Check Your Bonus Points on DBS Altitude Card - Online Hotel & Travel Spend NOT Getting 3 Miles per Dollar!
I personally recommend the DBS Woman's World Mastercard (WMC) and DBS Altitude Card combo if you typically charge a lot of online travel expenses to your card - I personally max out the S$2,000 bonus each month on the WMC and charge the remaining online hotel and travel expenses to my DBS Altitude Card (up to S$5,000) for the rest of the statement period. Now, DBS advertises 3 miles per dollar on the DBS Altitude Card and if it is charged in SGD, you will earn 1,2 miles (in equivalent DBS Points) at the time of posting and the rest in the following month (usually on the 16th unless it is not a business day). However, I realised that over S$4,000 of my expenses in the previous month did not earn any bonus DBS Points (even though they are all online hotel expenses!).
Photo Credit: DBS
While you used to be able to request for a transaction-level breakdown of points earned from DBS via the secured mailbox fairly easily in the past, this has gotten a lot more difficult in recent years. In fact, what you will have to deal with now is the DBS Virtual Assistant which doesn’t seem to be very bright or capable at handling such matters.
Photo Credit: DBS
I eventually picked up the phone to talk to a real person (days like these I actually miss talking to the Platinum Concierge from my Platinum Card) but was met with a series of comments that would really make a person’s blood boil:
“Swissotel is not a hotel transaction” - I booked this stay directly with AccorHotels.com
“W Bangkok is not a hotel transaction” - I booked this stay directly on Marriott.com
“JW Marriott Hotel Singapore South Beach is not a hotel transaction” - I booked this stay directly on Marriott.com
Seriously, I am not sure if they even hear themselves when they speak. Anyhow, I have now managed to contact them once again via the secured mailbox (I just left the subject as General Comments) and they have requested for my online invoices. It has been over 2 weeks and I am still waiting for them to provide me with an update.
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