Here’s our review of the DBS Vantage card issued in Singapore. It forms part of our series of credit card reviews, which are all summarised on our dedicated Credit Cards page.

Dollar amounts refer to SGD, and ‘miles’ refer to KrisFlyer miles, except where stated. This review was updated on 30th October 2025.

The DBS Vantage Card offers 1.5 mpd on local spend, 2.2 mpd overseas, and 10 annual lounge visits, but it really only shines during one of its generous sign-up bonus campaigns, with up to 85,000 bonus miles offered in the past.

There’s a major downside on the horizon, though. From August 2026, DBS will remove the annual fee waiver for those spending $60,000 or more each year, making the hefty $600 annual fee strictly non-waivable.

That makes the card a tough sell right now – with no sign-up bonus in play – and potentially an even tougher one from the second year onwards.

Let’s take a look.

Pros	Cons
Good earn rates (1.5 mpd local, 2.2 mpd overseas) 10 complimentary lounge visits per year 2 Stay Plus hotel nights with Accor+ Explorer (but effectively buy-one-get-one) Points pool with your other DBS cards 25,000 miles annual fee bonus each year	High income requirement Annual fee waiver for big spenders is ending Limited FFP transfer partners 3-year points expiry Minimal perks, e.g. no travel insurance or limo rides

• Minimum Age: 21
• Maximum Age: 75
• Minimum Income: $120,000/yr

The DBS Vantage card has a $120,000 per year income requirement for all applicants. Your income records with DBS must reflect a sufficient income requirement – you can update those here if necessary prior to application.

• Annual Fee (principal): $599.50
• Annual Fee (supplementary): Free

The annual fee for the DBS Vantage card is $599.50, and it is not waivable in the first year.

Supplementary cards can be added to your account for free.

The card’s annual fee is currently waived if you spend more than $60,000 on retail transactions in your membership year, however DBS will be ending this perk for renewals from 1st August 2026 onwards, making the card’s annual fee strictly non-waivable thereafter.

With effect from 1 Aug 2026, the annual fee waiver eligibility upon meeting the retail spend of S$60,000 in the previous card year will be ceased.

DBS

Cardholders will receive 25,000 bonus miles for payment of the annual fee. If the annual fee is waived, which remains possible until 31st July 2026, the 25,000 miles credited will be reversed within three working days of your annual fee waiver.

Other fees and interest rates for the DBS Vantage card include:

• EIR: 27.8%
• Interest-free period: 25 days from statement date
• Minimum payment: 3% (capped at $50)
• Late payment fee: $100 (balance more than $200)
• Cash advance fee: 8% (capped at $15)
• Overlimit fee: $40

Both new and existing DBS customers receive 25,000 miles on payment of the annual fee for the DBS Vantage card, however there is no additional welcome bonus as such currently running.

Earning 25,000 miles for a fee of $599.50 is the equivalent of ‘buying’ miles for 2.4 cents each – which is way more than they are worth – but that would assume you place no value on the card’s other perks.

Past sign-up bonuses for the Vantage card have ranged from 60,000 miles (the most recent offer, which was pulled early) to 85,000 miles (which was offered in early 2025), though those totals include the 25,000 miles everyone gets year-round just for paying the annual fee.

Nonetheless the time to acquire the Vantage card is undoubtedly when one of these sign-up bonuses is running, sometimes allowing new-to-bank cardholders to buy miles for as little as 0.71 cents each, before taking account of the card’s other benefits.

The DBS Vantage card earns:

• 1.5 mpd for local spend (i.e. transacted in SGD), and
• 2.2 mpd for overseas spend (i.e. transacted in foreign currency).

These rates compare quite favourably to other Singapore cards in this income category.

