Tag Archives: dbs

Credit Cards

DBS announces points conversion, mapping for ANZ credit cards

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DBS’s acquisition of ANZ’s consumer banking arm has led to a lot of questions for ANZ credit card holders. What will happen to my existing ANZ cards? My ANZ points? Do I need to cash out my ANZ points? If so, when?

There’s been some speculation about this, with ANZ cardholders recently getting a notice that their points and cards will transfer over to DBS equivalents, but we finally have some concrete word from DBS as to what will happen.

Points Conversion

I mentioned that the fair ratio to convert ANZ Travel $ to DBS points would be 2:1, because 1 DBS point is worth 2 miles with Krisflyer and Asiamiles. That’s exactly what has happened.

Similarly, ANZ Rewards Points are valued the same as DBS points with 1 point getting 2/5th of a mile. The conversion ratio DBS is offering is equivalent.

Although your ANZ Travel card’s Travel $ had a maximum validity of 5 years, once they’re transferred over to DBS they will have no expiry, in line with the no expiry policy for points earned through DBS’s Altitude cards.

However, if you’re a holder of ANZ’s Platinum or Switch Platinum cards you’re going to lose out. These points were valid for 5 years, but when they transfer to DBS they’ll only be valid for a further 1 year after the date of transfer, in line with DBS’s points expiry policy for its non-Altitude cards.

Card Mapping

There’s a mapping tool on the DBS FAQ page that shows you what ANZ cards map to what.

  • ANZ Travel Visa Signature= DBS Altitude
  • ANZ Platinum Mastercard = DBS Mastercard Platinum
  • ANZ Platinum Visa= DBS Black Visa
  • ANZ Switch Platinum= DBS Mastercard Platinum
  • ANZ Optimum World Mastercard= POSB Everyday Card
  • ANZ Signature Priority Banking Visa Infinite= DBS Altitude Visa Signature

It’s unsurprising that the Travel Visa maps onto the Altitude, but I am surprised that DBS is converting ANZ Signature Priority VI cards to DBS Altitude cards, given that the Signature Priority VI is for ANZ’s top earners and the DBS Altitude is an entry-level credit card. That said, given how crappy the earn rate is on the ANZ Signature Priority VI, I doubt many will mind.

If you already own the DBS card that your ANZ card will be mapped onto, DBS will transfer your outstanding card balance to a new DBS card account opened exclusively for the payment of your outstanding balance. This account is transitory and is not for further transactions. Whatever rewards points you have will be transferred to your DBS account.

Conclusion

ANZ’s departure from the credit card market in Singapore is unfortunate insofar as it means less competition, but we all know that ANZ’s cards were dying a slow, undignified death in recent times, with the devaluation of several key benefits. So I don’t think too many tears will be shed about that.

Credit Cards

DBS updates rewards program T&C with new exclusion categories

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I got a tip off from a reader that DBS will be changing its overall rewards program T&C with effect from 2nd July.

Download (PDF, 248KB)

Here’s the relevant portion

One might be confused when seeing this because of the impression that such payments never earned points in the first place. That’s not strictly speaking correct. These transactions do earn base points, but don’t qualify for bonus points earning on category spend cards like the DBS Woman’s card.  You would be able to earn regular points on things like insurance payments with other cards like the DBS Altitude.

Why has DBS done this? It all goes back to encouraging discretionary spend. Most of the categories they’ve explicitly mentioned are non-discretionary spend that consumers would have to make regardless, so DBS doesn’t feel the need to incentivize that sort of spending with points. Where donations/payment to non-profits are concerned, I believe that DBS charges such parties a lower merchant fee and therefore doesn’t want to award points on such transactions.

The other LOL-worthy amendment is that DBS points will not be awarded for spending on your DBS Taka card at Taka. I’m trying to see the logic in that and failing, but I never owned a DBS Taka card anyway so I’m not too bothered.

It’s also interesting that there is some internal inconsistency among the various DBS credit card T&Cs. For example, the T&Cs for the DBS Woman’s card explicitly exclude iPayMy and Cardup from earning any DBS points at all, but the overall rewards program T&C is silent about this. Here’s the equivalent section in the DBS Woman’s card T&C.

My interpretation of this is that if you use your Altitude card to pay iPayMy you should still earn regular points as per your cardholder agreement (i.e. $1= 1.2 miles). Whether or not it’s worth paying the processing fee to earn 1.2 mpd is of course another question.

We’ve recently seen banks starting to tighten their T&C regarding points earning. UOB recently updated its T&C for the UOB PPV, which will take effect from 1 July. The new T&C explicitly provides the MCCs that qualify for 10X points earning on the UOB PPV to the excvlusion of other categories. That said, I wouldn’t get too worried about it. T&Cs change all the time, and although it’s annoying to have to change your gameplan when they do, there’s no reason why you can’t still beat the system if you plan enough.

Thanks to Putera for the tip.

Credit Cards

Chicks were born to give you fever, be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade

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I never actually owned a Fevo card, but for those who did, it was always a good way of ensuring you maxed out the 10X on your DBS Woman’s World card for the month.

Image result for fevo card

The plan was simple- you used your DBS Woman’s World card to add $2,000 to your Fevo card each month (well, technically $1,000 at a time, because that was the limit). That counted as an online transaction, earning you the equivalent of 8,000 miles. Then, you used that $2,000 for your day to day expenses, effectively turning regular spending into specialized spending. All it cost you was a nominal top up fee.

The DBS Woman’s card awards you 1X at the time the transaction posts, and the bonus 9X on the 16th of the next calendar month. Many people tended to forget this, though, so every now and then you’d get people on the comments section/HWZ forums saying “guys I think it’s dead, should I call and check” (said person would then be told off with harsh language).

Well, it now appears that the DBS Woman’s FEVO trick is dead, for real. Posters on HWZ are reporting that they did not get the bonus 9X for FEVO transactions done in April. Technically, those who topped up early April reported success, but those who did so in the later half of the month are reporting no dice.

I imagine people will still give this another try next month to see if this month was just a glitch of some sort, but I wouldn’t be too optimistic.

That said, I’d like to echo what laurent_rio says on HWZ-

And that’s as sound advice as I can give anyone playing the miles game.