Petronas has promoted this app quite extensively throughout Malaysia, allowing customers to avoid lining up to fuel up. If anything, COVID-19 probably helped their cause more than any promotion, as customers are able to complete transactions within their car. But it’s not really that much more convenient than using a credit card at the terminal at each pump. Just using a card, in my opinion, is probably faster especially if you don’t know how to use the app. In that case, the debate comes down to whether the rewards you get by using the app are better versus a credit card.
The credit card I use to fuel up at Petronas is the Maybank Islamic Petronas Ikhwan Visa. The main draw for this card is the 8% cashback on Petronas fuel that you get on weekends, and 1% cashback on weekdays, capped at 50 ringgit per month. Assuming that you fuel up only on weekends, you could fill up with a maximum of 625 ringgit of fuel before you exceed the cashback quota.
So how does this compare to the Petronas Mesra Points reward system plus the Setel app?
The Petronas Mesra card (whether physical or on the app) gives you three points for every liter of fuel. This means that you get the same number of points whether you fill with the cheaper RON 95 fuel or the more expensive RON 97. Then with the Setel app, you can get extra points depending on your level in the app, which which I am at level 10, the maximum level possible.
Looking at my 5 most recent fuel transactions, these are the points/ringgit ratio (I fuel up with both RON 97 and RON 95 for 2 separate cars):
0.875
0.955
0.955
1.134
1.04
And considering that 100 Mesra points = 1 ringgit, the “cashback” that you can earn via the Setel app when you’re at level 10 is around 1%.
Based purely on the rewards, it doesn’t seem worth it to exclusively use the Setel app for the rewards. This wouldn’t be an issue if you could top up your Setel account with the Maybank card and get the best of both worlds (“double dipping”). But the problem here is that Maybank outright bans it for both reward points collection and cashback. Cards from other banks do allow double dipping; you can check out the list here.
Another thing I dislike about the Mesra rewards system is the fact that you get points purely based from the amount, but not the type of fuel. I would’ve expected that you get more points with RON 97 versus 95 fuel, but unfortunately that’s not the case.
Unless if you’re confident of winning “Setel exclusive” contests, I don’t see the value of Setel over the Maybank Ikhwan Visa. And if fuel prices rise again, the value of the cashback will become lower even more.
My conclusion would be to use both cards without the app, while of course aiming to fuel up exclusively on weekends only.