I moved to Dubai with a bad credit card.
Specifically, an entry-level card from a bank my employer's HR had set up payroll with, with a 3.49% monthly interest rate I didn't read, an FX fee of 3.25% on every Netflix and Spotify charge, and a welcome bonus I never qualified for because the qualifying spend window had closed two weeks before my Emirates ID arrived. I paid the second-year annual fee on auto-charge and noticed three months later. By the time I worked out what to do, I'd lost about AED 4,500 to fees and friction that didn't need to exist.
None of that was the bank's fault. The terms were on the bank's website. They were also on the schedule of charges PDF nobody I knew had ever opened. The problem was that nothing on the UAE side of the internet read like a publication that took the question seriously — which card actually wins for an AED 18,000-a-month expat with school fees on the way and one annual flight home.
The UK has Head for Points and MoneySavingExpert. The US has The Points Guy and NerdWallet. They get a lot of things wrong, but they exist, and the people who read them rarely make the mistake I made. The UAE has one or two enthusiast blogs, a handful of comparison sites optimised for affiliate clicks, and a Google results page where the first ten links are nearly identical and don't say anything you couldn't have guessed.
What I want this to be
A UAE-resident, UAE-numbers, UAE-rules publication that you read because the analysis is right — not because it's optimised for the SERP.
Concretely, three things. First, every figure on the site is in AED, sourced, and dated. Not converted from a US dollar. Not a guess. Second, the verdict on every card review is the verdict a friend with the same data would give you over coffee — including when the friend's verdict is "this card is bad, don't buy it." Third, the site is an editorial publication, not a comparison engine. Comparison engines are useful and already exist. What is missing is the editorial voice.
The salary-transfer tracker, the cornerstone Expat Starter guide, the quarterly AED valuations — those are the load-bearing parts. The card reviews are the working surface. The deals and the weekly recap are how we earn the right to be read every week instead of only when you're shopping for something.
What I won't do
I won't accept payment to rank a card higher.
I won't pretend the affiliate link doesn't exist when there is one — it'll be marked with an asterisk and explained on a page you can find from the footer. I won't run the kind of pop-up newsletter capture that pushes content below the fold on mobile. I won't tell you a Mile is worth a number it isn't — and when the site eventually has formal valuations, the methodology will be on a page next to the figure, not buried.
And the most important one: I won't claim the site is finished when it isn't. At first publish, this is an early-stage publication with a small set of card reviews, one bank's lineup mostly covered, a placeholder logo system that needs real brand-kit assets dropped in, and several sections marked "coming next quarter". It'll grow. The standard won't.
How to hold me to it
Email info@dubaipoints.ae when something is wrong.
If a figure is off, a card review reads like marketing, a recommendation contradicts itself across two pages, or you've used a card and the verdict is wrong — say so. I'll fix it, update the page, and note the correction at the foot. The editorial policy spells out the verification standard. The how-we-make-money page is the financial firewall. Both are short. Both will stay that way.
Dubai, May 2026.