DBS has extended the sign-up bonus offer for its Altitude credit cards, with new-to-bank customers eligible to earn up to 25,600 bonus miles when successfully applying and charging retail transactions of S$2,000 in the first 30 days from approval.
Existing DBS cardholders can also benefit from an 11,600 miles bonus when signing up for the Altitude Amex card and making the same minimum spend.
In all cases, you can also pick up an additional 10,000 bonus miles, for a total of up to 35,600 miles in some cases, by voluntarily paying the card’s annual fee of S$194.40, if you wish.
The deals are now loaded for those applying by 30th November 2023.
Eligibility (new-to-bank)
To be eligible for the new-to-bank bonus for both DBS Altitude cards, you’ll need to meet the following criteria.
- do not currently hold any principal DBS/POSB credit card; and
- have not cancelled any DBS/POSB credit card(s) within the last 12 months
If you are a supplementary DBS/POSB cardholder, but not a primary cardholder on any such account, you will qualify as a new customer.
New customer sign-up bonuses
New-to-bank customers are eligible for the for the following two options when signing up for the DBS Altitude Amex card.
DBS Altitude Amex
(new customers)
| Bonus Miles |
|
| Promo Code: ALTMEXW |
Promo Code: ALTMEX |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Spend: S$2k in 30 days |
|
| Fee waiver | Annual Fee: S$194.40 |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Bonus Miles: 25,600 |
Bonus Miles: 35,600 |
As you can see, you’ll need to apply promo code ALTMEXW for the fee-free first year offer with 25,600 bonus miles for spending S$2,000, or ALTMEX for an additional 10,000 miles (35,600 miles in total), with payment of the S$194.40 fee.
A lower 22,600 miles bonus is available for new-to-bank customers applying for the DBS Altitude Visa card, which was recently hiked by 4,600 miles compared previous deals.
DBS Altitude Visa
(new customers)
| Bonus Miles |
|
| Promo Code: ALTVISW |
Promo Code: ALTVIS |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Spend: S$2k in 30 days |
|
| Fee waiver | Annual Fee: S$194.40 |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Bonus Miles: 22,600 |
Bonus Miles: 32,600 |
In this case, promo code ALTVISW will qualify you for the fee-free first year offer, accruing 22,600 bonus miles for spending S$2,000, while ALTVIS will net you an additional 10,000 miles (32,600 miles in total), with payment of the S$194.40 fee.
Existing customer sign-up bonus (Amex)
DBS is also offering existing cardholders who already have a DBS or POSB credit card as primary cardholder an 11,600 miles bonus when signing up for the DBS Amex card (but unfortunately there is no such offer for the Visa product).
DBS Altitude Amex
(existing customers)
| Bonus Miles |
|
| Promo Code: ALTMEXAW |
Promo Code: ALTMEXA |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Spend: S$2k in 30 days |
|
| Fee waiver | Annual Fee: S$194.40 |
| ↓ | ↓ |
| Bonus Miles: 11,600 |
Bonus Miles: 21,600 |
For the existing cardholder offer, promo code ALTMXAW means no annual fee in the first year, with 11,600 bonus miles for spending S$2,000, or ALTMEXA for an additional 10,000 miles (21,600 miles in total), with payment of the S$194.40 fee.
Application process
In all cases, whichever card you choose under the new or existing customer offer, here’s how it works:
- Apply online via DBS digibank or Myinfo with Singpass using the relevant promo code by 30th November 2023.
- Have your card account approved by 14th December 2023.
- Charge at least S$2,000 of eligible spend to the card within 30 days of your approval date.
The qualifying spend can be online or in-person and can be charged in SGD or foreign currency, or any mixture of these.
Spend exclusions
Your S$2,000+ of eligible spend to qualify for the bonus miles under this promotion does not include the usual DBS category exclusions for miles earning.
Here’s a list of excluded spend categories:
DBS Spend exclusion categories
|
Primary exclusions here are for education, insurance, utility bill and government-related spend.
Note that CardUp and ipaymy payments are also specifically excluded from the eligible spend list to meet the S$2,000 minimum, even though they will earn miles through this card.
The exception is for rental payments in both cases, which will count towards the minimum spend, since they aren’t in the general exclusion list.
When are the bonus miles credited?
Unfortunately, not anytime soon!
Provided you fulfil the spend criteria, bonus miles totalling 25,600 (Amex), or 22,600 (Visa), or 11,600 (Amex for existing cardholders) will be credited to your card account from 90 to 120 days after the date of card approval.
