Sumitomo Mitsui Card (NL) pays 7% at eligible convenience-store and restaurant chains when you pay with the phone's contactless payment (8% on the Olive Flexible Pay card in credit mode), but only 0.5% on everything else. If ¥10,000 of ¥150,000 a month goes to those chains, your overall rate is 0.93% — below the 1.2% of the no-annual-fee Recruit Card.
What it takes to earn 7% (from the issuer's page)
- Eligible stores include 7-Eleven, Lawson, Ministop, Seicomart and Poplar; McDonald's, MOS Burger, KFC, Yoshinoya, Sukiya, Saizeriya and Gusto (and some other Skylark-group restaurants); Doutor, Hama-sushi, Kappa Sushi and Cocos. Stores inside shopping complexes and some others are not eligible.
- You must pay with the phone's Visa or Mastercard contactless, or by mobile order. The plastic card's contactless, iD, chip-insert and magnetic payments are excluded, and so is paying with the card registered inside a barcode-payment app.
- If a payment exceeds a limit (generally ¥10,000), the terminal may ask you to insert the card, and that payment is not eligible. Online shopping and delivery at the eligible chains are also excluded.
- The 7% includes the normal 0.5%, and bonus points are capped at 50,000 a month per card.
The "up to 20%" also requires the family-point group (a main member plus five or more family members, +5%) and the full set of V Point Up Program services — Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, SBI Securities, Olive, a home loan, foreign-currency deposits and so on. The issuer's page itself says the point boost is capped at 20% under Japan's premiums law.
The real rate: how much of ¥150,000 a month goes to the chains
Here is the overall rate for ¥150,000 of monthly card spending, for three ways of paying, as the chain share changes.
| Monthly spend at eligible chains | All on NL | All on Recruit | Chains on NL, rest on Recruit |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¥0 | 0.50% | 1.20% | 1.20% |
| ¥5,000 | 0.72% | 1.20% | 1.39% |
| ¥10,000 | 0.93% | 1.20% | 1.59% |
| ¥20,000 | 1.37% | 1.20% | 1.97% |
| ¥30,000 | 1.80% | 1.20% | 2.36% |
Putting everything on NL beats Recruit's 1.2% only once the chains reach about 11% of your spending (about ¥16,200 of ¥150,000 a month). With ¥10,000 a month at 7%, the other ¥140,000 still earns 0.5%, so the overall rate is just 0.93%. Putting only the chains on NL and the rest on a 1.2% card gives 1.59% at ¥10,000 a month and 2.36% at ¥30,000.
Who should add it as a second card
The gain per yen at the chains is the difference between 7% and 1.2%, 5.8%. To add ¥3,000 a year, you need to spend at least ¥4,320 a month at eligible chains. At ¥10,000 a month the gain over a single 1.2% card is ¥6,960 a year. If you spend less than about ¥5,000 a month at convenience stores and fast food, the extra card is not worth carrying.
You need Apple Pay or Google Pay set up and must pay with the phone each time. The annual fee is permanently free.
To test your own pattern, use the card-combination calculator. The verdict list is in Credit card verdicts.
Sources
- Sumitomo Mitsui Card (Japanese) — V Point Up Program: eligible chains, phone contactless and mobile-order conditions, monthly cap, the breakdown of the 20% maximum, and the 20% legal ceiling
- Sumitomo Mitsui Card (Japanese) — Olive Flexible Pay credit mode earns 8% from 1 February 2026; the app-login +1% ended on 28 February 2026
- Recruit Card (official, Japanese) — 1.2% rate, also on utilities and phone bills