Tag Archive for Shopping

Robinson’s Voucher Redemption (16th Dec 2014)

16 December 2013 Shopping No comments
Buying Myself Presents

Buying Myself Presents

Well there is nothing like a free lunch – and I do tend to agree with most offers I receive or review.

After opening a Robinson co-brand credit card account with OCBC, I received a set of vouchers for Robinson vouchers – but these ranged from $50 if you spend $200, $30 if you spend $150 or $10 if you spend $100.  These are quite annoying offers, but yes it is a marketing engagement and spend activation campaign – so I shouldn’t be surprised – but it is still very annoying and vouchers like this are in my opinion rubbish.

Most vouchers in the UK, you usually get the voucher free or get a free gift card or similar – this way, you are still ‘buying’ from the shop, and you are likely to spend more than the face value of the vouchers – unlike in Singapore, where they expect you to spend a ridiculous amount to get a small amount off.  Hmmm…

Either way, I was keen to use them, rather than lose them!  So decided to go with my mum to see what I can buy, I decided to replace my wallet and also a Fahenheit 32 eau de toilette – spending just over $200 and get the $50 off.  Not that bad, I guess.

Opticians – Eye Test and New Glasses

16 October 2013 Shopping No comments

Well haven’t suffered a bit of damage on my glasses during a game of Futsal in May, I decided it was time to buy a new pair of glasses.

So I decided to source around for a good opticians, I went to a couple of places, but didn’t see a pair of glasses that I liked, so I finally ended back at Novena Velocity Mall, and didn’t even realise there was one right on my door step. It was called Northern Opticians, and then seemed pretty okay. I know there was a Japanese one that just opened up in Plaza Singpura – called OwnDays, and I also found one on Facebook called GlistVision in The Cathy, Dhoby Ghaut.

I know Singapore is a great health hub – in the medicare arena that is – so I thought eye care would no different. I wasn’t wrong, the eye test was done pretty well, and the good news is that there wasn’t much change to my current prescription. The only concern was my right eye was slightly weaker, and I sense this could have caused by the eye infection I had previously, but apparently they couldn’t say for sure it was linked. I then looked at the array of glasses on offer, and they had quite a nice display – however, the frames and lens were quite expensive, slightly more so than the UK I think. The Optician confirmed the same – that the frames are expensive, although the lens are about the same. Hey-ho, if needs must!

I purchase a nice pair of Guess glasses – half-frames, they were quite light, and they certainly felt very comfortable. Price-wise, it was S$380 all in all – about £190 – that is not too bad, although if I went for some of the other frames, it would have been more expensive indeed.

Anyway, at least I have purchased one. I know there were probably other glasses or Opticians that were probably cheaper, but that will do for a year or so 🙂

New Standard Chartered Credit Card Application

20 June 2013 Shopping No comments

Well if you are given the option to get a free S$80 (£40) cashback rebate just by applying for and activating a new credit card – no one would say no, right?

So I said ‘yes please’ – ha!  I previously had applied for a Manhatten Credit Card (Mastercard) from Standard Chartered Singapore – due to the 5% cash rebate, and I decided to apply for another one – this time a Visa Platinum card (it’s because Amex doesn’t have a Partnership with Standard Chartered Singapore – unfortunately).

I activate the card, and received another S$80 rebate – that’s $160 now – for doing nothing.  Nice!  Apparently, there is a loop-hole in that whilst the small print says you only can get a maximum of $160 cashback, you can actually keep getting more.  So I might apply for another card and see if this loophole actually exists or not 🙂

SCB Visa Platinum Secure Token Card

SCB Visa Platinum Secure Token Card

Anyway, after receiving the card, I went online to activate the card, and was offered to apply for a ‘token’ credit card – basically, you may have remembered that Visa embedded their 3D-Secure technology (a dynamic security token) within the credit card itself – a two-in-one card so-to-speak.  It’s amazing that the credit card has turned into a mini-computer in your wallet!  So I applied for this and just received it.