If you have opted to receive the annual fee bonus of 10,000 miles, it will be credited when the annual fee itself of S$194.40 is charged to your card.
For example if your card is approved on 1st October 2023:
- You must meet the S$2,000+ spend criteria by 30th October 2023
- Bonus miles will be awarded by 31st December 2023
- The annual fee bonus (if applicable) will be awarded when the annual fee is charged (typically in your first statement month)
Your card account must remain open and in good standing for the bonus miles to be credited.
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$2,000 minimum spend with the Altitude cards, at the following rates:
- 1.3 miles for every $1 spent locally (i.e. transacted in SGD), or
- 2.2 miles for every $1 spent overseas (i.e. transacted in foreign currency).
Indeed DBS advertises this promotion with “up to 40k miles”, though that (perhaps unrealistically) assumes all your S$2,000 spend is in the 2.2 mpd category for FCY, and that you’ll (voluntarily) pay an additional S$194.40 on the first year annual fee for 10,000 additional miles!
In reality, you’ll probably be meeting the S$2,000 spend requirement in local currency, meaning S$2,000 x 1.3 mpd of additional earning – equivalent to 2,600 additional miles. These will be credited to your account alongside each eligible transaction.
However, do remember these miles are quite irrelevant – you should be earning at least 1.3 mpd for this local spend anyway year-round, and in some cases you may even be taking a hit by diverting spend away from 4 mpd cards to achieve the DBS Altitude spend threshold.
Additionally, you’ll likely not be choosing to stump up an additional S$194.40 for the last 10,000 miles DBS is including in its advertising, since this means ‘buying’ miles at 1.94 cents each, which is over the odds.
Which FFPs can you transfer into?
You can transfer DBS Points into Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles and Qantas Frequent Flyer Points.
You can also transfer your DBS Points to Air Asia BIG Points, here 500 DBS Points will transfer into 1,500 BIG Points (a 3:1 ratio), though it won’t be much interest to our readers – BIG Points are worth only about $0.0034 each (0.34 cents), or about a fifth of the value of a KrisFlyer mile / Asia Mile.
Since Air Asia BIG Points is effectively a cashback programme, this is even worse value than cashing out your DBS Points for shopping vouchers!
Terms and conditions
Here are the full terms and conditions applicable to these sign-up offers.
DBS Altitude Sign Up Promo T&C
DBS Altitude Amex Existing Customers Sign Up Promo T&C
Further details are also available at the bonus promotion page.
DBS Altitude changes
The DBS Altitude cards have maintained more or less their ‘status quo’ in terms of miles earning, perks and benefits for many years now, but that changed from 1st August 2023.
Without advance notice (except a vague promise of “changes”), the card then:
- Axed 3 mpd earning for online flight and hotel bookings, up to S$5,000 per calendar month
- Increased the local spend earn rate from 1.2 mpd to 1.3 mpd
- Increased the FCY earn rate from 2 mpd to 2.2 mpd
DBS has had to roll back on its no-notice removal of the 3 mpd earn rate for online flight and hotel bookings, extending this for transactions made by 31st August 2023, but it has since disappeared from 1st September 2023.
With no decent bonus category to speak of, the DBS Altitude cards now sit firmly in the general spend bracket, with earn rates that are relatively easy to achieve with other cards on the market with similar income requirements.
For further details, check out our recently updated full review of the Altitude cards, taking account of these latest changes.
| DBS Altitude | |||
 |
First year free |
1.3 mpd local |
2.2 mpd FCY |
| READ OUR REVIEW | |||
| DBS Altitude | ||
|
||
|
First year free |
1.3 mpd local |
2.2 mpd FCY |
| READ OUR REVIEW | ||
Summary
DBS has improved its sign-up offer for new-to-bank applicants taking up its Altitude credit cards with up to 25,600 bonus miles for spending S$2,000 in the first 30 days.
There’s also an additional 10,000 miles on offer if you wish to voluntarily pay the first year annual card fee, with the deal running for applications until 30th November 2023.
Existing customers can also score a 11,600 miles bonus with a new Altitude Amex card (or 21,600 miles with optional first year annual fee payment).
This could be a good time to jump in with one of these popular cards, especially if you’re new-to-bank, but do be aware that a main draw of the product – up to S$5,000 monthly spend at 3 mpd for online flight and hotel bookings – has sadly ended.
(Cover Photo: EDITION Hotels)