DBS Vantage: This isn’t it (and thank goodness for that)

Earlier this month, I wrote about how DBS Bank looked set to launch a $120K card of its own called the DBS Vantage. This came courtesy of a leak on the Accor Plus website, which revealed that cardholders would receive a complimentary Accor Plus Explorer membership with up to 50% off dining and a free hotel night each year. 

Little else was known beyond that, but this morning a member of The MileLion Telegram Group shared the following screenshots from the DBS website. 

Is this what the DBS Vantage will look like? Yes and no. I reached out to DBS to confirm if this was the real deal, and was told the following:

“The card is still being finalised and the actual proposition will differ from the card information shown in the images.”

All I can say is thank goodness for that, because if this card went to market, it’d be the most DOA thing I’d seen since the KrisFlyer UOB account.

DBS Vantage: Is this it?

DBS Vantage (Unconfirmed)
Income Req.	Annual Fee (AF)	FCY Fee
S$120,000	S$736	3.25%
Regular Earn	Bonus Earn	Miles with AF
Up to 1.6 mpd (Local) Up to 2.4 mpd (FCY)	Up to 3.4 mpd	25,000 miles
Complimentary Accor Plus Explorer membership with 1-night stay Members-only discounts at over 80 of Singapore’s finest dining establishments

From what I’ve gathered so far, it looks like the DBS Vantage will indeed be a consumer-facing card (one working theory I had earlier on was that it might be a corporate card similar to the UOB Regal). 

A minimum income of S$120,000 is required, with an annual fee of S$736. Now, that alone should make you sit up and rub your eyes, because it’d make the DBS Vantage the most expensive card in the $120K segment.

Card	Annual Fee	Welcome Gift
DBS Vantage (Unconfirmed)	S$736	25,000 miles^
HSBC Visa Infinite	S$650 (S$488 for HSBC Premier)	35,000 miles
UOB VI Metal Card	S$642	25,000 miles^
Maybank Visa Infinite	S$600 (1st year free)	None
SCB Visa Infinite	S$588.50	35,000 miles
AMEX Plat. Reserve	S$535	2N stay at Fraser properties
Citi Prestige	S$535	25,000 miles^
OCBC VOYAGE	S$488*	15,000 miles^
*Alternative option: Pay S$3,210 for 150,000 miles ^Also given upon renewal

For the record, I’m not opposed to high annual fees per se. After all, I shell out S$1,712 each year for the privilege of owning an American Express Platinum Charge. But with high fees come high expectations, and what I’m seeing doesn’t impress me at all. 

What’s good?

Let’s start with the good stuff: the DBS Vantage sports decent earn rates. 1.6/2.4 mpd for local/overseas spending would make this even better than the top-of-the-line DBS Insignia (1.6/2.0 mpd), a card with a S$500,000 income requirement and a S$3,210 annual fee!

I don’t see how they could do that without ticking off some important customers, which perhaps explains the pesky “up to” qualifier. This suggests that a minimum spend must be hit to earn this rate, which then begs the question: what’s the regular earn rate, and how much is the minimum spend?

Cardholders also earn “up to” 3.4 mpd on dining and petrol spend. That’s clearly not the best possible outcome, given how you could earn 4 mpd with the right cards, but it’s still a good rate for a general spending card.

What’s bad?

Sadly, it kind of falls apart for the DBS Vantage after that.

Those “members-only discounts at over 80 of Singapore’s finest dining establishments”? Well, if they’re anything like what DBS Insignia cardholders get, I can’t say I’m holding my breath.

For the uninitiated, the DBS Insignia has a partnership with Dining City, which is meant to be their attempt at a Love Dining style programme.

Full marks for ambition, but the delivery leaves a lot to be desired. I did a quick survey of the discounts on offer, and it’s pretty grim:

• 10% discount: 1 restaurant
• 15% discount: 49 restaurants
• 20% discount: 4 restaurants
• 25% discount: 4 restaurants
• 50% discount: 2 restaurants

The median discount on offer is 15%, with just two restaurants at the 50% off mark: Cali at Ascott Raffles Place and Cali at Park Avenue Rochester. But both these outlets are already offering 50% off through Eatigo– no expensive annual fee required! 

Contrast that to Love Dining, which offers couples 50% off dining at more than 40 restaurants. Even if you’re talking about dining in larger groups, a party of four would save more with Love Dining (25%) than most of the restaurants in the Dining City collection (yes, I know the list of restaurants isn’t a perfect overlap, but indulge the oversimplification). 

Assuming the DBS Vantage can’t have better perks than the DBS Insignia, there’s very little to get excited about here.

This means the only benefits of note are the Accor Plus Explorer membership and the 25,000 miles each year. An Accor Plus membership is certainly useful, but it retails for S$408. Add that to the value of 25,000 miles (S$375, assuming 1.5 cents per mile), and you only end up slightly ahead of the DBS Vantage’s S$736 annual fee. 

Surely there’s got to be more? Nope. That’s it. There’s no mention of airport lounge access, airport limo transfers, or many of the perks you’d expect from a card in this segment. Now, if you were charitable you might say they just ran out of bullet points, and there’s more stuff to come. I suppose that’s theoretically possible, though you’ll forgive me for being a bit skeptical.

But hey, we’re talking hypothetically anyway because this isn’t the actual DBS Vantage right? 

Right?

Conclusion

The DBS Vantage is indeed set to become DBS’s first $120K card, although I’ve been told that the information which went live this morning does not represent its final form. 

The key question in my mind is: how different will the final product be?

If we’re talking radically different, then fair enough, I’ll reserve judgement till then. But if we’re talking marginal differences, then the DBS Vantage would indeed be overpriced and underwhelming. 

If this were the DBS Vantage, would you pay S$736 for it?