OCBC 90°N Mastercard offering 25,500 miles upfront sign-up bonus (with a catch)

OCBC has a new sign-up bonus offer for its 90°N Mastercard credit card, with new-to-bank customers who haven’t had any primary OCBC credit card for at least six months eligible to earn 25,500 upfront bonus miles when successfully applying – a stash you can keep subject to charging retail transactions of S$15,000 in the first 6 months from approval.

You can also pick up an additional 10,000 bonus miles, for a total of up to 35,500 bonus miles, by voluntarily paying the card’s first-year annual fee of S$194.40.

The deal is good for those applying between 15th February 2023 and 31st March 2023.

This one comes amidst a busy month of sign-up offers for other cards, including for the KrisFlyer UOB card, the DBS Altitude card, the OCBC Titanium Rewards cards and the Citi PremierMiles cards.

Eligibility (new-to-bank)

To be eligible for this sign-up offer, you’ll need to be new-to-bank, which means you’ll need to meet the following criteria.

If you are a supplementary OCBC cardholder, but not a primary cardholder on any such account (in the last six months), you will qualify as a new customer.

Sign-up bonus

New-to-bank customers are eligible for the for the following two options when signing up for the OCBC 90°N Mastercard.

Bonus Miles
Apply and be approved by 31st March 2023
↓
Spend: S$15,000+ in first 6 months of approval
Fee waiver	Annual Fee: S$194.40
↓	↓
Bonus Miles: 25,500	Bonus Miles: 35,500

As you can see, you’ll need to apply and be approved by 31st March 2023 to pick up 25,500 miles bonus for spending S$15,000+ in the six months (you’ll earn 19,500 miles for the spend itself at this card’s 1.3 mpd local earn rate).

That’s no mean feat by the way – equivalent to an average of S$2,500 per month for six consecutive months!

However, if you can achieve it the bonus means scoring an equivalent of 3 mpd on the first S$15,000 of all eligible retail spend with this card (total 45,000 miles / S$15,000 spend).

Those opting to pay the first-year annual fee of S$194.40 will receive an additional 10,000 miles (35,500 bonus miles in total).

Application process

Here’s how the application with sign-up bonus works:

• Apply online
• Have your card account approved by 31st March 2023.
• Charge at least S$15,000 of eligible spend to your card within six full calendar months of your approval date.
• For cards approved in February 2023, the spend period is from card approval date to 31st August 2023.
• For cards approved in March 2023, the spend period is from card approval to 30th September 2023.

The qualifying spend can be online or at point-of sale (in-person) and can be charged in SGD or foreign currency, or any mixture of these.

Spend is considered by transaction date, based on Singapore timing, and includes spend made by your supplementary cardholders.

Spend exclusions

Your S$15,000+ of eligible spend to qualify for the bonus miles under this promotion does not include the usual OCBC category exclusions for miles earning.

Here’s an example of excluded spend categories:

• All card fees and charges, card annual fees, membership fees, renewal fees, balance transfer and charges incurred for any balance transfer facility, cash-on-instalment facility and charges incurred for any cash-on-instalment facility.
• Instalment payment plan, extended payment plan, income tax payment, interest, late payment charges, GST, cash advances, bill payments made via internet banking, and other fees and charges.
• Payment of funds to prepaid accounts and merchants who are categorised as “payment service providers”, which include (without limitation) EZ-Link, NETS FlashPay, eNETS, SAM, Transit Link and AXS.

There are also some merchant-specific excluded MCC codes, including payments to charitable organisations and for utilities, insurance and education, plus payments to Singapore public hospitals. Grab top-ups are also excluded.

For a full up to date list of exclusions, see the card terms and conditions.

Bonus miles are upfront

Here’s an interesting aspect of this particular sign-up promotion.

OCBC will basically assume that you’ll meet the required spend when signing up under this offer, and will pay the first-year annual fee, and will therefore simply award all new cardholders with:

• 35,500 Travel$ (which convert 1:1 into KrisFlyer miles) within two weeks of card approval date

This assumes you’ll pay the annual fee of S$194.40 (10,000 Travel$ bonus) and meet the S$15,000+ eligible spend criteria in the first six full calendar months (25,500 Travel$ bonus).

