This feels oddly familiar.
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the double-barrelled nerfs to the DBS Woman’s World Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card, which saw significant cuts to their bonus caps.
Now, we’re on the cusp of another such devaluation, and this time the two cards are even syncing their changes to take place on the same day: 1 August 2025. While neither is suffering a fatal blow, these nerfs are going to reduce their utility considerably and, in the case of the UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card, perhaps nudge people towards the UOB Lady’s Card instead.
Recap: What’s getting nerfed?
DBS Woman’s World Card
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Till 31 Jul 25 | From 1 Aug 25 | |
Bonus Earn | 4 mpd on online transactions | |
Bonus Cap | S$1,500 per calendar month | S$1,000 per calendar month |
From 1 August 2025, the DBS Woman’s World Card will cut its monthly 4 mpd bonus cap for online transactions from S$1,500 to S$1,000 per calendar month.
All other earn rates remain the same, namely an uncapped 1.2 mpd for foreign currency spending, and 0.4 mpd for any spend in excess of the online bonus cap.
💳 DBS Woman’s World Card (From 1 Aug 25) |
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First S$1,000 | Beyond S$1,000 | |
Online (Local) | 4 mpd | 0.4 mpd |
Online (FCY) | 4 mpd | 1.2 mpd |
Offline (Local) | 0.4 mpd | 0.4 mpd |
Offline (FCY) | 1.2 mpd | 1.2 mpd |
The reduction to the bonus cap means a cardholder will earn a maximum of 48,000 miles per year (S$1,000 x 4 mpd x 12 months) before going into non-bonus territory, compared to 72,000 miles before.
For the full details, refer to the post below.
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card
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Till 31 Jul 25 | From 1 Aug 25 | |
Bonus Earn | 4 mpd on choice of 2 bonus categories | |
Bonus Cap | S$2,000 shared by both bonus categories per calendar month | S$1,500, split into S$750 per bonus category per calendar month |
From 1 August 2025, the UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card will cut its monthly 4 mpd bonus cap on its two bonus categories from S$2,000 to S$1,500 per calendar month.
Not only that, but the bonus cap will be strictly sub-divided into S$750 per bonus category. This removes the current flexibility to allocate the bonus cap between your two bonus categories as you see fit.
For example, if I choose Dining and Travel, and spend S$1,000 on the former and S$500 on the latter, I will earn a total of 5,100 miles (S$750 @ 4 mpd + S$250 @ 0.4 mpd + S$500 @ 4 mpd). In other words, I can’t dip into the unused Travel category’s bonus cap to make up for the overspend in the Dining category.
In case you were thinking of outsmarting the system by just picking one bonus category for your UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card, think again. If you do, your monthly bonus cap will simply be S$750 in total. There’s no getting around it.
The reduction to the bonus cap means a cardholder will earn a maximum of 72,000 miles per year (S$1,500 x 4 mpd x 12 months) before going into non-bonus territory, compared to 96,000 miles before.
For the full details, refer to the post below.
Revised strategy: DBS Woman’s World Card
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Apply | |||
Income Req. | S$80,000 p.a. | Points Validity | 1 year |
Annual Fee | S$196.20 (First Year Free) |
Min. Transfer | 5,000 DBS Points (10,000 miles) |
Miles with AF | None | Transfer Partners | 4 |
FCY Fee | 3.25% | Transfer Fee | S$27.25 (per xfer) S$43.60 (per yr.) |
Local Earn | 0.4 mpd | Points Pool? | Yes |
FCY Earn | 1.2 mpd | Lounge Access? | No |
Special Earn | 4 mpd on online spending | Airport Limo? | No |
Cardholder Terms and Conditions |
While a 33% reduction in the bonus cap is painful, I’m not quite ready to drop the DBS Woman’s World Card yet, because I need its flexible cap for transactions that can’t earn bonuses with other cards.
You see, the key advantage of the DBS Woman’s World Card is its blacklist policy, where all online spend earns 4 mpd unless the MCC is on the exclusions list. Thankfully, this has not been touched. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re spending on shopping, food delivery, groceries, movie tickets, streaming subscriptions or airfares. As long as it’s online, you’ll earn 4 mpd.
