Best Credit Card for Food and Groceries Spending

For readers who cook at home frequently and are looking for ways to save more on grocery shopping, this post is for you. Food and groceries are probably the largest spending category, given that they are essential for everyone. Most credit card issuing banks have products targeting this group of cardholders, rewarding them for food and grocery spending. Such credit cards would be everyone's top choice.

As physical retail spending is usually in the same group as food and groceries, we will only focus on food and groceries in this article. The definition here is limited to spending on fresh and raw foods, along with grocery items found in supermarkets. Unless specified otherwise, the credit cards should apply to all supermarkets, pop up stores and food markets.

In this article we are going to explore what are the best credit cards for food & groceries spending, and get yourself reward with cashbacks and other values.

Credit Cards for Food & Groceries

Using the DuitHub reward estimator, starting with high spenders in food and groceries, let's say RM2,000 per month, optimized for cashback, we found some interesting observations. First, among the top 10, eight of them are credit cards from AEON (meaning cashback is only earned by spending at AEON). Second, excluding AEON credit cards, the only card that gives decent cashback and is affordable for mass-market cardholders is the Muamalat Bank Pos Visa Platinum credit card. This is a new co-branded credit card launched by Muamalat Bank and Pos Malaysia earlier in 2024. So, how are other credit cards doing in food and groceries spending?

Originally, we wanted to list the top 10 best credit cards for food and groceries, but we changed our minds after researching the list. Now, scrolling slightly down the list, we find cards like the Maybank Visa Signature credit card, CIMB PETRONAS Visa Infinite credit card, Maybank 2 Gold credit cards, and other mass-market credit cards. We will cover AEON credit cards specifically in the next section.

For small spenders (e.g., RM1,000 per month), the Maybank Visa Signature credit card, Maybank 2 Gold credit cards, and Maybank 2 Platinum credit cards all reward you with 5% cashback, which is RM50 if you spend RM1,000 per month.

If you spend up to RM2,000 per month on food and groceries, the Maybank Visa Signature credit card still provides 5% cashback, but the monthly cap of RM88 will kick in, giving you a maximum of RM88 cashback. The CIMB PETRONAS Visa Infinite card offers 3% cashback for spending below RM4,000, so you get RM60 (it also has a RM60 monthly cap). Cards like the Maybank 2 Gold and Maybank 2 Platinum credit cards still reward RM50 cashback since their monthly cap is RM50.

If you hold the Muamalat Pos Visa Infinite credit card, it rewards food and groceries spending with 8% cashback, capped at RM100, which is very decent. However, the Muamalat Pos Visa Infinite credit card is not for everyone, as it requires an annual salary of RM300,000.

AEON Credit Cards

If you spend a lot at AEON every month and still haven’t gotten any AEON-issued credit card, then you should pay attention to the following. By using the DuitHub credit card explorer, there are nine AEON credit cards in the market. All of them reward spending at AEON supermarkets and other related AEON stores such as Daiso, Maxvalu, etc and online channel (MyAEON2go).

At the top of the range are the AEON Platinum Mastercard and Platinum Visa credit cards, both rewarding with 10% cashback, capped at RM100 for food and groceries spending at AEON. This is followed by the AEON Visa and Mastercard Gold credit cards, where the cashback is slightly lower at 8%, but the cap is still RM100. Next, the AEON Visa and Mastercard basic credit cards offer 5% cashback, capped at RM100.

If you’re spending for a big family or running small businesses and shopping at AEON Big instead of AEON, AEON Big offers another two credit cards: AEON BIG Visa and Mastercard Gold credit cards. They are similar to AEON Visa and Mastercard basic credit cards, rewarding 5% cashback capped at RM100, but the cashback only applies to spending at AEON BIG. The AEON BIG credit card stands out because it also rewards petrol and overseas spending. However, since other AEON credit cards also give cashback for AEON BIG spending, it might be wise to get the AEON Platinum Mastercard and Platinum Visa credit cards (higher cashback rate).

Summary

In this article, we presented several credit cards for getting cashback from grocery shopping. There are many other cashback cards we cover in our top 10 best cashback credit cards article, which also applies to food and groceries. The conclusion here is, if you’re an AEON user, AEON credit cards are something you need to have in your wallet. If your spending is elsewhere, cards like the CIMB Visa Infinite and Maybank Visa Signature offer decent cashback.

While you shouldn’t use the same credit card only for food and groceries, you should consider more general credit cards, including petrol co-branded cards such as the RHB Shell Visa Card, CIMB PETRONAS Mastercard Platinum, Maybank PETRONAS Platinum credit card, etc., as they tend to offer higher cashback if you meet the spending requirements, by leveraging spending from other categories (petrol, online, ewallet and etc).