The UOB PRVI Miles Visa and the DBS Altitude are the two cards most Singaporeans shortlist when they want a first proper miles card, and they split along one simple line: the PRVI Miles Visa earns more and costs more, while DBS Altitude earns slightly less but is cheaper and never lets your miles expire. The PRVI Miles Visa pays 1.4 miles per S$1 locally against Altitude's 1.3, and 2.4 miles per S$1 on general overseas spend against Altitude's 2.2. It also hands you four airport lounge visits a year to Altitude's two. The price for that is a S$261.60 annual fee versus S$196.20, a S$65 gap, plus a two-year clock on your UNI$ that Altitude's DBS Points do not have. As of October 2026, here is the full breakdown and who each card actually fits.
If you spend heavily and travel a lot, the UOB PRVI Miles Visa is the stronger card. It out-earns DBS Altitude on both local and overseas spend, doubles the lounge visits to four a year, and adds a regional bonus of 3 miles per S$1 in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam that Altitude has no answer to. Its higher fee has no automatic waiver on the Visa, though: UOB keeps its S$50,000 spend waiver for the PRVI Miles Amex.
If your spending is modest or you prefer to bank miles for years before redeeming, DBS Altitude is the smarter pick. Its S$196.20 fee is S$65 cheaper, and its DBS Points never expire, so you are not racing a two-year clock the way PRVI Miles UNI$ holders are. The 0.1 miles per dollar you give up locally is rarely worth chasing if it costs you lapsed points or an unwaived fee.
Neither card is a foreign-currency champion once you count the 3.25% currency conversion fee both charge. If overseas spend dominates your wallet, pair either card with a multi-currency wallet, a route we cover in our roundup of the best miles credit cards in Singapore.
Every figure below is checked against the issuers as of October 2026. Earn rates are quoted as miles per S$1 (mpd). One note before you read it: DBS Altitude awards DBS Points that convert at 1 point to 2 miles, and UOB PRVI Miles awards UNI$ that convert at 1 UNI$ to 2 miles, so both banks market the same card in two different units. We use the miles figure throughout to keep the comparison apples-to-apples.
| Feature | UOB PRVI Miles Visa | DBS Altitude (Visa Signature) |
|---|---|---|
| Local spend earn rate | 1.4 mpd | 1.3 mpd |
| General overseas earn rate | 2.4 mpd | 2.2 mpd |
| Regional bonus (IDR/MYR/THB/VND) | 3 mpd | None |
| Hotel booking bonus | Up to 8 mpd via UOB Agoda/Expedia links | None |
| Annual fee | S$261.60 (1st year waived) | S$196.20 (1st year free) |
| Automatic fee waiver | None on the Visa (S$50,000 waiver is Amex only) | None since 1 Aug 2026 (was S$25,000/year) |
| Min. income (citizen/PR, under 56) | S$30,000 | S$30,000 |
| Min. income (citizen/PR, 56+) | S$15,000 | S$15,000 |
| Min. income (foreigner) | S$40,000 | S$45,000 |
| Miles/points expiry | UNI$ expire 2 years from quarter earned | Never |
| Transfer partners | KrisFlyer, Asia Miles | KrisFlyer, Asia Miles, Qantas, AirAsia |
| Transfer fee | S$27 per conversion | S$27.25 per conversion |
| Airport lounge | 4 Priority Pass visits/year | 2 Priority Pass visits/year |
| Foreign currency fee | 3.25% | 3.25% |
The PRVI Miles Visa earns more on almost every line. The 1.4 mpd local rate is the highest base local earn among mainstream general-spend miles cards in Singapore, and the 2.4 mpd general overseas rate beats Altitude's 2.2. The gaps are small per dollar, but they stack: on S$3,000 a month of mixed spend, the extra earn quietly adds a few thousand miles a year over Altitude for the same wallet.
Two perks have no equivalent on Altitude. First, the regional bonus pays 3 mpd on spend made in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, which is generous if you holiday or do business across the region. Second, hotels booked through the dedicated UOB PRVI Agoda and Expedia landing pages earn up to 8 mpd, against Altitude's flat base rate on the same booking. On a S$1,500 hotel bill that is the difference between roughly 1,950 miles and up to 12,000. The catch is that you must start the booking from the UOB-linked page, not the normal app.
The PRVI Miles Visa also doubles the airport lounge allowance to four Priority Pass visits a calendar year, against Altitude's two. For a frequent flyer that is two extra escapes from a crowded gate, worth about US$35 a visit, which is what UOB charges for each guest.
Altitude wins on cost and on patience. The annual fee is S$196.20 against the PRVI Miles Visa's S$261.60, so you are S$65 lighter every year you pay it. The bigger draw is that DBS Points earned on Altitude never expire. You can let them pool for three or four years and only transfer to KrisFlyer when you are ready to book an award seat, with no risk of watching a balance vanish.
