OCBC Titanium Rewards offering 11,520 miles sign-up bonus

At the start of the year, OCBC launched a rare sign-up bonus for its 4 mpd Titanium Rewards cards, with the opportunity for new-to-bank customers to pick up 11,520 miles for clocking just S$100 in retail spend during the first 30 days of card membership.

This is a timely reminder that the deal ends this month, so if you’re eligible and interested in applying you should do so now, since this offer is only good for applications approved by 31st March 2023.

Existing OCBC cardholders who don’t currently have a Titanium Rewards card get a 50% bonus deal, with 5,760 miles on offer under the same terms.

These cards offer 4 mpd on a range of online and offline shopping spend in a variety of useful categories like department store, clothing and electronics spend, and unlike most other 4 mpd cards on the market with a monthly spend cap, boast a more generous S$12,000 cap each year, making them useful for netting the bonus rate on larger one-off purchases.

There is also no annual fee for the first two years of card membership.

OCBC Titanium Rewards Apply and Spend Promotion

Provided you don’t currently hold an OCBC credit card (any variant, not just the Titanium Rewards pair), and you haven’t held one in the last six months, successful applicants for either of the Titanium Rewards cards under this promotion (blue or pink) will receive the following sign-up bonus:

• 28,800 OCBC$ (11,520 miles) on meeting a minimum spend of S$100 within 30 days of your card approval

Existing OCBC primary cardholders (or those who have held one in the last six months) will be eligible for the following offer:

• 14,400 OCBC$ (5,760 miles) on meeting a minimum spend of S$100 within 30 days of your card approval

Simply apply through the OCBC link to be eligible for this offer:

• Application link for the OCBC TR cards

You will only be eligible for the sign-up bonus once, either for the blue or pink version of the OCBC Titanium Rewards credit card (sadly, there is no opportunity to ‘double-down’ by applying for both!).

If you hold an OCBC credit card as a supplementary cardholder (but not as a primary cardholder on any such account in the last six months), you’ll be eligible for the full 11,520 miles bonus.

Qualifying spend

Spending S$100 in eligible retail transactions to earn the sign-up bonus in the first 30 days shouldn’t be difficult, but do make sure you steer clear of the usual list of excluded categories and organisations, as outlined in Section 5 of the promotion Terms and Conditions.

These no-nos include payment for insurance premiums, bus / MRT and transit spend, and other specific MCCs mentioned in Section 3i here.

When will you get your bonus points?

The 28,800 OCBC$ (11,520 miles) sign-up bonus, or half that level for existing OCBC cardholders, will be paid based on the date of your card approval.

• For cards approved in January 2023, it’ll be by 30th April 2023
• For cards approved in February 2023, it’ll be by 31st May 2023
• For cards approved in March 2023, it’ll be by 30th June 2023

Remember you will still have to apply and have your card approved by 31st March 2023 at the latest, to be eligible for the promotion.

The OCBC Titanium Rewards card

Not a particularly exciting card for general spending, the OCBC Titanium Rewards earns just 0.4 miles per S$1 spent either in Singapore or overseas.

The major benefit of this card comes into play with the bonus (10x) earning categories, which fall under shopping. Provided you get the MCC right, you’ll earn 4 mpd at the right outlets, 10x the regular earn rate, both in Singapore and overseas.

Retailers selling items such as clothes, shoes and bags, electronics and gadgets are included, with online transactions also eligible. Spending at department stores like TANGS also counts, as does eligible spend with Kris+ merchants falling under the eligible MCC list.

Here’s the full list of Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) which qualify for 4 miles per $1 spent both locally and overseas, including online transactions:

• MCC 5611: Men’s and Boys’ Clothing and Accessories Stores
• MCC 5621: Women’s Ready to Wear Stores
• MCC 5631: Women’s Accessory and Speciality Stores
• MCC 5641: Children’s and Infants’ Wear Stores
• MCC 5311: Department Stores
• MCC 5651: Family Clothing Stores
• MCC 5661: Shoe Stores
• MCC 5691: Men’s and Women’s Clothing Stores
• MCC 5045: Computers, Peripherals, and Software
• MCC 5732: Electronics Stores
• MCC 5699: Miscellaneous Apparel and Accessory Shops

This includes retailers like Apple, Courts, Best Denki, H&M, TANGS and Amazon.

