Review: DBS Altitude Card

Here’s The MileLion’s review of the DBS Altitude Card, which in many ways pioneered the democratisation of the miles game in Singapore.

It’s hard to believe now, but back in the late noughties, most fresh graduates wouldn’t have been able to get a miles card straight off the bat. The minimum income requirement for any decent miles card was S$80,000, and the DBS Altitude was no exception.

Over the years, however, that S$80,000 became less papal edict and more serving suggestion, and eventually in 2016, DBS became the first bank in Singapore to offer a miles card at the MAS-mandated minimum of S$30,000.

This put pressure on the rest of the market, and eventually the Citi PremierMiles and UOB PRVI Miles Cards reduced their income requirements to S$30,000 as well. Now hardworking Singaporeans could dream of a chicken in every pot, two cars in every garage, and three miles cards in every pocket.

For a long time, the DBS Altitude was one of the most useful general spending cards on the market. While its rates for local and overseas spend were standard fare, its ace in the hole was a 3 mpd bonus on up to S$5,000 of online flight and hotel bookings each month. Even better, unlike its competitors, the Altitude didn’t force you to book on OTA portals with inflated pricing and limited selections. You could book any airline or hotel you wished, via its official website.

Unfortunately, that was all undone in August 2023, when DBS decided to eliminate the bonuses– completely their call, though the way they did so left a lot to be desired.

So where does that leave the DBS Altitude? Drifting at sea, I’m afraid.

DBS Altitude Card
🦁 MileLion Verdict
☐ Take It ☑ Take It Or Leave It ☐ Leave It
What do these ratings mean?
Once an excellent general spending card, the loss of bonuses on flights & hotels means the DBS Altitude doesn’t have a lot to separate it from the pack.
👍 The good	👎 The bad
2 free lounge visits (Visa version only) Non-expiring points which pool with other DBS cards	Lacks a compelling miles purchase facility Limited frequent flyer transfer partners No more bonuses for flight and hotel bookings Minimum conversion blocks of 10,000 miles
💳 Full List of Credit Card Reviews

Overview: DBS Altitude Card

Let’s start this review by looking at the key features of the DBS Altitude Card:

Apply (AMEX)
Apply (Visa)
Income Req.	S$30,000 p.a.	Points Validity	No Expiry
Annual Fee	S$194.40 (First Year Free)	Min. Transfer	5,000 DBS Points (10,000 miles)
Miles with Annual Fee	10,000	Transfer Partners	SIA Air Asia Cathay Pacific Qantas
FCY Fee	3% (AMEX) 3.25% (Visa)	Transfer Fee	S$27
Local Earn	1.3 mpd	Points Pool?	Yes
FCY Earn	2.2 mpd	Lounge Access?	Yes  (Visa)
Special Earn	6 mpd on Expedia, 10 mpd on Kaligo	Airport Limo?	No
Cardholder Terms and Conditions

The DBS Altitude comes in two varieties: American Express, and Visa. The fees, earn rates and benefits of the two are almost identical; I’ll draw attention to the differences where relevant. 

How much must I earn to qualify for a DBS Altitude Card?

The DBS Altitude has a minimum income requirement of S$30,000 per year.

If you don’t meet the minimum income requirement, you can place a S$10,000 fixed deposit with DBS and get a secured version of the card. Visit any DBS branch for further information.

How much is the DBS Altitude Card’s annual fee?

	Principal Card	Supp. Card
First Year	Free	Free
Subsequent	S$194.40	S$97.20

The DBS Altitude Card has an annual fee of S$194.40 for the principal cardholder, and a S$97.20 fee per supplementary card.

The first year’s fee is waived, and subsequent year’s fees are automatically waived if you spend at least S$25,000 in a membership year (based on personal experience, you can get a fee waiver even if you spend much less than this).

Otherwise, paying the principal card’s annual fee nets you 10,000 miles, which means buying miles at ~1.94 cents per mile. You can opt to voluntarily pay the annual fee even if you spend above $25,000 in a membership year, should you wish to buy the miles anyway.

Sign-up bonus

From now till 30 September 2023, the DBS Altitude Cards are offering a sign-up bonus of up to 25,600 bonus miles, depending on which card you apply for and whether you’re a new or existing DBS/POSB customer.