Earn rates ($120k income cards)
(Best to worst, October 2025)

Card	Local Spend	FCY Spend
DBS Vantage	1.5 mpd	2.2 mpd
SCVI	1.4 mpd*	3 mpd*
UOB VI Metal	1.4 mpd	2.4 mpd
OCBC Voyage	1.3 mpd	2.2 mpd
Citi Prestige	1.3 mpd	2 mpd
Maybank VI	1.2 mpd	3.2 mpd^
HSBC VI	1 mpd	2 mpd

* Subject to a minimum spend of $2,000 (any currency) in the same statement cycle, otherwise 1 mpd
^ Subject to $4,000+ spend per calendar month, otherwise 2 mpd

DBS has a full list of transactions that will not earn DBS Points (i.e. miles) with its cards. Here are the key ones to watch out for:

• Payments via AXS, SAM, or internet banking bill payments (except AXS Pay + Earn).
• Insurance premiums of any kind (life, health, travel, etc.).
• Education payments – schools, universities, and tuition fees.
• Government and tax payments, including IRAS, court fines, and postal / government services.
• Utilities (electricity, gas, water bills).
• Money transfers and funding of accounts, including Wise, Revolut, and brokerage deposits.
• Cryptocurrency purchases or foreign currency wallets.
• Stored value card top-ups – e.g. GrabPay, YouTrip, EZ-Link, ShopeePay, Singtel Dash.
• Betting and gambling transactions (including casinos, lottery, and online wagers).
• Hospital or medical payments (classified under MCC 8062).
• Charity or non-profit donations, including religious organisations.

See Section 2.6 of this document for the bank’s full breakdown of excluded transactions, and note that some additional exclusions will be added from 1st December 2025.

You can earn miles with the Vantage card for CardUp and ipaymy transactions.

No, with this card you’ll actually accrue ‘DBS Points’, for any sign-up bonus and for your spending. These transfer to KrisFlyer miles at a 1:2 ratio, so for $20,000 of local spending, you’ll net 15,000 DBS Points, which can be converted to 30,000 KrisFlyer miles.

DBS Points should reflect in your account once the transaction posts, which takes anywhere between one and three days.

You won’t have to wait until your monthly statement for the points to be added, so if you’re making a purchase to achieve a short-term top-up they should be available to you within a few days.

You can transfer DBS Points into Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles and Qantas Frequent Flyer Points.

The same earning rate, transfer cost, and minimum transfer ‘blocks’ apply if you choose to credit to Asia Miles or Qantas.

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!

The minimum volume of miles you can transfer into KrisFlyer is 10,000 (i.e. 5,000 DBS Points). Thereafter they must then be transferred in blocks of 10,000 miles.

The exception is for transfers to AirAsia Rewards, which are at a 500 DBS Points to 1,500 miles ratio, so the minimum transfer in that case is 500 Points, with same-sized blocks thereafter, but we really do not recommend a transfer to this programme for the aforementioned reasons.

You can also link your DBS Points and KrisPay account and instantly transfer as little as 100 points into KrisPay miles via the Kris+ app.

The transfer ratio is 1:1.7 (e.g. 100 DBS Points = 170 KrisPay miles).

You won’t want to be using the KrisPay miles against Kris+ merchant purchases, due to the poor value of 1 cent per mile, but you can immediately transfer them 1:1 into your KrisFlyer account as KrisFlyer miles.

As you’ll notice the ratio means taking a 15% ‘hit’ on the usual DBS Points to KrisFlyer transfer rate, so it’s only of interest if you need a small amount to meet a specific redemption threshold, or have a small balance ‘stuck’ in DBS Points (less than 5,000), which you aren’t going to be adding to in future.

You shouldn’t be using this as your regular DBS Points to KrisFlyer transfer method, as it effectively devalues your miles earning rate with the Vantage card to 1.28 mpd for general transactions and 1.87 mpd for FCY purchases.

There are important factors to be aware of, firstly you’ll have to move any points transferred from DBS to KrisPay into KrisFlyer miles within 21 days, otherwise they are stuck in KrisPay (where you definitely don’t want them).

The second is just as important, you cannot use any of the KrisPay miles you have earned from your DBS Points transfer for any Kris+ purchase, no matter how small, as that automatically renders the entire transfer stuck in Kris+ until expiry, six months later.

