Until 30 Sept, the DBS Altitude AMEX card had a very generous 50% bonus miles promotion. Upon card approval, you would earn 1.8 miles for local spend, 3 miles for overseas spend and 4.5 miles for online hotel and flight bookings for the first 6 months (as opposed to the 1.2/2/3 miles normally). There was no minimum spend nor cap on the maximum number of miles you could earn via this promo.
DBS Altitude AMEX now has a new sign up promo. For all cards approved between now and 30 April 2016, spend $800 in your first month and get 3,000 bonus miles. More importantly, you also enjoy double miles on overseas and local spend (but not the online hotel and flight booking category) for the first 3 months after approval subject to spending a minimum of $800 per month.
That translates into
- Local= 2.4 miles per $1 (an incredibly generous rate)
- Overseas= 4 miles per $1 (ditto)
The maximum bonus you can earn is capped at $6,000 of spend per month. The spend is capped on spend rather than miles, so the way to max this out is by putting all $6,000 on overseas spend.
How does this compare to the previous 50% additional miles promotion? 2.4 miles/4 miles  for local/overseas spend is unheard of. DBS must really be taking it to UOB in the fight for the miles card market. The $800 min spend is a bit of a downer, but if you’re certain you’re going to hit $800 a month for the next 3 months then you should absolutely take advantage of this sign up promo. In theory, you could max this out with 72,000 miles in 3 months for $18,000 of overseas spend.
T&C here– only for new signups, but if you’ve cancelled your DBS Altitude card for more than 6 months you’re eligible to take advantage too.
Short story: If you’re confident of hitting $800 a month for the next 3 months, definitely go for this and frontload some of your big ticket item purchases. The card has a minimum income requirement of $50,000 (when it launched it was $80,000). My understanding is DBS is relatively flexible about income requirements but YMMV.
Read the Milelion’s take on the DBS portfolio of cards here.
cover photo by paulnelhams
Hi Aaron,
I have a DBS Altitude AMEX from the previous promo and the 6 months promo period will be up soon. I’m not sure if I should cancel the card immediately to start the “new-sign up” clock in case of future promos or should I keep the card, pay the annual fee to get the renewal bonus? What are your thoughts on this?
Cheers
thoughts: you could cancel, but i’d check the T&C to see if there is any minimum holding period for this card or whether they can clawback the points if you cancel within 1 year. Typically for you to be eligible for the next sign up bonus you need to have cancelled the card more than a year ago btw. I still like keeping the DBS altitude as my general spend card because (1) it earns 2 miles on forex paypal transactions (vs uob which codes these as SG- payment processor and gives 1.4) and i do a lot of paypal… Read more »
Hi Aaron,
do you know when is normally additional online booking flight + hotel miles + 50% miles (for 6 month) will be awarded ?
For my booking in September-October, it seems they haven’t awarded the miles ?
The additional miles award for DBS Visa+Amex altitude seems really confusing
According to their T&C they only award it after the 6 months. But in practice they’ve always awarded me quite quickly. When I had that card I rarely had to wait more than 1 month for it to be credited. I think you might want to call up DBS in that case. I remember I would spend in June and by start Aug the bonus points would have hit my account.
Hi Aaron,
Another question on this promo. Do you know how DBS classify online flight bookings? Does it mean that as long as I book through any airline website, I will qualify for the bonus miles?
I am specifically looking at booking flights on the Air Canada website. Alternatively, does booking on OTA sites like Expedia count?
Thanks,
Jon
yes, that’s correct. air canada bookings will earn the bonus, as will bookings on any airline. OTA bookings will also count
Thanks! But unfortunately I checked and my 6 months promo period is already up.
Other than the 3 miles per $1 using the Altitude cards, do you know what other card gives a better earn for booking online flights? I need to spend quite a bit booking either AC or CX flights SIN-YYZ, so I’m trying to see how to maximise the miles earned.
Use DBS Woman Card and get 4$/miles for online booking or book in Expedia using Citi Premier Miles and get 6$/miles (CX is included but AC not included )
maybank horizon gives 2 miles per $1 on flight tickets, but that’s not really the best out there…although if you’ve maxed out your altitude spending (the cap is quite high at $10k per month for online hotel and airlines) then that’s the best I can think of (other than DBS woman’s).
The DBS Woman Card is capped at $2k per month, so doesn’t work for me. I’ve been looking at how I can use the Expedia promo, but I have a question for this. Will the promo apply if I am booking a multi-segment flight, whereby one segment is flown by a carrier that is included in the promotion (SQ), and the other segment is flown by a carrier that is not included in the promotion (AC)? For example, I am looking for SIN-YYZ flights. A search on Expedia gives me the option of taking SQ856 from SIN-HKG, and then AC16… Read more »
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