	DBS Altitude AMEX	DBS Altitude Visa
New Customers	25,600 bonus miles (+10,000 miles with AF payment)	22,600 bonus miles (+10,000 miles with AF payment)
Existing Customers	11,600 bonus miles (+10,000 miles with AF payment)	N/A

❓ New-to-bank

DBS defines “new-to-bank” as customers who do not: currently hold a principal DBS or POSB credit card, and have not cancelled a principal DBS or POSB credit card in the past 12 months

On top of the bonus miles, an additional 10,000 miles will be granted if you choose to pay the first year’s S$194.40 annual fee.

Refer to the tables below for the promo code you’ll need to enter to enjoy these offers.

New-to-bank customers
DBS Altitude AMEX Apply
Promo Code	ALTMEX	ALTMEXW
Bonus Miles	25,600	25,600
Base Miles From S$2,000 Spend (@ 1.3 mpd)	2,600	2,600
Miles From S$194.40 Annual Fee	10,000	Fee waived
Total Miles	38,200	28,200

New-to-bank customers
DBS Altitude Visa Apply
Promo Code	ALTVIS	ALTVISW
Bonus Miles	22,600	22,600
Base Miles From S$2,000 Spend (@ 1.3 mpd)	2,600	2,600
Miles From S$194.40 Annual Fee	10,000	Fee waived
Total Miles	35,200	25,200

Existing customers
DBS Altitude AMEX Apply
Promo Code	ALTMEXA	ALTMEXAW
Bonus Miles	11,600	11,600
Base Miles From S$2,000 Spend (@1.3 mpd)	2,600	2,600
Miles From S$194.40 Annual Fee	10,000	Fee waived
Total Miles	24,200	14,200

How many miles do I earn?

🇸🇬 SGD Spend	🌎 FCY Spend	⭐ Bonus Spend
1.3 mpd	2.2 mpd	6 mpd on Expedia, 10 mpd on Kaligo

SGD/FCY Spend

DBS Altitude Card members earn:

• 3.25 DBS Points for every S$5 spent in Singapore Dollars (SGD)
• 5.5 DBS Points for every S$5 spent in foreign currency (FCY).

1 DBS Point is worth 2 airline miles, so that’s an equivalent earn rate of 1.3 mpd for SGD spending, and 2.2 mpd for FCY spending. These are competitive rates for a general spending card, as the table below shows. 

💳 Earn Rates for General Spending Cards (income req.: S$30K)
Cards	Local Spend	FCY Spend
UOB PRVI Miles	1.4 mpd	2.4 mpd
HSBC TravelOne Card	1.2 mpd	2.4 mpd
DBS Altitude	1.3 mpd	2.2 mpd
OCBC 90°N Card	1.3 mpd	2.1 mpd
Citi PremierMiles	1.2 mpd	2 mpd
StanChart Journey	1.2 mpd	2 mpd
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend	1.2 mpd	2 mpd*
AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card	1.1 mpd	2 mpd*
BOC Elite Miles	1 mpd	2 mpd
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card	1.2 mpd	1.2 mpd
*In June and Dec only, otherwise 1.1 mpd

All overseas transactions on the DBS Altitude AMEX and Visa Cards are subject to a 3% and 3.25% FCY fee respectively. This means that using your DBS Altitude Card overseas represents buying miles at 1.36 cents (AMEX) and 1.48 cents (Visa).

Expedia

For bookings made through this Expedia link, DBS Altitude Card members will earn 6 mpd on hotel bookings where payment is made to Expedia at the time of booking, and the following airlines: 

Cambodia Airways China Eastern  EVA Air Finnair Garuda Indonesia Gulf Air Hawaiian Airlines	Korean Air Myanmar Intl Airlines Qatar Airways Srilankan Airlines THAI Turkish Airlines Xiamen Airlines
The above list is subject to change, so be sure to confirm it with the latest T&Cs before booking.

This applies to bookings made by 31 March 2024, and capped at S$5,000 per month. Bonus miles will be accumulated and awarded to the cardholder within 45 days after the end of each spend period:

• 1 April to 30 June 2023
• 1 July to 30 September 2023
•  1 October to 31 December 2023
• 1 January to 31 March 2024

The full T&Cs of this offer can be found here.

Kaligo

For bookings made through Kaligo, DBS Altitude Card members will earn an additional 7 mpd on hotel reservations made by 31 March 2024. This works out to a total of 10 mpd (assuming all transactions are in foreign currency), and is capped at S$5,000 per month. 

The full T&Cs of this offer can be found here.