Have a look at the new looking technically-advance card here – http://www.standardchartered.com.sg/tokencard/

Cheap(er) Guinness from Cold Storage

14 June 2013 Shopping No comments

During a recent grocery shop at the nearby Cold Storage supermarket, I decided to check-out the alcohol aisle – and noticed that there was one column of Guinness draught stout (normally it is the Guinness Foreign Export – which is much more bitter and a stronger taste – and personally so unlike the original Dublin variety).  Anyway, they had just 3 cans left, so I decided to buy them all.

Guinness Special Offer - Yay

Guinness Special Offer – Yay

I went to the till, paid and started to check my receipt and I noticed, to my surprise, that there was a promotion of Guinness – resulting in a small saving.  It was a buy 3 for S$12 (£6) offer, so equating S$4 (£2) for each can of Guinness, instead of S$5.35 (£2.70).  I did say only a small saving – lol!

And yes I know it is still expensive, compared with the local UK supermarkets – where you can get special offers equating to £1 per can – grrrr…. I miss those offers – haha!

Singapore Credit Cards – Amex of Course!

20 February 2013 New Chapter, Shopping No comments

Well after using my DBS Visa Debit card for several weeks of my new life in Singapore, I decided to focus on which credit cards I should get – Amex of course!  I looked around and there was a few on offer.  What makes Singapore quite different is that all credit cards charge membership fees – which is something the UK market is trying to introduce.  It seems to work here in Singapore – although it is diluted when you get the first year free etc.

Anyway, there were a few options available:

DBS Amex Altitude Card

DBS Amex Altitude Card

 DBS Altitude Card (Amex) – you get 1.6 miles for every $1 spent and received 10k bonus miles each year. Complimentary DBS Altitude Butler Service – nice touch!

Annual Fee – S$192.60, waived for the first year.

DBS Visa Altitude Card

DBS Visa Signature Altitude Card

 DBS Altitude Card (Visa Signature) – you get 1.6 miles for every $1 spent and received 10k bonus miles each year.  Complimentary DBS Altitude Butler Service – again, nice touch! But the Visa card has Priority Pass lounge access for free for the first year, whilst the Amex card doesn’t…hmmm!!

Annual Fee – S$192.60, waived for the first year.

UOB Prvi Miles Amex Card

UOB Prvi Miles Amex Card

 UOB Prvi Miles Platinum Amex Card – you get 1.6 miles for every $1 spent locally and 20k bonus miles each year and unlimited airport limo service (VERY tempting).

Annual Fee – $256.80, waived for the first year.

UOB Singtel Platinum Card

UOB Singtel Platinum Card

 UOB SingTel Platinum Card – you earn up to 4% SMART$ (UOBs reward programme) on your SingTel bill and an additional rebate of 0.5% on all other spend.

Annual Fee – Free card for life (longing your charge the SingTel bill to the card).

Amex Krisflyer Gold Card

Amex Krisflyer Gold Card

 Amex Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Gold Card – 50% + 50% bonus KrisFlyer miles with 5k bonus miles upon the first use of the card.

Annual Fee – $110, waived for the first year.

I ended up getting the DBS Altitude Card (both Amex and Visa), but I am very tempted to get the UOB Prvi Platinum Card (Amex) and the KrisFlyer one, but awaiting to see if there is an acquisition/marketing campaign before I do…I can stagger the sign-ups in any case – to maximise the first year annual free approach 🙂  haha!

 

SingTel Installation brought forward and successful!

4 January 2013 Apartment, Shopping No comments

I received on 31st December from SingTel saying that the installation was brought forward from 8th January to 4th January – now that’s what you call service.  It was scheduled for the 2pm-4pm slot, but when I was in Ikea browsing through for Sofa’s and Dining Tables, and buying some bits and bobs for the apartment, the engineer called saying that he was keen to come earlier…So I arranged a 1pm time.  Nice!