So what if you don’t pay the annual fee and/or meet the spend?

Here’s where it gets a little more complicated.

If you wish to have first-year annual fee waiver (whether or not you hit the S$15,000+ spend):

• You must SMS 72377 with the message ’90NMCwaive [space] last 8 digits of your new card number’ by 15th April 2023 at the latest.
• 10,000 Travel$ will be deducted from your account.
• If you do not opt out in time, or you have already redeemed the bonus, and you then have 9,999 Travel$ or less in your account, no fee waiver will be granted (i.e. you’ll have to pay it).

Here’s the more important bit.

If you don’t hit S$15,000+ in eligible transactions during your eligible spend period:

• 25,500 Travel$ will be deducted from your account.
• If you have already redeemed the bonus, and you then have 25,499 Travel$ or less in your account, OCBC will charge S$540 in lieu of the Travel$ clawback. No pro-ration of the charge is allowed, regardless of your current Travel$ balance (which remains intact).
• The clawback Travel$ deduction or cash charge (which you’ll no doubt want to avoid in both cases by simply making the required spend!) will be applied within two months of the end of your eligible spend period.

In case you’re wondering, the bonus miles clawback really isn’t worth paying – you’re ‘buying’ miles at an unattractive 2.1 cents each in this case. Make sure you’ll meet the spend, or leave the Travel$ intact in your account if you won’t, to avoid this fee.

Regular miles earning is in addition

The bonus miles outlined above are awarded in addition to the regular miles you will earn for making the S$15,000 minimum spend with the OCBC 90°N Mastercard, at the following rates:

• 1.3 miles for every $1 spent locally (i.e. transacted in SGD), or
• 2.1 miles for every $1 spent overseas (i.e. transacted in foreign currency)

In its marketing for this offer, OCBC is including the 19,500 miles (15,000 x 1.3) you would earn anyway for local spend, even without a promotional sign-up offer running.

Don’t be fooled – the true bonus for your S$15,000 spend is 25,500 miles.

The additional 19,500 miles for the spend itself is year-round. The additional 10,000 miles for paying the first-year annual fee is year-round. They are not part of this promotion.

In some cases you may even be taking a hit by diverting spend away from 4 mpd cards to achieve the S$15,000 OCBC 90°N Mastercard spend threshold over an extended period (six months), so there’s a potential loss to consider here too in your own personal calculation for this deal.

Which FFPs can you transfer into?

You can currently only transfer OCBC Travel$ into Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles.

Travel$ transfers to airline miles, previously free, now all incur a fee of S$25 per conversion (min. 1,000 Travel$ per conversion).

However, later this month, eight new hotel and airline transfer partners will also be added to the card’s repertoire:

• Accor Live Limitless
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue
• British Airways Executive Club (and indirectly, Qatar Airways Privilege Club)
• Cathay Pacific
• Etihad Guest
• IHG One Rewards
• Marriott Bonvoy
• United MileagePlus

Transfer ratios from Travel$ into these programmes have not yet been announced, so it’s nothing to get excited about just yet (but hopefully will be a positive for this card).

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for this promotion are available here:

 OCBC 90°N Mastercard Acquisition Promo T&C

OCBC is offering new-to-bank applicants for its 90°N Mastercard up to 25,500 bonus miles for spending S$15,000 in the first full six calendar months, for those applying and gaining approval by 31st March 2023.

There’s an additional 10,000 miles on offer if you wish to voluntarily pay the first year annual card fee (you’ll need to opt-out by 15th April 2023 if you don’t want to pay this).

One good part of the deal is that the bonus miles are upfront – OCBC will award them within two weeks of card approval on the expectation that you’ll meet all the requirements in advance.

The downside is that if you fail to meet the required spend, miles will either be clawed back or you’ll be landed with a a S$540 fee for “the equivalent value of the gift” if you already transferred the bonus out, so make sure you’ll achieve the bonus if you sign-up!

(Cover Photo: Angela Compagnone)