If your goal is to earn points, collect air miles, or access airport lounges, a rewards credit card is a different animal from a cashback card. Cashback gives you a direct ringgit discount — straightforward, no thinking required. Rewards cards give you a currency (points or miles) that can be worth significantly more per ringgit spent, but only if you redeem them well. Redeem badly and you would have been better off with a flat 1% cashback card.
This guide compares four widely held rewards cards in Malaysia, breaks down what each point is actually worth, and flags the traps that eat into your returns. If you are after straight cashback instead, see the best cashback credit cards guide.
Disclosure: money.com.my may earn a referral fee if you apply through links on this page. This does not affect our analysis or card rankings. We do not accept payment to feature specific cards.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Maybank 2 Platinum | CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite | Amex True Cashback | RHB Premier Visa Infinite | |---|---|---|---|---| | Annual fee | RM800 (waivable) | RM800 (waivable) | Free for life | RM800 (waivable) | | Points earn rate | 5x TreatsPoints on weekend dining & overseas | 5x on travel, 3x on dining, 1x elsewhere | Flat 0.2% + points ecosystem (check latest rates with Amex) | 3x on overseas, 2x on dining, 1x elsewhere | | Points per RM1 (base) | 1 TreatsPoint | 1 Bonus Point | N/A (cashback-hybrid) | 1 reward point | | Miles conversion | Yes — Enrich, Asia Miles, Krisflyer | Yes — Enrich, Asia Miles | No direct miles transfer | Yes — Enrich, Asia Miles | | Lounge access | No complimentary access | 8 complimentary visits/year via Plaza Premium | No | 4 complimentary visits/year via Plaza Premium | | Travel insurance | Basic coverage included | Comprehensive travel insurance | None | Comprehensive travel insurance | | Minimum income | RM60,000 p.a. | RM150,000 p.a. | RM36,000 p.a. | RM150,000 p.a. |
Earn rates and benefits change periodically. Confirm the latest terms directly with the issuing bank before applying.
Card-by-Card Breakdown
Maybank 2 Platinum
The Maybank 2 series is one of the most popular credit card families in Malaysia. The Platinum tier sits at a manageable entry point and targets weekend spenders — the 5x TreatsPoints multiplier applies to weekend dining and all overseas transactions.
What you earn: Base rate of 1 TreatsPoint per RM1 spent. On qualifying weekend dining and overseas spend, you earn 5x — so 5 TreatsPoints per RM1. Other spend earns at the base rate.
What points are worth: TreatsPoints can be redeemed for Maybank catalogue items, vouchers, or converted to airline miles via Enrich (Malaysia Airlines), Asia Miles, or Krisflyer. The conversion ratio varies — typically in the range of 5,000–10,000 TreatsPoints per 1,000 airline miles, depending on the programme. At the 5x earn rate, the effective value per ringgit spent can rival or beat cashback cards, but only when you redeem for flights. Redeeming for catalogue items or vouchers almost always yields worse value.
Annual fee: RM800, but Maybank routinely waives this for the first year and for cardholders who meet annual spending thresholds (typically RM30,000–RM40,000 per year). Call to negotiate if the waiver is not automatically applied.
Best for: Weekend diners who eat out regularly on Saturdays and Sundays, and frequent travellers who want to accumulate Enrich miles on a card with a relatively low income requirement.
CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite
This is CIMB's premium travel-focused card. The income bar is higher (RM150,000 p.a.), but the perks are substantial for people who travel frequently and spend heavily on dining.
What you earn: 5x Bonus Points on travel (flights, hotels, travel agencies), 3x on dining, and 1x on everything else. The travel multiplier includes online travel bookings, which is where most spend happens.
What points are worth: CIMB Bonus Points convert to airline miles — Enrich and Asia Miles are the standard options. The conversion typically runs in the range of 2,500–5,000 Bonus Points per 1,000 miles, depending on the programme and current promotions. At the 5x travel earn rate, this card can generate miles at a pace that makes business class redemptions realistic within a year or two of heavy travel spending.
Perks beyond points: Eight complimentary Plaza Premium lounge visits per year — enough to cover most travellers. The card also comes with comprehensive travel insurance covering trip cancellation, baggage delay, and personal accident. These are real benefits, not token inclusions.
Annual fee: RM800. Waiver is typically available for the first year or for meeting annual spend targets. The eight lounge visits alone are worth roughly RM400–RM500 if you would otherwise pay walk-in rates.
Best for: Frequent flyers and business travellers who spend RM3,000+ per month on travel and dining. The lounge visits and travel insurance make this a strong primary card for someone who takes six or more flights a year.
