Instarem Amaze Card Review: Till the fat lady sings

Picture this: you decide to throw a huge blowout party, the likes of which the world has never seen. You spare no expense, and everyone says it’s the best party they’ve ever attended.

But as the night goes on, the budget starts to run dry, and to keep the festivities going, you have to make changes. So you swap the champagne with prosecco. You impose a “one per attendee” limit on the goodie bags. You replace DJ Marshmello with DJ Dee Kosh. In the end everyone hates you for it, and you feel rather aggrieved. After all, no one’s talking about how great the first few hours were!

That’s kind of the situation that Instarem finds itself in right now with Amaze. Once upon a time, Amaze was truly amazing: Excellent exchange rates, 1% cashback on virtually anything plus regular credit card rewards, and use cases that went beyond just overseas spending. Demand was so crazy that Instarem had trouble shipping out physical cards in time for year-end VTL travel in 2021. 

Since then, however, a whole lot has happened. 

💳 Amaze: A timeline of nerfs

August 2021: Instarem launches Amaze card to public January 2022: Adds rewards exclusions for cashback; prior to this you could earn cashback on almost anything March 2022: Amaze slashes cashback rates and caps May 2022: Amaze rates begin noticeably diverging from Mastercard’s June 2022: DBS/POSB adds Amaze to its rewards exclusion list July 2022: Amaze ends cashback on SGD spend October 2022: Amaze replaces cashback with InstaPoints February 2023: Amaze adds 2% fee on GrabPay & e-wallet top-ups (Amaze Wallet exempted) July 2023: Amaze extends 2% fee on GrabPay & e-wallet top-ups to Amaze Wallet August 2023: Amaze cuts InstaPoint earn rates for card-linked transactions by 50% October 2023: Amaze adds 1% fee for selected SGD transactions April 2024: Amaze adds 1% fee for SGD transactions above S$1,000 June 2024: Amaze caps InstaPoint earning at 500 points per month

Such a lengthy list of nerfs would be enough to torpedo any other product, but it speaks volumes about how good Amaze used to be that even after all this, it’s still my default choice for overseas spending (and sometimes local too, for reasons we’ll cover later).

And yet, it’s hard to deny that the times, they are are a-changin’. The music’s still going, but Marshmello’s got one eye on the exit.

Overview: Amaze Card

Apply here

T&Cs

Use code 7HK2A2 for 225 bonus InstaPoints

💳 tl;dr: Amaze Card

Link up to five Mastercard credit/debit cards Overseas transactions are converted into SGD (no FCY transaction fees, but subject to FX spread) and charged to the underlying credit/debit card Transaction MCC remains the same, offline transactions charged to Amaze become online transactions for the underlying credit/debit card Earn 0.5 InstaPoints per S$1 spent on FCY transactions of at least S$10 (except exclusion categories), capped at 500 InstaPoints per month Redeem InstaPoints for cashback in blocks of 2,000 InstaPoints= S$20

The Amaze Card is available to anyone with an Instarem account, and has no minimum income requirement nor annual fee. 

Applications can be made through the Instarem app (Android | iOS), and you’ll receive a virtual card immediately upon approval.

Physical cards take a bit longer to arrive; it was as much as a month during the early days, but should be within a week now.

If you’re waiting for the physical card but want to spend in-store, you can do so by adding the virtual card to your mobile wallet. Google Pay support was added in November 2021, with Apple Pay support added in July 2024.

How does Amaze work?

The Amaze Card is a debit card, which is funded by either:

• Amaze Wallet
• Debit or Credit Card

	Amaze Wallet	Debit or Credit Card
Conversion rate	More favourable	Less favourable
Lock in rate for future spend?	Yes	No
Earn credit card rewards?	No	Yes

Do note that you cannot combine two sources in a single transaction. For example, if your payment source is the Amaze Wallet, and the balance is insufficient to cover the cost of a given transaction, the transaction will be declined. You cannot pay for part of your transaction with Amaze Wallet funds, and the rest with your debit or credit card. 

Amaze Wallet

The Amaze Wallet is conceptually very similar to Revolut or YouTrip, allowing you to buy currencies whenever you believe the rate is favourable, and lock them in for spending in the future.

The following currencies are currently supported:

A few points to note: 

• Amaze Wallet top-ups code as MCC 6540 (POI Funding Transactions), so just like Revolut or YouTrip, you won’t earn any credit card rewards for top-ups
• A 2.1% fee (min. S$0.50) applies to any Amaze Wallet top-ups using a Visa card
• A 1% fee (min. S$0.50) applies to any Amaze Wallet top-ups using a Mastercard
• All Amaze Wallet top-ups must be at least S$20; however, there are no fixed intervals beyond that; e.g. you could top-up S$20.76 or S$43.25
• The maximum amount that can be stored in the Amaze Wallet at any time is S$5,000, and the maximum amount transacted through the Amaze Wallet is S$30,000 per calendar year. These are hard limits set by MAS, though they may soon be increased

You do not need to pre-select a currency before spending; Amaze will automatically deduct the relevant currency, and make instant conversions from your other Wallet balances to top-up the difference if needed. 