When are DBS Points credited?

DBS Points for local and overseas spending will be credited when your transaction posts, which generally takes 1-3 working days. 

How are DBS Points calculated?

Some people get anxious when they read in the T&Cs that DBS Points are awarded in S$5 blocks. That’s understandable, given how UOB’s S$5 earning blocks result in a lot of lost miles from rounding, especially for small transactions. 

But DBS’s calculations aren’t nearly as penalising. Here’s how DBS points on your DBS Altitude Card are calculated:

Local Spend	Divide transaction by 5 and multiply by 3.25. Round down to the nearest whole number
FCY Spend	Divide transaction by 5 and multiply by 5.5. Round down to the nearest whole number

Notice how the transaction is not rounded down to the nearest S$5; instead, it’s divided by 5 straight away. This means the minimum spend to earn points is not S$5, but rather:

• SGD spend: S$1.54
• FCY spend: S$0.91

To illustrate the point, here’s how the DBS Altitude compares to the UOB PRVI Miles. Note how it outperforms the ostensibly higher-earning PRVI Miles (1.4 mpd) on certain transaction sizes. 

	DBS Altitude Earn rate: 1.3 mpd	UOB PRVI Miles Earn rate: 1.4 mpd
S$5	6 miles	6 miles
S$9.99	12 miles	6 miles
S$15	18 miles	20 miles
S$19.99	24 miles	20 miles
S$25	32 miles	34 miles
S$29.99	38 miles	34 miles

If you’re an Excel geek, here’s the formulas you need to calculate points: 

Local Spend	=ROUNDDOWN ((X/5)*3.25,0)
FCY Spend	=ROUNDDOWN ((X/5)*5.5,0)
Where X= Amount Spent

For the full list of formulas that banks use to calculate credit card points, do refer to these articles:

• General Spending Cards
• Specialised Spending Cards

What transactions aren’t eligible for DBS Points?

DBS Points will not be awarded for the following transactions:

Bill payments and all transactions via AXS (except Pay+Earn), SAM, eNETS; Payments to educational institutions; Payment to government institutions and services (court cases, fines, bail and bonds, tax payment, postal services, parking lots and garages, intra-government purchases and any other government services not classified here); Payment to insurance companies (sales, underwriting, and premiums); Payments to financial institutions (including banks and brokerages); Payment to non-profit organisations; Payments to hospitals; Payments on utilities; Betting (including lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track betting, and wagers at race tracks) through any channel; Any top-ups or payment of funds to payment service providers, prepaid cards, any prepaid accounts or purchase of prepaid cards/credits (including but not limited to EZ-Link, GrabPay, NETS FlashPay, Razer Pay, ShopeePay and Singtel Dash); Any transaction with transaction description “AMAZE*” Instalment payment plan purchases, preferred payment plans, balance transfer, fund transfer, cash advances, annual fees, interest, late payment charges, all fees charged by DBS, miscellaneous charges imposed by DBS (unless otherwise stated in writing by DBS)

It’s pretty much what you’d expect: education, government institutions, insurance, non-profits, hospitals, utilities, and top-ups of prepaid accounts like GrabPay and YouTrip.

For avoidance of doubt, CardUp and RentHero transactions do earn DBS Points. 

What do I need to know about DBS Points?

❌ Expiry	↔️ Pooling	💰 Transfer Fee
No expiry	Yes	S$27 (per conversion) or S$43.20 (per year)
⬆️ Min. Transfer	✈️ No. of Partners	⏱️ Transfer Time
5,000 DBS Points (10,000 miles)	4	1-3 working days (for KF)

Expiry

DBS Points normally expire after one year, but points earned on the DBS Altitude card never expire.

Pooling

DBS Points earned on different cards pool together for the purposes of redemption. If I have a 12,000 points on the DBS Altitude and 8,000 points on the DBS Woman’s World Card, I’ll be able to redeem 20,000 points at one shot, paying a single conversion fee. 

However, DBS Points are not pooled when it comes to card cancellations. If I have a DBS Altitude and DBS Woman’s World Card and decide to cancel the former, I’ll need to transfer my points out before cancelling, or else forfeit them. 

Partners and Transfer Fee

DBS partners with the following frequent flyer programmes, and a minimum conversion block of 5,000 points is required (let’s ignore AirAsia, because converting points there is like throwing them away):

Frequent Flyer Programme	Conversion Ratio (DBS Points: Miles)
	5,000 : 10,000
	5,000 : 10,000
	5,000 : 10,000
	500 : 1,500

Transfers cost S$27 per programme, regardless of how many points are transferred.