About an hour later the installation was completed – a bit of wiring on the phone box and the phone exchange in the building hall-wall, and I had 2 phonelines (one for the broadband and one for the TV (also on broadband)), MioTV, and the 10MB broadband installed.  I just need to buy a cheap phone so at least if there are any calls, I can receive the calls and make outbound calls accordingly.

NOW, I feel at home 🙂  Good on ya SingTel, a satisfied new customer…just make sure that you services remain as efficient as the installation process.

Need my Internet – haha :)

2 January 2013 Apartment, Shopping No comments

The world is the world of the Internet, and when you remove this, it becomes a bit different and strange – actually, it is quite refreshing too – hehe.

Either way, my mum and I managed to find an ingenious and free way to get access to our emails and the Internet – free wi-fi is available through Singapore, but you need to look for it.  So we spent our time visiting a local shopping mall and some of the establishments within the mall had free wi-fi services available, so we stragetically located a seat near one wifi hotstop and relaxed, checked out emails and the latest news and events back home in the UK, and made plans for the rest of the day…and most importantly, we used someone else’s air conditoning to keep cool in the process…hehe!! Thanks to those establishments for a great service 🙂

I just need to be patience for the installation of the SingTel services – counting down to the 8th January, when the scheduled installation will occur…

SingTel or StarHub…which one :)

30 December 2012 Apartment, Shopping No comments

There are 3 main suppliers of Internet, TV, landline and mobile services in Singapore – SingTel, StarHub and M1.  Apparently, M1 is the last of the 3 in terms of everything, so this really leaves the choice between Singtel and StarHub.  There doesn’t seem to be much between them price-wise, but I’ve heard that SingTel is pretty good (and I used their prepaid mobile services previously).  Haven’t said that, StarHub is more of a cable supplier, rather than SingTel who use the telephone line to supply their Internet broadband services (similar to Sky versus BT in the UK, respectively).  StarHub also seems to have the BBC channels and a few more of the movie and although SingTel had obtained the non-exclusive rights for the UK’s Premiership footie matches, so I think SingTel has the edge.

We visited both shops in the Plaza Singapura shopping mall in the Dhoby Ghaut area, and whilst StarHub was slightly cheaper by a about 5-6 dollars a month (and had the BBC News channel), the waiting time was about 10 days, whilst SingTel was about 7-8 days – and the guy at the store was far more supportive.

Ideally, I wanted to get a quad-package, home-line, broadband, TV and mobile – ideally, I could forego the home-line, but knew it came as default and in most cases was a prerequisite for the broadband, but the two suppliers generally bundled (and were pushing for) the TV, home-line and broadband set, versus the alterative (and more costly) home-line, broadband and mobile set.  I think it’s because they were promoting offers to push their TV services, so without this, there was limited incentive and as such monetary benefit to forego the TV service.  So I decided to play-ball with them and go with TV, home-line and broadband – with mobile as an additional service – the beauty is that you get a discount on the mobile service subscription too, so it worked out okay in the end.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 (Android)

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 (Android)

I got the cheapest handset possible, Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 – it is a Google Android handset, my first Android device, and seems okay.  I just have to get used to it, I guess, having had iPhones for the past 4 years.  Either way, it only cost me S$18 as I received a S$50 discount from SingTel.   If I don’t like the phone, I can always switch the SIM card to my unlocked iPhone 4S, and then use the Samsung one for my UK SIM – which I will only check to see if there are any messages received 🙂  I will see how it goes…hehe!

The good news is that SingTel are giving the 4G (LTE) service upgrade for free on new mobile contracts, the challenge is I don’t have the phone that can receive it (boo-hoo)…BUT I get a S$300 free upgrade after 12 months, so can make the 4G plunge then.

At least I have a local number and can stay in touch with family friends and work colleagues using a local Singapore mobile now!!

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