DBS has launched a new sign-up bonus offer for its Altitude credit cards, with new-to-bank customers eligible to earn up to 43,400 bonus miles when successfully applying and charging retail transactions of S$3,000 in the first 60 days from approval.

This is the best welcome offer we’ve seen in a while for these cards, which haven’t featured a sign-up bonus since the end of January 2024.

You can also pick up an additional 10,000 bonus miles, for a total of up to 53,400 miles in some cases, by voluntarily paying the card’s annual fee of S$196.20, if you wish.

The deals are available for those applying between 9th February 2024 and 31st May 2024, but beware – it can now take up to seven months from approval before you see any of the bonus miles in your account.

Eligibility (new-to-bank)

To be eligible for the latest sign-up bonus for both DBS Altitude cards, you’ll need to meet the following criteria.

If you are a supplementary DBS/POSB cardholder, but not a primary cardholder on any such account, you will qualify as a new customer.

Unfortunately, this time round there is no sign-up bonus for existing DBS credit card customers applying for the Altitude Amex card, like there has been in recent offers.

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: ALTAW50	Promo Code: ALTA60
↓	↓
Spend: S$3k in 60 days
Fee waiver	Annual Fee: S$196.20
↓	↓
Bonus Miles: 43,400	Bonus Miles: 53,400

As you can see, you’ll need to apply promo code ALTAW60 for the fee-free first year offer with 43,400 bonus miles for spending S$3,000, or ALTA60 for an additional 10,000 miles (53,400 miles in total), with payment of the S$196.20 fee.

A lower 36,400 miles bonus is available for new-to-bank customers applying for the DBS Altitude Visa card.

DBS Altitude Visa
(new customers)

Bonus Miles
Promo Code: ALTVW43	Promo Code: ALTV53
↓	↓
Spend: S$3k in 60 days
Fee waiver	Annual Fee: S$196.20
↓	↓
Bonus Miles: 36,400	Bonus Miles: 46,400

In this case, promo code ALTVW43 will qualify you for the fee-free first year offer, accruing 36,400 bonus miles for spending S$3,000, while ALTV53 will net you an additional 10,000 miles (46,400 miles in total), with payment of the S$196.20 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 31st May 2024.
Have your card account approved by 14th June 2024.
Charge at least S$3,000 of eligible spend to the card within 60 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$3,000+ 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 posted 0% Interest Instalment Payment Plan monthly transactions posted My Preferred Payment Plan monthly transactions interest, finance charges, cash withdrawal, balance transfer, smart cash, AXS payments, SAM online bill payments, bill payments via internet banking and all fees charged by DBS payments to educational institutions payments to financial institutions (including banks, online trading platforms and brokerages) payments to government institutions and services (court cases, fines, bail and bonds, tax payment, postal services, parking lots and garages, intra-government purchases and any other government services not classified here) payments to hospitals payments to insurance companies (sales, underwriting and premiums) payments to non-profit organisations payments to utility bill companies payments to professional service providers (including but not limited to accounting, auditing, bookkeeping services, advertising services, funeral service and legal services and attorneys) any top-ups or payment of funds to payment service providers, prepaid cards, any prepaid accounts or purchase of prepaid cards/credits (including but not limited to EZ-Link, GrabPay, NETS FlashPay and Singtel Dash) any betting transactions (including levy payments to local casinos, lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track betting and wagers) any transactions related to crypto currencies payments made to CardUp, FavePay, iPaymy and SmoovPay are also subject to the exclusions listed above any transaction with transaction description “AMAZE*” any other transactions determined by DBS from time to time

Primary exclusions here are for education, insurance, utility bill and government-related spend.

Note that CardUp and ipaymy payments are specifically excluded from the eligible spend list to meet the S$3,000 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 43,400 (Amex) or 36,400 (Visa) will be credited to your card account within three to five months of meeting the minimum S$3,000 qualifying spend.

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$196.20 is charged to your card, which also happens within three to five months of meeting the minimum S$3,000 qualifying spend.

This is a whole calendar month longer than the most recent sign-up bonus offer for these cards.

For example if your card:

• Is approved on 15th February 2024
• You meet the the S$3,000+ spend criteria by the last permissible date 60 days later – on 14th April 2024
• Bonus miles will be awarded by 14th September 2024
• The annual fee bonus (if applicable) will be awarded when the annual fee is charged (also by 14th September 2024 in this example)

In total you could be waiting for up to seven months from being approved for the card to actually seeing any of the bonus miles in your account. This is definitely not a quick way to recharge your miles balance.

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$3,000 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 60k miles”, though that (perhaps unrealistically) assumes all your S$3,000 spend is in the 2.2 mpd category for FCY, and that you’ll (voluntarily) pay an additional S$196.20 on the first year annual fee for 10,000 additional miles!

In reality, you’ll probably be meeting the S$3,000 spend requirement in local currency, meaning S$3,000 x 1.3 mpd of additional earning – equivalent to 3,900 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$196.20 for the last 10,000 miles DBS is including in its advertising, since this means ‘buying’ miles at 1.96 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

Further details are also available at the bonus promotion page.

Our review

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 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 did then disappear from 1st September 2023.

That relegates the DBS Altitude cards firmly back into 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 recent changes.

DBS has increased its sign-up offer for new-to-bank applicants taking up its Altitude credit cards with up to 43,400 bonus miles (Amex) or 36,400 miles (Visa) for spending S$3,000 in the first 60 days, with the new deal running for applications until 31st May 2024.

There’s also an additional 10,000 miles on offer if you wish to voluntarily pay the first year annual card fee.

Unlike during previous deals for the Altitude card, there’s no sign-up bonus for existing DBS credit card customers picking up the Amex version in this offer.

Do be aware that a main draw of this card – up to S$5,000 monthly spend at 3 mpd for online flight and hotel bookings – ended on 31st August 2023.

(Cover Photo: Quentin Ray)