The golden rule therefore is to transfer in to KrisPay miles via Kris+, then transfer straight out to KrisFlyer. Even with that 21-day window available, our advice is don’t wait.

Some do and some don’t! The important thing about DBS Points accrued on the Vantage card is that they do expire – after three years.

That’s unlike the DBS Altitude card, where points never expire, and represents a big downside for this card.

Once you transfer to KrisFlyer miles, your points will have a further three-year validity. If you transfer into Asia Miles they will never expire, under the scheme’s policy that provided you earn or redeem at least 1 Asia mile every 18 months, your entire balance will remain intact.

This can be achieved by a simple 100 miles carbon offset donation if necessary, or a transfer of NTUC LinkPoints to Asia Miles, assuming you don’t want to transfer credit card points across.

If you have more than one DBS card the DBS Points earned on all your cards will be aggregated for purposes of redemption of rewards, including miles transfers.

DBS Points expiring first will be used first in any redemption transaction.

If you cancel your Vantage Card however, any DBS Points accrued but not redeemed from the card will be forfeited. They cannot be transferred, for example, to your Altitude card.

Points / miles transfer times are quoted as:

• Air Asia: 10 working days
• Asia Miles: 10 working days
• Qantas: 5 working days
• KrisFlyer: 5 working days

Our personal experience of transferring DBS Points into KrisFlyer miles is that the process takes just one or two days, and our most recent transfer to Asia Miles took just under a week.

It’s the same for all transfer partners which are part of the programme, $27.25 each time you transfer DBS Points to airline miles (like KrisFlyer miles).

The exception is the instant free transfer method to KrisFlyer miles via Kris+, but as mentioned this comes at a 15% poorer transfer ratio and so shouldn’t usually be considered, except for small top-ups / orphan points.

The DBS Vantage card offers the option to switch between miles and cashback on a monthly basis.

That means, as an alternative to miles, the card is effectively offering:

• Local Spend: 1.5% cashback instead of 1.5 mpd
• FCY Spend: 2.2% cashback instead of 2.2 mpd

These are inferior rates relative to the value of miles earned, in our opinion, and are unlikely to be of much interest to our readers (unless you value KrisFlyer miles, for example, at less than 1 cent each, in which case there are better cashback cards on the market anyway).

You can switch your earning preference between miles and cashback once per month (assuming you’re changing from the previous month) via the DBS Mobile app.

Your card will be set to earn miles by default when you first receive it.

Beware that if you change your earning preference to cashback, all your DBS Points earned from the Vantage Card will be converted to cashback on the 1st working day of the next calendar month and awarded on the 3rd working day of the next calendar month.

This is not reversible, so be careful! Our advice – don’t mess around with this, stick to miles.

Each transaction you make with the DBS Vantage card, whether in SGD or foreign currency, will first be rounded down to the next whole dollar (in SGD equivalent, if required) before DBS Points earning is assessed (e.g. S$57.99 is rounded down to S$57).

Your rounded down transaction (S$57 in the $57.99 example above) is then divided by 5 before being multiplied by the appropriate number of DBS Points applicable to the transaction.

Only whole DBS Points can be awarded for your transaction so it’s another ’round down’ at the end, to the next whole point.

For example, assuming a S$57.99 local transaction with the Vantage card:

• S$57.99 rounds down to 57
• 57 / 5 = 11.4 x 3.75 (local purchase) = 42.75
• 42.75 rounds down to 42
• 42 DBS Points awarded (equivalent to 84 miles, so you’re getting 1.45 mpd)

Here’s how it works for a S$57.99 foreign currency transaction (after conversion from the relevant FCY amount):

• S$57.99 rounds down to 57
• 57 / 5 = 11.4 x 5.5 (FCY purchase) = 62.7
• 62.7 rounds down to 62
• 62 DBS Points awarded (equivalent to 124 miles, so you’re getting 2.14 mpd)

Note how in both cases the actual earn rates you’re achieving fall a bit short of the ‘advertised’ rates, due to rounding.

to zero), the minimum spend in SGD on the DBS Vantage card to earn points is not S$5, but:

• Local transactions: $2.00
• FCY transactions: $1.00 (after conversion)

These are quite reasonable levels, given that some credit cards including UOB, OCBC and Maybank products are awarding no miles at all for transactions of less than $5.