Amex True Cashback
The name says cashback, but Amex cards in Malaysia sit within a broader rewards ecosystem that is worth understanding separately. The True Cashback card offers a flat cashback rate with no category restrictions, no minimum spend, and zero annual fee. It functions as a no-fuss default card, but the reason it appears on a rewards list is Amex's broader membership platform — access to Amex-exclusive dining events, presale tickets, and merchant promotions that other issuers do not match.
What you earn: A flat cashback rate on all spend — no categories, no caps, no tier structure. This simplicity is the card's main selling point.
What you do not get: No miles conversion, no lounge access, no travel insurance. This is not a travel card. It is a workhorse for everyday spend where you want a predictable return without tracking bonus categories.
Annual fee: Free for life. No conditions, no minimum spend.
Best for: People who want a secondary card for non-bonus spend (groceries, utilities, subscriptions) alongside a category-specific rewards card. Also suits anyone whose primary goal is simplicity — one rate on everything, no games.
RHB Premier Visa Infinite
RHB's premium offering targets overseas spenders. The 3x multiplier on overseas transactions makes it competitive for anyone who shops internationally — whether that means travelling or buying from overseas merchants online.
What you earn: 3x reward points on overseas transactions, 2x on dining, and 1x on domestic spend. The overseas multiplier is the draw — it applies to any transaction processed in a foreign currency, including online purchases from international retailers.
What points are worth: RHB reward points convert to Enrich and Asia Miles. Conversion ratios are in a similar range to competitors. The 3x overseas earn rate is meaningful for people who spend significantly in foreign currencies, but the base 1x earn rate on domestic spend is unremarkable.
Perks beyond points: Four complimentary Plaza Premium lounge visits per year, and comprehensive travel insurance. Both are standard for this card tier, but worth noting that CIMB's Preferred offers double the lounge visits.
Annual fee: RM800, with first-year waiver typically available. Spending thresholds for subsequent year waivers apply.
Best for: People who spend heavily overseas — whether through travel or cross-border e-commerce — and want miles accumulation weighted toward foreign currency transactions. If most of your spending is domestic, CIMB Preferred or Maybank 2 Platinum will serve you better.
American Express in Malaysia: How It Fits a Rewards Strategy
American Express works differently here than in the US, and it trips up a lot of applicants. In Malaysia, Amex consumer cards are issued by Maybank, which is the local American Express issuer. Your application, billing, statements, and customer service all run through Maybank, while the card still carries Amex's global membership benefits. If you already bank with Maybank, that integration can make approval and account management simpler.
The reason Amex earns a place on a rewards list is its Membership Rewards platform and the wider perks, not a market-beating earn rate at every till. Membership Rewards points do not expire while your account stays active and in good standing, which removes the slow-burn expiry pressure that ordinary bank points carry. On top of points, Amex runs cardholder dining events, presale ticket access, and merchant offers that other local issuers do not match.
The trade-off is acceptance. Amex is widely taken at malls, hotels, airlines, and larger retailers, but plenty of smaller local merchants, hawker stalls, and some petrol stations still do not accept it. The practical setup is to treat an Amex as a strong card for big, card-friendly spend and to keep a Visa or Mastercard in the wallet for everywhere else. If you want one card that works literally everywhere, Amex should not be your only card.
Who it suits: Someone who values membership perks and non-expiring points on card-friendly spend, and who is happy carrying a widely accepted backup card for the merchants that decline Amex.
Air Miles: Malaysia's Three Main Transfer Partners
Here is the part newcomers miss: most Malaysian rewards cards do not earn airline miles directly. They earn bank points (TreatsPoints, Bonus Points, reward points), and you then transfer those points into an airline programme when you are ready to book. Three programmes dominate the local landscape, and the right one depends on where and how you fly.
- Enrich (Malaysia Airlines): the home-team programme, and the most common default for KL-based flyers. Strongest for domestic and regional redemptions on Malaysia Airlines and its oneworld partners.
- Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific): a flexible regional and long-haul option through Cathay and the wider oneworld network, and often good value for premium-cabin redemptions out of the region.
- KrisFlyer (Singapore Airlines): useful if you fly Singapore Airlines or Star Alliance, particularly for premium cabins, though popular award seats can be competitive to secure.
The mechanic is the same across all three: accumulate bank points, then convert them at the bank's published transfer ratio into one programme. Ratios and minimum transfer amounts change and occasionally run as limited-time promotions, so confirm the current ratio before you transfer, and transfer with a specific flight in mind rather than speculatively parking points in an airline account.
One rule of thumb decides whether chasing miles is even worth it: miles return the most value on premium-cabin or longer-haul flights. For short economy hops, paying cash and keeping a flat cashback card usually wins on simple arithmetic. Match the card to the redemption you will actually make, not the one in the brochure photo.
Points vs. Miles: Which Should You Chase?
