Max Miles?
HeyMax Max Miles can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio to more than 25 airline and hotel loyalty programmes. The transfer is stated to have no transfer fee.
You can also use Max Miles for gift vouchers and flights through HeyMax.
One example from our own travels is our EVA Air Business Class journey from Singapore to Fukuoka. We redeemed 25,000 Infinity MileageLands miles plus S$126.20 in taxes and fees at the time. Since Max Miles can be transferred directly to EVA Air, the full 10,000-mile promotional allowance would cover 40% of the miles used for that redemption—useful as a top-up, but not enough on its own.
One useful feature is that Max Miles do not expire as long as your HeyMax account remains active. HeyMax defines an active account as one where you log in through its website or app at least once every 12 months. This gives you more flexibility to wait for a suitable redemption instead of transferring immediately, but you should not simply leave the account unused indefinitely.
As always, I would still check award availability before paying a fee to generate miles. There is no point paying to earn miles for a redemption that is not available when you want to travel.
New HeyMax users can get 200 bonus Max Miles
If you are new to HeyMax, the CardUp page offers an additional 200 Max Miles when you download and register through the exclusive CardUp link. HeyMax’s separate terms state that this sign-up promotion runs from 20 August to 31 December 2026.
There is an important condition here: if you do not have a HeyMax account when you create the payment, you must register a new HeyMax account using the same nominated email address for the miles to be credited. Any unclaimed Max Miles may be forfeited after 90 calendar days from the first email asking you to claim them.
You do not need to make a CardUp payment or meet a minimum-spend requirement to receive this separate 200-mile sign-up bonus. It is limited to one first account per individual, and existing or previously held HeyMax accounts are excluded.
What payments qualify?
The current eligible categories are:
- Mortgage payments
- Property tax
- Insurance premiums
- Condo and MCST fees
The page specifically states that the payments must be eligible PayNow transactions created through a CardUp Personal account. The dedicated terms also state that payments cannot be in foreign currencies, cannot be combined with another promotion or fee discount, and cannot be used to prepay or overpay amounts beyond what is shown in the supporting documents.
The offer applies to payments scheduled by 31 December 2026 at 6:00pm Singapore time. The payment due date must be no later than 4 January 2027, and CardUp says payments should be scheduled at least one business day before the due date to allow for processing.
CardUp may review every payment and request supporting documents. If the required documents are not provided on time, CardUp says it is not responsible for processing delays, failed transfers or loss of promo-code eligibility.
Credit card payments do not qualify for Max Miles under this partnership. This is different from some other CardUp use cases where people use CardUp to charge a card for bill payments.
Is this a good deal?
This can be useful if you already have a large eligible bill to pay, but I would not treat it as an automatic miles-earning opportunity.
At the Standard Tier, the cost is around 1.79 Singapore cents per Max Mile before taxes. That is borderline for buying miles. The Accelerated Tier works out to around 1.46 cents per mile, which is better, but still not ultra-value territory. In either case, you should have a specific, high-value redemption in mind and check award availability before paying.
The 10,000-mile cumulative cap is also restrictive, since many flight redemptions require more than that. This promotion is therefore more useful for topping up an existing stash of Max Miles than for funding an entire flight.
The eligible categories are limited, with income tax payments notably excluded despite being one of the most common CardUp use cases. Since the promotion requires PayNow rather than a credit card, you also do not receive CardUp’s usual cash-flow benefit. Confirm the final fee, including any taxes, and the remaining promotional allowance before proceeding.
