Well color me confused. About a week ago it was all ashes and sackcloth as DBS stealthily uploaded a new set of T&C to its website. You can find a summary of the changes here, but long story short it added a lot of exceptions for what types of transactions could earn the additional 9X points (ie 3.6 miles) for a grand total of 0.4+3.6 (1X +9X)=4 miles per $1.
Now DBS’s rep has gone on the record on the HWZ forums as saying everything’s fine, nothing’s changed. Here’s the quote in full and the screenshots below in case it gets removed
Yes, there was an update to the T&Cs on our website on 7 June, however we have not made any changes to how additional bonus points for online purchases are awarded, the update was meant to provide greater clarity to all. As such, there was no need to send out service eDMs or SMS.
It’s an update to provide better clarity, but the way points are awarded for online purchases have not been changed.
Online purchases – the updated version leaves less room for misinterpretation
DBS positions this as a clarification rather than a policy change, but it’s quite clear from reading the T&C before and after that by the letter of the law, under the new T&C many of the transactions that traditionally qualified for the bonus 9X no longer qualify
DBS says that the way points are awarded for online transactions have not changed. Indeed, people on HWZ are reporting that their 9X for May is successfully posting (bonus points are posted on the 16th of the following month, remember). So it seems that if there was any effect, it will only be prospective, not retroactive.
So it’s prima facie reassuring that DBS says nothing has changed, but I don’t think you can really hold them to that if on 16th July your 9X bonus for June doesn’t post properly. I’m trying to figure out what DBS is doing here- why add these new terms if you don’t want to change anything?
My take: the only way to be sure is to see what happens on the 16th of July. That’s when the bonus points (or lack thereof) will come in for June’s transactions. Until then all this is speculation.