The DBS Vantage card has a 3.25% foreign currency transaction fee, which is now somewhat typical for Singapore credit cards.

With a 2.2 cents per mile overseas earn rate that makes it one of the more decent cards to use for these transactions, with an effective cost per mile of 1.56 cents.

Cost per mile on overseas transactions
(Best to worst, October 2025)

Card	Fee	Miles per $	Cost per mile
Maybank VI	3.25%	3.2^	1.07¢^
SCVI	3.5%	3.0*	1.22¢*
UOB PRVI Miles	3.25%	2.4	1.43¢
DBS Altitude Amex	3.0%	2.2	1.45¢
Maybank Horizon Visa	2.75%	2.0	1.48¢
HSBC VI	2.8%	2.0	1.50¢
Citi PM	3.25%	2.2	1.56¢
DBS Vantage	3.25%	2.2	1.56¢
OCBC Voyage	3.25%	2.2	1.56¢
OCBC 90oN MC	3.25%	2.1	1.63¢
DBS Altitude Visa	3.25%	2.2	1.56¢
OCBC 90oN Visa	3.25%	2.0	1.71¢
Citi Prestige	3.25%	2.0	1.71¢
Journey Card	3.5%	2.0	1.83¢

* 3 mpd earn rate for the SCVI card is subject to a minimum spend of $2,000 (any currency) in the same statement cycle
^ 3.2 mpd earn rate for the Maybank Horizon VI card is subject to a minimum spend of $4,000 (any currency) in the same month

Cost per mile also accounts for an additional 0.3% ‘spread’ over money changer currency rates, though this doesn’t apply to all banks and all foreign currencies, so is a worst-case scenario.

If you’re holding a specialised 4 mpd card, like the DBS WWMC, you will of course be able to achieve much better cost per mile for transactions in foreign currency, provided you are spending within the card’s eligible categories and monthly spend cap.

There are a variety of rewards other than airline miles you can use your DBS Points for, though as usual they all represent much poorer value.

We know that 1 DBS Point can be converted into 2 KrisFlyer miles, which we value at 1.9 cents each, so that’s approximately 3.8 cents value per DBS Point when used this way.

Other transfer options are largely for shopping and retail vouchers, for example a $10 FairPrice voucher will set you back 690 DBS Points. The same number of points should be getting you 1,380 KrisFlyer miles, worth about $26. You should never be using your DBS Points for anything other than KrisFlyer miles, Asia Miles or Qantas Points transfers.

DBS Vantage principal cardholders receive a complimentary Priority Pass Digital Membership, which offers access to over 1,700 airport lounges and travel experiences worldwide. The membership must be registered online, and is valid for 12 months from the date of activation.

Cardholders enjoy 10 complimentary visits per membership year, which can be used either for solo entries or those shared with accompanying guests. For example, you could visit a lounge five times with a guest, or ten times alone, or twice as a family of five.

Once all 10 visits have been used, subsequent entries are charged at US$35 per person per visit, automatically billed to your DBS Vantage card. Note that this benefit applies only to the principal cardholder, and cannot be extended to supplementary cardholders.

Priority Pass includes all the usual third-party options at Singapore Changi Airport, and you can search the full lounge list here.

While 10 annual visits is a relatively generous allocation, there are a few better options on the market with other Singapore credit cards in this income category, including some unlimited visit allocations. See our recently updated guide for the latest details.

DBS provides an FAQs document about the Priority Pass membership here.

DBS Vantage cardholders receive a complimentary ALL Accor+ Explorer membership each year, unlocking benefits across over 1,300 hotels and 1,600 restaurants in the Asia Pacific region.