That permanence is the real story, because the PRVI Miles Visa runs a two-year clock. UNI$ expire two years from the end of the quarter you earned them, so a PRVI holder has to redeem on a schedule or lose value. For anyone who spends slowly or banks miles toward a once-every-few-years premium-cabin redemption, Altitude's never-expiring points remove a genuine source of waste.
Altitude also carries a broader transfer list, KrisFlyer, Asia Miles, Qantas and AirAsia against UOB's KrisFlyer and Asia Miles, and it offers a KrisFlyer auto-conversion option so transfers happen hands-free. To understand what a transferred mile is actually worth before you chase the higher earn rate, our compounding glossary entry explains why small rate gaps matter more the longer you hold.
Update, 14 October 2026: the S$50,000 spend waiver this guide credited to the PRVI Miles Visa applies only to the PRVI Miles American Express, and DBS's S$25,000 Altitude waiver ended on 1 August 2026, so neither card now waives its fee automatically. Both cards waive the first year. After that, the PRVI Miles Visa charges S$261.60 a year whatever you spend, because UOB's terms keep the S$50,000 spend waiver for the Amex version. DBS Altitude used to waive its S$196.20 fee at S$25,000 of annual spend, a far lower bar.
Since 1 August 2026, DBS no longer grants that automatic S$25,000 spend-based waiver. Altitude holders now either pay the S$196.20 fee (and collect the 10,000-mile renewal bonus, worth roughly 1.3 to 2 cents each) or request a waiver case by case. With no automatic waiver on either card, the choice comes down to the S$65 fee gap against the PRVI Miles Visa's higher earn rates and extra lounge visits.
If you would rather not pay either fee, our guide on how to waive a credit card annual fee in Singapore walks through the retention scripts that work with both UOB and DBS. To sanity-check whether a fee card pays for itself against your real spending, run your numbers through our personal budget calculator first.
| Annual spend | PRVI Miles Visa fee | DBS Altitude fee (since 1 Aug 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Under S$25,000 | S$261.60 | S$196.20 (or negotiate) |
| S$25,000-S$49,999 | S$261.60 | S$196.20 (waiver removed) |
| S$50,000 or more | S$261.60 (spend waiver is Amex only) | S$196.20 (waiver removed) |
Before you pick the PRVI Miles Visa for its higher 1.4 mpd, understand how UOB actually pays it. UOB does not credit miles per dollar in real time. It pays UNI$ in blocks of S$5 spend, then converts UNI$ to miles at redemption. Locally you earn UNI$3.5 for every full S$5, which equals 1.4 mpd only when your transaction is an exact multiple of S$5. Spend S$9 and UOB rounds down to one S$5 block, paying you for S$5 and ignoring the leftover S$4.
Over a year of S$4.80 coffees and odd-cent grocery bills, that rounding shaves a slice off your real earn rate, so the headline 1.4 mpd is a ceiling, not a guarantee. DBS Altitude rounds down too, but it prorates the spend first and only drops the leftover fraction of a point, so odd amounts cost it less. The practical effect is that the PRVI Miles Visa's earn advantage shrinks for people who make many small, scattered purchases, and holds up best for those who consolidate spend into larger, rounder transactions.
Match the card to where your dollars go and how patiently you redeem. Three filters settle most cases.
Because both waive the first-year fee, a common play is to open both and put each kind of spend on the card that earns most: regional travel and hotel bookings on the PRVI Miles Visa, everyday local spend on whichever you prefer, then bank slow-burn miles on Altitude where they never expire. You can funnel both into the same KrisFlyer account. Just track the S$27 transfer fees so they do not erode the gains, and remember that UNI$ from the PRVI Miles Visa still carry the two-year clock even when DBS Points beside them do not.
The UOB PRVI Miles Visa earns more on both common categories: 1.4 miles per S$1 locally against Altitude's 1.3, and 2.4 against 2.2 on general overseas spend. It also adds a 3 mpd regional bonus and up to 8 mpd on hotels via its booking links, which Altitude has no equivalent for.
The PRVI Miles Visa fee is S$261.60 against Altitude's S$196.20, a S$65 gap. Neither card waives its fee automatically any more (UOB's S$50,000 spend waiver is for the PRVI Miles Amex only), so it is worth it only if the higher earn rates, regional bonus and four lounge visits return more than S$65 of value a year. For modest spenders, Altitude's cheaper fee usually wins.
They differ here. UOB PRVI Miles UNI$ expire two years from the end of the quarter you earned them, so you must redeem on a schedule. DBS Altitude awards DBS Points that never expire, letting you bank them for years and transfer to an airline programme only when you are ready to book.
Since 1 August 2026, DBS no longer waives the fee automatically after S$25,000 of annual spend. Altitude holders now either pay the S$196.20 fee, which comes with a 10,000-mile renewal bonus, or request a waiver case by case from DBS.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change, so verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).