For KrisFlyer specifically, DBS offers an alternative “Auto Conversion programme”. This charges a flat fee of S$43.20 per membership year, and automatically converts DBS Points to KrisFlyer miles each calendar quarter in blocks of 500 DBS Points. 

How does the DBS KrisFlyer Miles Auto Conversion Programme work?

This reduces the minimum transfer block from 10,000 miles to 1,000 miles, but has the downside of starting the three-year expiry on your KrisFlyer miles early. 

Whether the Auto Conversion programme makes sense depends on your miles transfer patterns. If you make only one transfer to KrisFlyer per year, the “per transfer” model of S$27 would make more sense. However, if you find yourself making two or more transfers, the Auto Conversion programme may have some utility. 

Cardholders enrolled in the Auto Conversion scheme can make ad-hoc conversions from DBS Points to KrisFlyer miles without paying the usual S$27 fee, but the usual minimum block of 5,000 DBS Points applies.

Transfer Times

DBS tells customers to expect points to be credited in 1-2 weeks, but in reality it usually takes about 1-3 working days at the very most (at least for KrisFlyer, transfer times to other programmes can be longer)

If you need your points credited instantly, you can do so via Kris+. 100 DBS Points can be transferred to 170 KrisPay miles, which can then be transferred to KrisFlyer miles at a 1:1 ratio. 

S$5 for new Kris+ Users

Get S$5 (in the form of 750 KrisPay miles) when you sign-up with code W644363 and make your first transaction

Transfers are immediate, but those 100 DBS Points would normally have earned you 200 KrisFlyer miles, so you effectively take a 15% haircut. 

Therefore I wouldn’t recommend taking this option, unless you need a small top-up to redeem a flight, or have an orphan DBS Points balance (<5,000 points). 

Other card perks

Income tax facility

DBS Altitude cardholders can pay their income tax via DBS’s My Preferred Payment Plan with a 2.5% fee, while earning 1.5 mpd (instead of the usual 1.2 mpd rate)

This works out to 1.67 cents per mile; decent, but you could derive a lower cost per mile by using a payment service like CardUp.

If you’re thinking of paying taxes with your DBS Altitude Card, do refer to the article below for the latest promotions.

2023 Edition: Earning credit card miles on IRAS income tax

Two free lounge visits (Visa version only)

Registration

The DBS Altitude Visa comes with two free lounge visits per membership year, via Priority Pass. 

The two visit allowance is tracked by membership year, based on when they applied for their Priority Pass. Only the principal cardholder is entitled to this benefit. Lounge entitlements can be shared with a guest, but once you exhaust your free visits you’ll be charged US$32 per additional visit. 

Here’s how this compares to other cards in its segment.

Card	Network	Free Lounge Visits (per year)
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend	Plaza Premium	4X
HSBC TravelOne Card	DragonPass	4X
Citi PremierMiles	Priority Pass	2X
DBS Altitude	Priority Pass	2X (Visa Version Only)
StanChart Journey Card	Priority Pass	2X
AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card	N/A	N/A
BOC Elite Miles	N/A	N/A
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card	N/A	N/A
OCBC 90°N Card	N/A	N/A
UOB PRVI Miles	N/A	N/A

Terms and Conditions

• DBS Altitude Card Terms and Conditions
• DBS Rewards Terms and Conditions

Summary Review: DBS Altitude Card

Apply (AMEX)

Apply (Visa)

🦁 MileLion Verdict

☐ Take It ☑ Take It Or Leave It ☐ Leave It

Prior to August 2023, I’d heartily recommend the DBS Altitude Card to anyone looking for an entry-level general spending card. Its local and overseas spending rates were decent, and it had the added bonus of 3 mpd on flights & hotels with a generous monthly cap of S$5,000.

Now, it’s not so clear. While the local and overseas spending rates have been buffed slightly,  losing the bonuses for flights & hotels is a bitter pill to swallow. The way I see it, there’s not much to separate the Altitude from the rest of the competition. 

To add to the murkiness, we don’t even know if this will be the Altitude’s final form. DBS has already highlighted that further changes will come in February 2024- what exactly those are, they won’t say!

Until we have more clarity on the long-term value proposition of this card, you might be better off looking elsewhere instead.