DBS has gone all in on its Altitude cards lately, coming up with some really generous sign up promotions.
A new promotion (until 30 April) offers 8 miles per $1 on purchases at Expedia (min $2,500 in a single transaction, otherwise 6 miles).I don’t really use OTAs to book hotels (Because you can’t earn credit for elite status when you do so) but I’ll happily use it for airline tickets.
Is it difficult to get $2,500 in a single transaction? Yes and no. If I book a long-haul premium economy ticket with SQ I can just about make that threshold (EDIT: Or, as someone smarter than me pointed out, buying 2 economy class return tickets should just about do it. Doh). 20,000 miles for 1 transaction seems plenty sweet. ย Remember, unlike hotels, OTA bookings for flight tickets still earn you regular credit with the airlines.
This promotion requires registration which is painless and can be done here. Terms and conditions here. Nothing strikes me as particularly unusual about the T&C, and mile earning is not capped.
just wanna vent those lent up frustrations! signed up for the DBS altitude and was intending to use it to purchase 2 round trip tickets to LAX. imagine the points I would have earned! almost 1 month after sending it the application, checks with DBS hotline continue to only give a “is being processed” message. couldn’t wait anymore coz prices were rising and availability was dropping. had to purchase but not with my (not yet approved) altitude card. argh! imagine. almost 20000 miles evaporated, just like that!! argh!!!!!
Hi Aaron,
interestingly, seems only the upper bucket fares (like J and U at least for SQ biz) are shown on Expedia when you go through the DBS promotion link – when there is availability on D…
This push the cost per mile to something around ~4 cents (SGD) per mile (if my calculations are correct?).
Do you have any view on this ? Do you think it is still worth it at that price (I’m usually not buying KF miles) ?
PS : thanks for your blog, really great stuff here.
hey peter- the funny thing is i’m now in sao paulo having spent 3.6k sgd on an SQ full Y ticket which i booked direct from SQ.com. i totally forgot about the dbs altitude promo and was so pissed at myself, until i tried making a dummy booking through expedia-altitude and noticed that the flight I took did not appear as one of the options. I’m not sure what it means for cost per mile, because that varies on a case to case basis, but I always suspected that in order for them to give such a generous 8 miles… Read more »
Didn’t notice this discrepancy. Recently booked Cathay Economy through the promo and found the same price from Cathay direct website. So I booked right away. Didn’t manage to hit $2.5K tho … Quite a high target for promo fare for one person unless buying for more than one or add on hotel package
Thanks Aaron – enjoy Sao Paulo (hope the rain and the protests will not ruin the trip ๐ )