DBS Black Visa Card review: Is it an ideal card for shopaholics?

Your parents might think it's bad luck to wear black. But that sure hasn't hurt DBS Black Visa Card's popularity.

The card itself looks pretty sleek and is marketed as ideal for shopaholics, letting you earn up to 3X DBS Points (or six miles) on local contactless payments.

But how useful is it really? Let's take a look.

DBS Black Visa Card terms & conditions

How the DBS Black Visa Card works

The DBS Black Visa Card is a rewards credit card. Using it lets you earn DBS Points at a standard rate of $5 = one DBS Point (two miles). Not terribly attractive, to be frank.

You can earn points a bit faster if you use Visa PayWave, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Google Pay. This will get you $5 = three DBS Points (six miles). Because you get three times the number of rewards points, keep your eyes open for opportunities to do so.

Fortunately, PayWave is widely accepted these days at supermarkets, restaurants, shops, taxis, and even some food courts.

There are some drawbacks though. For a start, points are awarded for every $5 spent, so you may want to make sure your total shopping bill is a nice number - definitely not "$4.99".

More importantly, 3X points are really low compared to the competition. Many competing rewards cards are offering 5X or even 10X points for many spending categories.

(Even DBS' other rewards card, the DBS Woman's Card, gets you 5X DBS Points, although it's for online spending.) We'll cover some of the more competitive cards later on.

Conversion of DBS Points to your airline's programme requires an administrative fee of $26.75.

What rewards can you redeem with DBS Points?

So how useful are DBS rewards points? Here are some of the things you can redeem those points for till 31 December 2020.

• $350 Credit for 25,000 DBS points
• $10 NTUC Fairprice voucher for 690 DBS points
• $50 Takashimaya voucher for 3,200 DBS points
• One Golden Village ticket for 750 DBS points

But the thing is, there are some cashback credit cards can get you more than 1.5 per cent rebates, without having to go through the trouble of redeeming vouchers.

Other credit cards for shopping

As far as shopping credit cards go, the DBS Black Visa Card is mediocre at best.

Here are some other cards that also reward you for retail spending. Depending on your spending habits, you might find these more attractive than the DBS Black Visa Card.

Citi Rewards Card - Get 10x rewards (four miles) for every $1 spent on clothes, bags or shoes, or at department stores or online shopping websites. As you can see, the earn rate for shopping is way more generous than DBS Black Visa Card's, and you also get rewarded for shopping online.

The main drawback is that you need to spend on clothes, bags and shoes, so tough luck if most of your retail spending goes to anything else.

DBS Woman's Card - If you really want to get a DBS credit card, consider the DBS Woman's Card as well. It gets you 5X points (10 miles per $5) online, and 1X for everything else.

If you spend a lot of money online, this is a good complement to the DBS Black Visa. However, there's a spending cap of $1,000 a month.

UOB Preferred Platinum Card - If you like the fact that you can get bonus rewards points on mobile contactless and online transactions, the UOB PP is another credit card that offers this perk.

It's better than the DBS Woman's Card, giving you a UNI$10 per $5 on mobile contactless payments and online spending and entertainment.

HSBC Revolution Credit Card - This card beats the DBS Black Visa Card with 10X Reward points when you shop online, order food delivery or make future travel bookings.

Although there's just 1X Reward point for other types of spending, there's no cap on the points you can earn on them.

Notice that almost every credit card trumps the DBS Black Visa Card. 

ALSO READ: UOB One Card review: Get a maximum of 5% cash rebate on everything

This article was first published in MoneySmart.