Note that since 1st March 2023, transactions made at Amazon and Mustafa Centre using the OCBC Titanium Rewards Credit Card will not earn 4 mpd if they fall under Merchant Category Code (MCC) 5411 (Grocery stores, Supermarkets).

This includes Amazon Fresh purchases, which was previously a nice way to clock spend for many cardholders.

Historically the card has also offered 4 miles per dollar on mobile transactions, though we can probably safely say there’s no return for this one – it was even cut short from its original duration back in August 2018!

Other things to know about the OCBC TR cards

Before you take the plunge with the OCBC TR cards, here are a few key points to note.

Bonus points are capped annually

The 10x reward earning bonus points are capped at S$12,000 spend per card membership year, however you can get two cards (the blue and the pink) and effectively double your annual allowance in this category to S$24,000.

This is better than some other cards with 10x earning categories, like the Citi Rewards which moved to a monthly earnings cap a few years ago, rather than an annual limit.

That makes the OCBC TR cards more suited to big ticket purchases in the bonus categories. Effectively you could spend all $12,000 of your annual cap in a single month if you like (potentially useful for a large electronics or furniture purchase, for example).

S$5 earning blocks are enforced for miles earning

Unfortunately in June 2020, OCBC shifted to a S$5 earning block policy for miles accrual on its Titanium Rewards cards. That annoying policy means you effectively get a lower earn rate if your transaction is not in an exact block of S$5.

For example, a S$9.90 transaction will only earn the same number of OCBC$ as a S$5 transaction, while a S$4.90 transaction won’t earn anything at all! Smaller purchases are most adversely affected.

You can only transfer to KrisFlyer, in 10k batches

OCBC$ only convert to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer frequent flyer program. Even Asia Miles are not an option with this one, though OCBC is promising an expanded list of partners (with as yet unknown transfer ratios) from February who knows when in 2023.

Also if 11,520 KrisFlyer miles sounds like just the sort of top up you need, bear in mind that OCBC enforces conversion blocks of 10,000 miles (25,000 OCBC$), in whole blocks.

You won’t be able to earn 11,520 bonus miles then extract that exact sum into KrisFlyer after your S$100 spend, instead you’ll basically have to continue to accrue OCBC$ until you’ve reached at least the next 10,000-mile block. That’s quite a bit more spend, as you’ll need to have accrued 50,000 OCBC$ (20,000 miles) in this example.

Transfers cost S$25

Also worth noting is the fee to convert OCBC$ to KrisFlyer miles, which is S$25 per transfer, no matter how many ‘blocks’ you are converting. Clearly it makes sense to convert as large a quantity as possible to dilute the conversion cost per mile.

For full details, see our full review of this credit card.

Turning S$100 spend into 115+ mpd

The great thing about this sign-up bonus is the extremely small spend requirement generate the 11,520 miles sign-up bonus. You only need to spend S$100 to trigger this. That’s an effective earn rate for that S$100 spend alone of:

• 115.6 miles per dollar (general spending), or
• 119.2 miles per dollar (10x spend categories).

Those are insanely good rates given this card is fee-free for the first two years (and provided you spend S$10k+ per year thereafter, the annual fee is waived anyway).

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for the OCBC Titanium Rewards sign-up bonus are available here:

 OCBC TR ‘Apply and Spend’ Promo T&C

After a gap of nearly four years, OCBC is currently offering a generous sign-up promotion for its Titanium Rewards cards.

If you don’t currently have any OCBC credit cards in your wallet, this could be a good time to apply and pick up an easy 11,520 miles, but don’t delay – you’ll need to apply here and have your card approved by 31st March 2023 to take advantage of the bonus.

(Cover Photo: Sorbis / Shutterstock)