Flash Deal: DBS Vantage 80,000 Miles Sign-up Offer For New DBS/POSB Cardholders; 50,000 for Existing Cardholders
Please click each link to see the latest promo.
Until the end of 17th March 2023, DBS is offering 80,000 miles for new-to-DBS/POSB applicants who don’t yet have a credit card with the bank. For existing cardholders, the sign-up gift is still a decent 50,000 miles.
DBS Vantage
🔥 👍🏼
New cardholders
- Apply for a DBS Vantage Card with promo code
VANMILES - Make payment for non-waivable annual fee of S$594.00 (inclusive of GST); and
- Charge a minimum spend of S$4,000 within 30 days from card approval date
- New and existing cardmembers will be credited up to 60,000 miles and 40,000 miles respectively in the form of DBS Points, within 90 to 120 days from the Card approval date.
Until 30th June 2023
See terms and conditions and save a copy for your future reference.
Get free Accor Plus Explorer membership with one free hotel night per year! Also get 10 free lounge visits a year via Priority Pass. S$120,000 annual income requirement. Watch the review here
Promo analysis
DBS Vantage is a S$120,000 annual income card and like most card of its type comes with a relatively high annual fee. For S$594 fee to make sense, the value of the perks should outweigh the amount. I did such an analysis on a previous promo which is worse than this, and my conclusion was that it was worth it.
This promo is significantly better, so it is not a surprise I think that the perks is well worth the cost of admission:
| Value | |
| 80,000 or 50,000 miles | $1,000 or $600 |
| Accor Membership (free night’s stay) | $200 |
| Lounge visits | Nice |
My valuation of each mile is about 1.25 cents, and 80,000 and 50,000 miles would therefore be S$1,000 and S$600 respectively. You would find such a valuation to be on more conservative sites, with most miles and travel sites placing the value closer to 2 cents each. I have spoken at length how I value miles, so do watch that video if you wish to understand my rationale.
80,000 miles is just 6,000 miles short for a return trip in business class to Maldives via Singapore Air, and 50,000 miles is good for a return flight to places like Thailand or Vietnam also in business class.
You can read the rationale for the valuation of Accor Plus Membership and 10 lounge visits in the older analysis I did of the promo.
Get 5 free shares just by getting Webull and funding any amount! No trade required!
Note the opportunity costs
The challenge to this promotion might be to make S$8,000 of spend. Not only is the amount likely to be higher than what we’d normally spend, there is also some opportunity cost when we use a 1.5 miles per dollar card over other cards with a higher earn rate.
Spending S$8,000 on a 1.5 miles per dollar card gets you 12,000 miles, but if you are intending to buy something like electronics or furniture, OCBC Titanium Rewards can give you 4 miles per dollar. That’s 32,000 miles on S$8,000 of spend, making your opportunity cost 20,000 miles.
You could also make purchases online with the Citi SMRT Card and get 5% cashback on S$8,000 which is S$400. S$400 minus the value of 12,000 miles (S$150 at 1.25 cents per mile) is around S$250 of opportunity cost.
That said, not all spending can be done on cards with higher earn rates, so you should have a much easier time completing the S$8,000 spend on your DBS Vantage card rather than some of the more specialised cards that I’ve listed.
The card itself
The card itself has been nerfed, in a way, since the 4 miles per dollar earn rate it was giving ceased after 31st December 2022. As with most cards of this nature, you use the card more for its perks than actual earn rate, so wasn’t too bad a loss. Dining is a category where one can use many other cards to achieve a higher earn rate.
Conclusion
This is a promo that is worth it if you are able to qualify for the card and meet the spending requirement.
DBS also has multiple promos going on, with many that allow existing cardholders to get sign-up promos too. This means you can sign up for the DBS Vantage card as your first DBS card, then go for the DBS Altitude promo and DBS Takashimaya card promo.
Keep up to date on the best cashback/mile cards, financial products, attractive deals, and more tips to maximise your financial wellbeing by subscribing to my Telegram channel.
Subscribe to the channel, then join the group chat. You would often benefit from the tips exclusively shared in the group chat!
Disclaimer: I may receive an affiliate/referral fee when you sign up for services/products on this site, and such fees keep the site running. I would only recommend services/products I would personally use or recommend to my own friends and family, but I do not provide any warranty or guarantee for the quality of these services/products. Please exercise due diligence when signing up for any service/product as I will not be liable for any personal loss, financial or otherwise. None of the information here constitutes personal financial advice. Thank you for supporting my site!