"Points" and "miles" are often used interchangeably, but they are different currencies with different rules.
Points are the bank's own currency — TreatsPoints, Bonus Points, reward points. They sit in your bank account, they expire (usually after 2–3 years of inactivity), and their value depends entirely on how you redeem them. Catalogue redemptions give you the worst value per point. Airline mile conversions give you the best.
Miles are the airline's currency — Enrich Miles, Asia Miles, Krisflyer Miles. Once converted from bank points, they live in your airline loyalty account and follow that programme's rules. Miles are most valuable when redeemed for premium cabin flights (business class KL–London on Malaysia Airlines, for example, can deliver 5–8 sen per mile in value). Redeeming for economy short-haul flights delivers less value per mile.
The practical answer: If you fly at least a few times a year and are willing to learn one airline programme's redemption chart, convert points to miles and redeem for flights. The per-ringgit return exceeds any cashback card. If you do not fly regularly or cannot be bothered with redemption charts, a flat cashback card will serve you better — see the cashback credit cards guide.
One warning: do not hoard points indefinitely. Bank points expire, and airlines regularly devalue their redemption charts. Accumulate with a specific redemption in mind, then execute.
How to Value a Point Before You Chase It
A headline multiplier means nothing until you know what a single point is worth to you. The formula is simple: value per point equals the value of what you redeem for, divided by the number of points it costs.
Work a quick example. Say a card earns 1 point per RM1, and the programme lets you transfer 3 bank points into 1 airline mile. If the redemption you actually make values that airline's miles at roughly 3 sen each, then 3 points (RM3 of spend) buys 1 mile worth about 3 sen, an effective return near 1 percent on base spend. Now earn that same point in a 5x bonus category and the effective return moves toward 5 percent. The multiplier only pays off because the underlying redemption holds its value.
Flip the example and the lesson is sharper. Redeem those same points for a catalogue gadget at roughly half a sen per point, and your 5x card quietly returns less than a flat 2 percent cashback card would have, with far more effort. Decide the redemption goal first (a business-class seat, a specific route, a hotel night), price one point against it, and only then pick the card that earns fastest toward that goal. For a like-for-like view of where these cards sit against the wider market, see our ranked best credit cards in Malaysia list.
Hidden Costs That Eat Your Rewards
Rewards cards look generous on paper. These costs reduce the real return.
Annual fees. An RM800 annual fee means your card must generate more than RM800 in value from points, miles, and perks before you break even. At a base earn rate of 1 point per RM1 — where each point is worth roughly 0.3–0.5 sen in redemption value — you would need to spend over RM160,000 per year just to cover the fee through base points alone. Bonus categories and lounge access close that gap, but the arithmetic matters. If you cannot realistically get the fee waived or justify it through perks, a free-for-life card is the honest choice.
Foreign exchange markup. Overseas transactions earn bonus points, but they also attract a foreign currency conversion fee — typically 1.0–1.25% of the transaction amount. Factor this into your return calculation. If your 3x overseas earn rate translates to roughly 1.5% in value but you are paying 1% in FX fees, your net benefit is 0.5%. Use our exchange rate tool to check what banks are charging on conversions.
Minimum spend thresholds. Some multiplier tiers require minimum monthly spend to activate bonus rates. If the threshold is RM2,000/month and you spend RM1,500, you earn at the base rate — not the advertised multiplier. Read the terms sheet, not the marketing page.
Points expiry. Most bank reward points expire after 2–3 years of account inactivity. If you accumulate points slowly and forget to redeem, they vanish. Airline miles have their own expiry rules — Enrich Miles expire after 36 months of no earning or redemption activity.
Redemption devaluation. Banks and airlines periodically change how many points or miles are needed for a given reward. A flight that costs 30,000 miles today might cost 40,000 next year. This is not hypothetical — Enrich and Asia Miles have both adjusted their charts in recent years. Redeem sooner rather than later.
The Bottom Line
The right rewards card depends on where your money goes. If you spend heavily on travel and dining, the CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite gives you the strongest combination of earn rates, lounge access, and travel insurance. If your income does not meet the RM150,000 threshold, the Maybank 2 Platinum offers a solid entry point with weekend dining multipliers and the same Enrich miles conversion path.
For overseas spenders — people who shop internationally or travel frequently to countries where they pay in foreign currencies — the RHB Premier Visa Infinite earns faster on cross-border transactions, though you should net out the FX conversion fee.
And if you want zero complexity, zero annual fee, and a predictable return on every ringgit — the Amex True Cashback is a sensible default card to pair alongside a category-specific rewards card.
Before applying for any card, check your credit standing. A strong CTOS score and clean CCRIS record make approval more likely and give you leverage to negotiate fee waivers. See our CTOS and CCRIS explainer for how to check yours for free.