Back in November 2016, DBS changed the way it charged for miles conversions from an annual fee of $42.80 with unlimited conversions to a per conversion fee of $26.75.
Cardmembers who had already paid the annual fee would be on the “old” scheme until their membership year was up. That is to say, if you paid your $42.80 on October 10 2016, you would have unlimited transactions until October 9 2017, after which you’d pay per conversion.
[gview file=”https://milelion.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/rewards-ffp-faq.pdf”]
In the FAQ that was provided with the program change, DBS clearly states under point 6) that-
I had not received anything from DBS, so I proceeded to do a transaction in early April to move some miles to Krisflyer.
On examining my ibanking statement, however, I saw that I had been hit with a $26.75 conversion fee. So I called DBS customer service to ask about it.
They told me that my annual membership expired end March and therefore I was on the new scheme. I reminded her about their FAQs which stated that customers would get a heads up via eDM or SMS.
Her response was that although she could see in their SMS outbox that I had not been sent anything, it was not practice for them to send out alerts about the impending expiry of your annual transfer fee.
They were not able to locate this FAQ on their side, soย I’ve since sent this PDF to their customer service team for escalation, in expectation that they will refund me the fee. I will update you when this is resolved.
But in the meantime, if you are part of the old annual scheme you might want to take note that alerts areย notย going out. So be vigilant, check your account and let DBS know if you are charged without notice.
I went and briefly searched for 42.80 on both credit card and current account statements and could not find anything. Is that fee changed to credit card?
so how this works is that you will be billed 42.80 to your credit card as part of the annual fee-based transfer program. then you will have 1 year of unlimited points to miles transfers (both Krisflyer and Asiamiles). that does not exist any more.
Mine is due in July 17. I actually received their eDM in December 16 reminding on the expiry date. I had since put a calendar reminder to transfer out the points one day before expiry.
thanks for pointing that out. so maybe their system is missing some people.
I have also received their eDM last Nov about the fee revision. The email stated the expiry date (Dec 2016) for me under the old scheme. Can always count on DBS to be transparent and systematic like that.
Have you been blacklisted by all the banks? No? Just UOB I guess. ? #UOBKrisflyerfail
Ok I’m going to dig in my inbox now. This could potentially be very embarrassing for me…
Thanks for reminding me! I just dug up the email…and to my shock and horror, it is ending on the 29th April 2017!
Better go convert now!
Update on this matter after sending message to DBS. Got following reply:
“Kindly note the your Frequent Flyer Program expired last 18 February 2017.”
I never got any notification either.
Does not matter now, just will do transfers once a year.
so i went to dig in my email and i DID get an eDM from dbs back in december with my FFP expiry date. I dunno why but my reading of the FAQ indicated that they’d inform me via sms as well closer to the actual date.
Has DBS come back to you? I think they will still waive for u ๐
haha no i haven’t heard anything yet. maybe need to follow up. but fair enough they did send an eDM… I just expected an additional SMS based on what they said.
This is good stuff, considering my dbs altitude v just came in the mail and it’s the weekend.. might still stick to citi pm for a bit then. Thanks big A