However, the reduction does require bigger spenders to exercise more discretion when utilising the bonus cap.
Ideally, you’ll want to use whitelist cards (where only MCCs on the inclusion list earn bonuses) whenever possible, and conserve the more flexible Woman’s cap for non-whitelisted transactions.
For example:
- if you’re eating out, you can use the HSBC Revolution (though note the exclusion of MCC 5814), or the UOB Lady’s Card (assuming Dining is one of your bonus categories)
- if you’re shopping at Lazada or Shopee, you can use OCBC Rewards Card (it earns 6 mpd till the end of the year!)
- if you’re buying air tickets, then the Maybank Horizon Visa Signature might be the more sensible option (while its earn rate is lower at 2.8 mpd, it has a monthly cap of S$10,000).
Doing so will help conserve the DBS Woman’s World Card’s bonus cap for non-whitelisted transactions, such as teleconsultations, HealthHub/Health Buddy, phone bills, furniture stores, health screenings, wine merchants, and car rentals (to the extent they can be paid for online).
Unfortunately, DBS Points earned on the DBS Woman’s World Card continue to expire after 12 months. Back when the bonus cap was S$2,000 per month, that meant cashing out up to 96,000 miles each year. With the bonus cap soon to be S$1,000, you’re limited to cashing out 48,000 miles each year— yet still paying the same S$27.25 conversion fee.
This is frustrating, but still a “sub-threshold” kind of annoyance in my book (i.e. not enough to warrant a cancellation).
Revised strategy: UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card
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Apply | |||
Income Req. |
S$120,000 p.a. |
Points Validity |
2 years |
Annual Fee |
S$414.20 (FYF) |
Min. Transfer |
5,000 UNI$ (10,000 miles) |
Miles with AF | None | Transfer Partners | 3 |
FCY Fee | 3.25% | Transfer Fee | S$25 |
Local Earn | 0.4 mpd | Points Pool? | Yes |
FCY Earn | 0.4 mpd | Lounge Access? | No |
Special Earn | 4 mpd on your choice of 2 bonus categories | Airport Limo? | No |
Cardholder Terms and Conditions |
Unlike the DBS Woman’s World Card, the UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card has a more restrictive whitelist policy, which limits bonuses to selected MCCs only.
Moreover, given the dynamic nature of the bonus categories, which can be changed every quarter, the impact of the nerf boils down to which categories you selected. Rather sneakily, UOB is implementing the nerf mid-quarter, which means the earliest you can modify your strategy will be 1 October 2025!
Category | MCCs | Description |
(1) Beauty & Wellness | 5912, 5977, 7230, 7231, 7298, 7297 | Discount, Mass and Drug Stores, Cosmetics Stores, Barber and Beauty Shops, Health and Beauty Spa, Massage Parlours |
(2) Dining | 5811, 5812, 5814, 5499 | Caterers, Eating places and Restaurants, Fast food restaurants and food deliveries |
(3) Entertainment | 5813, 7832, 7922 | Bars, Taverns, Lounges and Nightclubs, Motion Picture Theatres, Theatrical Producers and Ticket Agencies |
(4) Family | 5411, 5641 | Grocery stores, Children and Infants wear store |
(5) Fashion | 5311, 5611, 5621, 5631, 5651, 5655, 5661, 5691, 5699, 5948 | Department Stores, Men’s and Boy’s Clothing and Accessories Store, Women’s Ready-to-wear Stores, Women’s Access and Specialty, Family Clothing Stores, Sports and Riding Apparel Stores, Shoe Stores, Men’s and Women’s Clothing Stores, Miscellaneous Apparel and Accessories Shops, Luggage and Leather Stores |
(6) Transport | 4111, 4121, 4789, 5541, 5542 | Local Commuter Transport, Taxi, Cabs, Limousines and Travel Service, Service Stations and Automatic Gas Dispensers |
(7) Travel | See here | Airlines, Hotels, Cruise Liners, Duty-free Stores, Online and Regular Travel Agencies |
Both local and foreign currency transactions are eligible for bonuses, whether online or offline |
Travel will no doubt be hard hit, since it usually involves big ticket purchases like airfares, hotel bookings and cruises. I doubt S$750 will get you far, so this may no longer be a viable category to pick.