For example, if I have S$100 and 1,000 JPY in my Amaze Wallet, and I make a transaction that costs 1,500 JPY:

• 1,000 JPY will first be deducted from my JPY balance
• The equivalent of 500 JPY will be converted from my SGD balance and immediately deducted

For what it’s worth, the exchange rate used for transactions funded by the Amaze Wallet is better than that for debit/credit card-funded transactions.

Here’s an example of two transactions, made minutes apart. The one on the left is with a linked credit card, the one on the right is with the Amaze Wallet. Notice how the Amaze Wallet rate (98.8811 JPY) is 2.37% better than the card rate (96.5857 JPY). 

Amaze Wallet balances cannot be withdrawn to a bank account. If you wish to cash them out, one option is to use the Amaze Card (with the Amaze Wallet selected as the funding source) to top-up an e-wallet such as GrabPay, then transfer the GrabPay balance to your bank account.

However, do note that Amaze charges a 1% fee (min. S$0.50) for all GrabPay/e-wallet top-ups, which means this isn’t an entirely frictionless affair. 

Credit Card

Amaze Cardholders can link up to five Singapore-issued Mastercard debit or credit cards, and designate a default card to be charged during a transaction.

Every time a transaction is charged to the Amaze Card linked to a debit or credit card, two things happen:

1. Amaze converts any foreign currency (FCY) amounts into Singapore dollars based on its internal exchange rate
2. Amaze then charges the Singapore dollar amount to the linked debit or credit card

In that sense, transactions are a two-step process, with Amaze working like a passthrough. At the end of each month, there’s no Amaze bill to pay; instead, you settle any outstanding amounts on the credit card you linked to Amaze.

Transactions processed through Amaze:

(1) Code as online spend

All Amaze transactions code as online spend, which means they will be eligible for the online spending bonus with:

• Citi Rewards Card (all online transactions except mobile wallet and travel)
• KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card (all online shopping transactions, as defined in T&Cs)

However, do note that Amaze will impose a 1% fee on all SGD transactions above S$1,000 each calendar month

• The 1% domestic fee will only apply to that portion of spending which exceeds S$1,000. For example, someone who spends S$1,500 in a month will pay a domestic fee of S$5 (1% of S$500)
• Amaze users will be able to track their cumulative SGD spending in the app, and alerts will be sent via email and push notifications when the S$1,000 threshold is approaching

If you’re a Citi Rewards Cardholder, you should be fairly indifferent because the 4 mpd cap is S$1,000 per month, exactly the threshold at which the 1% domestic fee kicks in. That said, you should take care because there could be situations where you inadvertently trigger it. Remember, the Citi Rewards cap is based on statement month, and it’s very possible to clock S$1,000 spends on both sides of a statement month.

If you’re a KrisFlyer UOB Credit Cardholder, more caution is needed. One of the best reasons to pair this card with Amaze was to trigger its uncapped 3 mpd on online shopping, applicable to the following MCCs:

(2) Are charged in SGD

Amaze will convert all FCY transactions into SGD before charging them to the linked card.

Therefore, you will earn rewards according to the local spend rate, for cards which offer overseas spending bonuses.

(3) Retain the same MCC as the original merchant

Amaze does not modify the MCC of a transaction. If you use the Amaze Card at a restaurant, the MCC will code as a restaurant. If you use the Amaze Card at a hotel, the MCC will code as a hotel.

(4) Have an AMAZE* prefix

What Amaze does modify is the transaction description. 

For example, here’s how a Lazada transaction looks like when paid with Amaze. Notice how the MCC remains the same, but AMAZE* is added to the transaction description.

This means that if your credit card awards bonuses based on transaction description, pairing it with Amaze will lead to forfeiture of those bonuses. Fortunately, such cards are the minority (e.g. OCBC Rewards for Guardian and Watsons), and most cards award bonuses based on MCC.

On the flip side, if your credit card excludes merchants based on transaction description, pairing it with Amaze will lead to earning of those bonuses. The best example I can think of are UOB$ merchants. If you pair the Amaze with the UOB Lady’s Card and spend at Cold Storage, you’ll earn the full 4 mpd (subject to you choosing Family as your bonus category), because Amaze helps circumvent the UOB$ restriction.

Earning rewards with Amaze

Every time you swipe your Amaze card, you can earn two different types of rewards:

1. Credit card rewards (assuming you choose a linked card as your payment method)
2. InstaPoints (assuming transaction is in FCY)

Credit card rewards

Amaze transactions are eligible to earn credit card rewards with all banks, except DBS/POSB which excluded them in June 2022.

These are subject to the standard exclusion clauses, of course. For example, insurance premiums are an excluded category for Citibank, so pairing the Citi Rewards Card with Amaze does not magically enable you to earn points on insurance payments (remember, the MCC remains the same). 

