DBS has launched a new promotion with Expedia that offers Altitude cardholders the chance to earn 8 miles per $1 on online hotel and flight transactions till 30 August 2016.
Remember that under the baseline T&C of the DBS Altitude card, you earn 3 miles per S$1 on online hotel and flight transactions, capped at S$5,000 per month
This promotion tops that up with
- 3 miles per S$1 if you spend less than $2,500 in a single transaction
- 5 miles per S$1 if you spend $2,500 or more in a single transaction
So TL;DR version- spend $2,500 or more= 8 miles per S$1, spend less than $2,500=6 miles per S$1. The maximum bonus you can earn is still capped at S$5,000 of spend, meaning you max this out at 40,000 miles (or if you broke your transactions into amounts less than $2,500, you’d max this out at 30,000 miles).
Very important points to note about this promotion
- Registration is required and can be done here. You must use this link to book your travel
- If you’re booking a hotel, you must prepay your reservation at the time of booking. If you pay at the hotel, you will not get your bonus (this does not mean you can only book non-refundable rates. You can also book refundable rates but must provide your card details at time of booking)
- If you’re booking flights, Expedia must be the “merchant of record” on the transaction. What that means is slightly unclear to me, but the list of “approved” airlines is provided in the T&C and includes
- Air France
- Air India
- Finnair
- EVA
- Air China
- Cathay
- China Southern
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Garuda
- Transasia
- Gulf Air
- Air Astana
- Korean Air
- KLM
- Latam
- Malaysia Air
- Silkair
- Air Niugini
- Qatar
- Lao Airlines
- SIA
- Turkish
- Thai
- Vietnam Airlines
If you have both the DBS Altitude Visa and the DBS Altitude AMEX, you can register both cards and enjoy a combined cap of $10,000.
Of course you might always want to check out Kaligo, which gives 10 miles per $1 on hotel spending. I’ve often found Kaligo’s rates to be much higher than other OTAs, but still worth a check.
Whaha… This is sneaky! I just booked a 4 night stay in HK yesterday and I read your post today. I didn’t read the tnc then, but I might lose a few miles if this tnc is applied way earlier. But thanks for the headsup!
Also be aware that your flight may not appear on your credit card statement as an Expedia transaction (mine appeared as a transaction to the airline), so you’ll have to call DBS to get your points rectified.
The merchant of record issue is extremely unfair. I made a booking worth $7K, and did not get my bonus points even though all flight and airline conditions were met. DBS says that even though the payment has been taken by Expedia, Expedia reports the transaction as having been made on Kayak (where I presumably first searched for the flight before coming on to Expedia). Customer care acknowledged that this is absurd but are helpless to do anything about it. What is more, DBS refuse to provide a breakdown of transaction-wise points which I wanted to check my other transactions.
re: breakdown- try using their livechat and ask them transaction by transaction. they might not send you an excel spreadsheet like they did for me, but at least you can go through item by item.