Instead, I’d stick to the following cards:
- HSBC Revolution: 4 mpd on air tickets, cruises, hotels, and car rental, capped at S$1,500 per calendar month, valid till 31 October 2025
- KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card: Uncapped 3 mpd on Singapore Airlines and Scoot tickets
- Maybank Horizon Visa Signature: 2.8 mpd on air tickets, capped at S$10,000 per calendar month, with a minimum spend of S$800 per calendar month
Dining is still a viable option I suppose, since S$750 should comfortably cover most people’s monthly restaurant and food delivery bills.
Transport has never been a great choice, since you’re hardly going to spend that much on public transport anyway. And even if you drive, you could earn an uncapped 4 mpd on petrol with the Maybank World Mastercard, or 4 mpd with the UOB Visa Signature (which will also be nerfed come September).
Family is also a hard category to justify choosing, since the DBS yuu Card absolutely blows everyone out of the water with 18% rebates or 10 mpd at Cold Storage and Giant.
And even if you prefer to shop at NTUC or Sheng Siong, it might be a better option to pick Fashion instead, and buy gift cards through HeyMax (MCC 5311) while still enjoying the additional bonus categories that Fashion grants.
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👍 250 Max Miles joining bonus |
Sign up for a HeyMax account and get up to 250 Max Miles as a welcome bonus |
250 bonus Max Miles |
In fact, given the range of gift cards on HeyMax (Deliveroo, foodpanda, Klook, Pelago, Courts, IKEA etc.), I would argue that Fashion is probably one of the better choices.
As for Beauty & Wellness and Entertainment, I feel they’re a bit too niche to be of interest.
Perhaps the bigger issue now is that instead of tracking a single bonus cap (of S$2,000), you’ll need to track two bonus caps (of S$750 each). Also, it does feel very odd that the entry-level UOB Lady’s Card will have a higher per category bonus cap of S$1,000 per calendar month.
Some cardholders have talked about wanting to downgrade, which might make sense if you only plan to use this card in a single bonus category.
Other specialised spending cards
Here’s a summary of the other specialised spending cards on the market, which can help carry some of the additional load arising from the reduced bonus caps on the DBS Woman’s World Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire.
Card | Earn Rate | Remarks |
![]() Apply |
4 mpd1 | Capped at S$1K per s. month |
![]() Apply |
4 mpd2 | Capped at S$1.5K per c. month |
![]() Apply |
4 mpd3 | Capped at S$1.1K per c. month |
![]() Apply |
4 mpd4 | Capped at S$1.1K per c. month |
![]() Apply |
4 mpd5 | Min. S$1K spend, capped at S$2K per s. month |
![]() Apply |
2.4 mpd6 | Min. S$1K spend on SIA Group per membership year |
1. For online transactions except travel and in-app mobile wallet 2. For travel, department stores, shopping, dining, transport and membership clubs. Bonus cap reduced to S$1,000 per month from 1 November 2025 3. For shopping and pharmacies 4. For in-person mobile contactless, and online dining, groceries, entertainment, shopping 5. For FCY spend, contactless and petrol 6. For dining, food delivery, online shopping, online travel and transport |
Do note that the definition of bonus categories will differ between banks. Always refer to the T&Cs for the most up to date information.
Conclusion
Both the DBS Woman’s World Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire Cards will have their bonus caps cut from 1 August 2025, the former to S$1,000, and the latter to S$1,500 (or more accurately, 2x S$750).
The overall effect is the loss of a further 48,000 miles per year across both cards, though it’s likely to be more given how finicky it will be to manage two separate bonus caps for the UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card.
If it’s any consolation, there should still be plenty of 4 mpd capacity offered by other specialised spending cards out there, with uncapped 2.8-3.2 mpd earn rates available as well. It means more micromanagement, but those willing to invest the time can still reap the rewards.
How are you dealing with the DBS Woman’s World Card and UOB Lady’s Solitaire Card nerfs?