Ziling Liu

Personal Finance Editor at ShopBack, covering the cashback and rewards side of everyday shopping across the Australia, Singapore, and United States markets. Ziling's work sits at the "which card, which sale, which retailer" decision, before a purchase is made.

The reporting draws on issuer terms and conditions, official reward structure tables, retailer sale-history archives, and ShopBack's internal merchant pricing data. Cashback and rewards math is shown transparently on every claim.

Areas of focus

Credit card comparisons by use-case. Best rewards cards for grocery and gas, dining, online shopping, travel, and everyday flat-rate spend, per market. Chase versus Amex versus Capital One in the United States. Westpac versus CBA versus ANZ versus NAB in Australia. DBS versus Citi versus UOB versus OCBC in Singapore. Each comparison run by the specific spending pattern, not by the marketing category the card sits in.

Sale-event playbooks. US Black Friday and Cyber Monday. AU EOFY and Boxing Day. SG 9.9, 10.10, 11.11, and 12.12. Prime Day across all three. Which categories genuinely mark down during each event, which are theatre, and which cashback layers stack with what on which platform.

Retail chain comparisons. Costco versus Sam's Club versus BJ's in the US. Kmart versus Target Australia versus Big W. NTUC FairPrice versus Sheng Siong versus Cold Storage. Whole Foods versus Trader Joe's versus Aldi versus Sprouts. Same basket priced across the field, plus the membership and cashback layer.

Credit card issuer comparisons. How Chase's Ultimate Rewards ecosystem stacks against Amex's Membership Rewards. How Westpac's Altitude program compares with ANZ Travel Rewards. How Singapore's DBS Points system compares against Citi Rewards. Covered from the cashback and everyday-rewards lens, distinct from the miles-optimisation angle.

Cashback stacking mechanics. How cashback layers with credit-card rewards, store loyalty, and platform-specific coupons. The rules and stacking permutations differ meaningfully across the three markets, and coverage is written region by region rather than one size fits all.

Editorial standards

Every rewards rate, cashback percentage, or issuer term in a Ziling article cites the issuer's own published terms and conditions or reward structure page as of the article's date. Card comparison charts are built from primary-source data, not from third-party card-aggregator sites. Credit-card sign-up bonuses, category earning rates, and cap conditions are read from the issuer's terms directly.

Sale-event coverage cites the retailer's official promotion page and observed in-cart pricing during the event window. Retailer sale histories are cross-referenced against the retailer's own archived pages where available, and against ShopBack's internal merchant pricing data.

Rewards math is shown transparently: earning rate, category cap, redemption value, and the specific spending pattern the recommendation assumes. "Best card for X" is stated for a shopper with a stated monthly spend and category mix, with trade-offs at the top so readers can self-select. Because issuer terms change frequently, the date_modified field records the last re-verification, which happens at minimum every quarter and immediately after any known material change to a card under coverage.

ShopBack receives a commission when readers apply for credit cards or complete purchases through a cashback link. This commission does not vary by editorial coverage, and issuers or retailers cannot pay for inclusion, ranking, or favourable language. Where a card pays a notably higher commission than a comparable peer, the conflict is disclosed inline.

Get in touch

Tips, corrections, or issuer term changes worth looking at: ziling.liu@shopback.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ziling-liu-46171718a

Corrections are logged in-article with the date and what changed.

Editorial team

Ziling covers personal finance from the cashback and rewards lens. The miles-optimisation angle on credit cards, and the loyalty programs that overlap with travel, are covered by:

• Aryan Gaekwad, Points and Loyalty Editor: airline programs, hotel loyalty, and credit-card travel-points overlap

Editorial oversight for the ShopBack blog sits with Jia, Editor-in-Chief.