The Setel App - A Value Proposition Review

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.

The AEON Member Plus Visa Card - A Value Proposition Review

Ever since my wife gave me a supplementary AEON Member Card, we as a family have sticked to shopping at AEON for our groceries almost exclusively (and to a slightly less degree, general merchandise shopping as well).

For the most part, we’d be paying with a Maybank Ikhwan MasterCard credit card after swiping the AEON member card. There were a few benefits of this setup. With grocery shopping, we’d be eligible to get 5% cashback every month, capped at 50 ringgit (“achieved” by paying for 1000 ringgit of groceries). Then, we’d be receiving both Maybank TreatsPoints as well as AEON points. Many years ago, this was quite rewarding. Even when paying for general merchandise where the cashback doesn’t apply, I still subjectively felt that earning both points plus cashback was worth it.

Things have changed since then. Firstly, the value of those TreatsPoints have greatly dropped. Secondly AEON is transitioning to drop the previous member card to a new card that serves as both a member card and a debit card: the AEON Member Plus Visa Card. Now the question is whether doing it the old way is still better, or if there’s better value in paying exclusively with the AEON debit card.

To find out, we need to know the value of paying exclusively with that debit card.

These images from AEON’s website summarize it best:

What AEON seems to do here is that at the end of every month, they will convert whatever points you have left into cash that is debited into the card. What happens is that there is no longer a need to manually redeem those points into cash vouchers.

Let’s see what you get if you pay for 1000 ringgit of groceries using the debit card itself:
2 x 1000 = 2000 points
2000 / 200 = 10 ringgit

Based on this, the value of the reward of the AEON card is at least a fifth less than the Maybank card.

It seems clear that unless if you’re shopping at the general merchandise areas, swiping with the member card and then paying with the credit card for the cashback seems to be the way to go. This is especially when considering the hassle that you have to go through to use this card, as you have to top it up before use.