Up to S$150 cashback with a new OCBC 90°N card

OCBC is offering a new sign-up promotion for its 90°N credit card card over the next month or so, with a deal for new-to-bank customers to receive a S$150 cash rebate, with a minimum spend of S$1,000.

There are also S$100 cash rebates available for those with an existing relationship with the bank, and one for those who already hold other OCBC credit cards like the Voyage or Titanium Rewards products.

The deal

To qualify for the sign-up bonus you’ll have to be new to the OCBC 90°N card.

The promotion runs from 25th May 2021 to 30th June 2021 and your successful application must be made within this window, meaning the card account must have been approved by 30th June.

APPLY HERE

You’ll then need to make a minimum qualifying spend of S$1,000 on the card in the first full month of membership, which depends on your card approval month as shown in the following table.

Card Approval Month	Qualifying Spend Period
May 2021	1 May – 30 June 2021
June 2021	1 June – 31 July 2021

You’ll then receive one of the following gifts, depending on your existing banking relationship with OCBC:

Customer Type	Total Eligible	Cashback
New to OCBC Bank Customers that do not have any existing relationship with OCBC.	First 150	S$150
New to OCBC Credit Cards Customers that do not have any existing OCBC credit card, and have not cancelled one since 24th May 2020.	First 150	S$100
Existing OCBC Credit Card Holder Customers that have an existing OCBC credit card.	First 200	S$50

You are only entitled to receive one of the bonuses above during the campaign.

As you can see OCBC is running a UOB-style “first xxx to qualify” policy during this promotion, so if you’re determined to achieve the sign-up bonus you’ll want to apply and make the required spend as soon as possible.

Leaving it until mid-June, for example, would certainly run the risk that the quota for your customer group has already been exhausted, and there will be no way to know this before you apply as OCBC will happily keep the promotion open through to the end date regardless.

If you’ve qualified for the cashback, you’ll be notified after the promotion has ended and will be credited the cash rebate into your card account two months from the applicable eligible spend period (i.e. by the end of August 2021 or September 2021).

Some confusion

Note that on the OCBC 90°N card landing page, the promotion advertises a S$100 rebate for existing OCBC credit card holders, however the terms and conditions document clearly states this gift is S$50.

The T&C also refers to a S$200 rebate, even though no such gift appears to exist (edit: both now corrected, but seriously – how is it so hard for banks to get this stuff right?).

Eligible transactions

In order to qualify for this promotion, your S$1,000+ spend must be under the bank’s defined qualifying transactions categories, which must be posted to your account within the offer period.

This includes all physical and online transactions in any currency made by the primary and supplementary cardholders, but excludes the following spend:

• Payments to charitable organisations and for utilities, insurance, education and hospitals.
• Grab top-ups are also excluded.
• Specific MCC exclusions.

For a full up to date list of exclusions including an MCC listing, see sections 1.4 to 1.6 the card terms and conditions.

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for this promotion are available here:

 OCBC 90°N Card Apply and Spend T&C

About the OCBC 90°N card

The OCBC 90°N card earns 1.2 mpd for local spend and 2.1 mpd for foreign currency transactions, but aside from non-expiring miles and fee-free transfers to KrisFlyer, there’s not much else going for it.

Major drawbacks include only a single airline transfer partner for your miles (KrisFlyer), no lounge access and those annoying S$5 earning blocks, adversely affecting your true mpd rate for smaller transactions.

With this card you’ll earn Travel$, which do benefit from 1:1 transfers into KrisFlyer in 1,000-mile denominations, with no transfer cost. They also never expire.

	OCBC$	Travel$	Voyage Miles
Card(s)
Transfer Ratio	2.5:1	1:1	1:1
Min. Transfer	25,000	1,000	1
Transfer Cost	$25	Free	Free
Expiry	2 years	Never	Never

Unfortunately if you hold other OCBC credit cards, like those shown in the table above, you’ll end up with separate pools of non-combinable points.

CardUp offer

One benefit of the OCBC 90°N card between now and 24th August 2021 is a discounted one-time fee of 1.7% for any CardUp transaction up to S$10,000, including income tax payments to IRAS.

This allows you to generate miles for 1.39 cents each, plus CardUp spend is included in the qualifying transactions definition to meet the S$1,000 minimum for this current sign-up promotion.

Our review

For full details about the OCBC 90°N card, be sure to check out our recent comprehensive review covering all its features.

(Cover Photo: Angela Compagnone)