However, from 1st October 2025, some key changes came into effect as Accor Plus transitioned to ALL Accor+ Explorer membership, bringing a mix of upgrades and restrictions.

Two complimentary hotel nights (with a catch)

The headline benefit is the inclusion of two Stay Plus certificates per year (previously one), each redeemable for a complimentary hotel night at participating Accor properties including Sofitel, Pullman, Fairmont, and Swissôtel.

Since 1st October 2025, however, each Stay Plus night now requires a minimum two-night booking, with at least one night paid. The free night will apply to the higher-priced night in the stay.

Previously, no paid night was required.

While this effectively means the free night is actually a “buy one, get one free” deal, it may still represent good value if you were planning longer stays or regional trips.

Dining discounts

ALL Accor+ Explorer members get a fixed 30% off food and 15% off drinks at participating Accor hotel restaurants across Asia Pacific, for up to 10 guests.

This shifted from the previous tiered structure where up to 50% off was possible for two diners, which means solo or large-group diners may benefit from the new discount, but couples have lost out on the 50% sweet spot.

Enhanced hotel and status perks

ALL Accor+ Explorer members receive:

• 15% off hotel stays year-round (up from 10%), though no longer stackable with member or promotional rates.
• 30 status nights annually (up from 20), granting ALL Gold status with benefits such as room upgrades, early check-in and late check-out (subject to availability).

DBS provides an FAQs document about the ALL Accor+ Explorer membership here.

Some of the key additional benefits with the DBS Vantage card which will be of most interest to our readers are:

• Up to 19% instant savings on petrol at Esso stations – 5% Esso station site discount on fuel spend, 5% Esso Smiles Card discount and 9% discount on Synergy Supreme+ (8% on all other Synergy fuel purchases).
• The Culinaire’s List – table reservations and beverage discounts at selected restaurants in Singapore.
• GHA DISCOVERY Titanium status as a Visa Infinite cardholder, including benefits like double room upgrade, early check-in.
• Visa’s Luxury Hotel Collection, as a Visa Infinite cardholder. This includes automatic room upgrade where available, complimentary breakfast and a US$25 food and beverage credit.
• Up to 35% discount on Standard car rental rates with Avis.
• Complimentary weekday golf at Sentosa Golf Club and Tanah Merah Country Club (limited monthly redemptions).
• 50% off weekday green fees at 50 participating golf clubs across Southeast Asia.

The DBS Vantage card can be used for contactless transactions, and can be added to Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Google Pay.

Here are links to the full terms and conditions applicable to the DBS Vantage card and the DBS Rewards programme.

 DBS Vantage Card T&C
 DBS Rewards Programme T&C

The DBS Vantage Card offers a solid local earn rate of 1.5 mpd for general spend, including CardUp and ipaymy transactions, but it’s really only worth picking up when one of the bank’s generous sign-up bonuses is on offer.

That’s not the case at the time of writing, but previous promotions have dangled between 60,000 and 85,000 bonus miles – and we hope to see similar deals make a return soon.

From August 2026, DBS will also remove the annual fee waiver for those spending over S$60,000 per year, meaning cardholders will be left with a S$600 annual fee in exchange for 10 lounge visits, 25,000 renewal miles, and two “free” hotel nights (but only if you’re prepared to pay for two more yourself).

For most of our readers, that’s unlikely to stack up as good value – making this a card best suited for its first-year sign-up bonus when a strong offer is running, before cancelling ahead of the second-year fee.

Our Rating

3 / 5 among high income general spend cards

DBS Vantage   APPLY HERE

How we rate credit cards Best in class: A must-have for the miles earner in Singapore Excellent: A leader in its category with few if any downsides Very good: Drawbacks largely outweighed by the positive aspects Good: Useful benefits despite some poor features vs. other cards Average: Worth considering but not an essential addition to your wallet Conflicted: Some benefits but much better cards exist in the same category Poor: Few benefits worth having Very poor: Almost no benefits, not recommended Awful: Not worth considering

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