So which credit card should you pair with Amaze for the most miles?

💳 Recommended Amaze Pairings
Card	Earn Rate	Cap
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd1	S$1K per c. month
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd2	S$2K per c. month
Citi Rewards Apply	4 mpd3	S$1K per s. month
OCBC Rewards Apply	4 mpd4	S$1.1K per c. month
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	3 mpd5	None
1. Pick 1: Beauty & wellness, dining, entertainment, family, fashion, transport, travel (T&Cs) 2. Pick 2: Beauty & wellness, dining, entertainment, family, fashion, transport, travel (T&Cs) 3. All transactions except travel (airlines, hotels, rental cars, tour agency, cruises etc.) (T&Cs) 4.  Clothes, bags, shoes and shopping (T&Cs) 5. Dining, shopping, travel, transport. Must spend at least S$800 on SIA Group transactions in a membership year (T&Cs)

Please make a point of reading the footnotes, because certain cards will only award bonus miles on specific MCCs. For additional information on how this works, I highly recommend reading the post below. 

What’s the best card to use with Amaze?

InstaPoints

Amaze offers its own rewards programme called InstaPoints, which can be earned on top of credit card rewards. This was launched in July 2022 as a replacement for the previous cashback system.

InstaPoints will only be awarded on FCY transactions of at least S$10, and a maximum of 500 InstaPoints can be earned in a single month.

This cap means that once you spend beyond S$1,000, your effective rebate will decline for every incremental dollar you spend. 

InstaPoints are officially awarded within 3 business days of a transaction, but in practice are credited almost instantly.

Redeeming InstaPoints

InstaPoints can be converted into cash rebates in the following denominations: 

My advice is to ignore the 1,000 points = S$5 option, because that gives you a value of just 0.5 cents per InstaPoint or an effective rebate of 0.25%. Instead, wait till you have at least 2,000 points, because this gives you a value of 1 cent per InstaPoint, or a rebate of up to 0.5%

Do note the “up to” caveat. Because of the 500 InstaPoints cap per month, the effective rebate will decline for any spending beyond S$1,000.

Cashback from InstaPoints redemptions will be credited immediately to the Amaze Wallet.

InstaPoints expiry

InstaPoints earned before 1 October 2022 expire six months after date of crediting.

InstaPoints earned from 1 October 2022 expire 12 months after date of crediting.

Ineligible transactions

The following transactions do not earn InstaPoints:

• Any transaction in SGD
• Any foreign currency transaction smaller than S$10
• Any transaction with the following MCCs:

The exclusions list more or less matches the ones published by banks, with education, insurance, government payments and hospitals all ineligible.

This means you won’t earn any InstaPoints should you use the Amaze to pay for overseas school fees, visa applications or medical treatment. 

What exchange rates does Amaze offer?

Whenever you make a foreign currency transaction on a credit card, you normally incur two kinds of fees:

1. An implicit fee arising from the spread between the spot rate and the actual rate used by the card network (e.g. Visa, Mastercard)
2. An FCY transaction fee of ~3.25%, imposed by the bank

Amaze does not impose (2), which means the only “fee” you need to be concerned about comes from (1).

First things first: you should not be comparing Amaze rates to spot, unless your alternative was to visit a money changer or use a Revolut/YouTrip type product where the rates can be very close. If you want to earn miles on your overseas transactions, then the right rate to compare Amaze to is Mastercard, because that’s what you’d have incurred had you used the credit card directly. 

Once upon a time, Amaze rates were almost indistinguishable from Mastercard’s. But at some point in May 2022, those started diverging, and the spread is currently ~2%, depending on day and currency. Amaze rates for card spending, unfortunately, are opaque- you won’t know what rate you get until the transaction is completed.

However, it should be clear that so long as you can earn equivalent rewards on Amaze + credit card versus credit card directly, Amaze still makes sense so long as the following equation holds:

Amaze spread over Mastercard (A) – InstaPoint rebates (B) < Bank FCY fee (C)

(A) is currently ~2%, (B) is up to 0.5% (though with the new 500 points per month cap it’s less consequential), and that’s less than (C)’s value of 3.25%. 

To illustrate, suppose you have an online transaction at Amazon USA, for which you could earn:

• 4 mpd with Citi Rewards Card, with 3.25% fee
• 4 mpd with Amaze + Citi Rewards Card, with 1.3% fee (1.8% spread – 0.5% rebate)

Amaze is obviously the better solution, and will be until the spread with Mastercard approaches 3% or more. 

Put it another way: if you were OK with paying a 3.25% fee to earn 4 mpd prior to Amaze, there’s no reason for you to not use Amaze, since the rewards are the same and the net fees lower.

Use Instarem app to check MCCs

I didn’t know which section to fit this under, but I thought I should mention that the Instarem app provides an easy way of checking MCCs even without spending.

All you need to do is open the Instarem app > Card > Manage > Disable in-store purchase, online-purchase, overseas transactions, magstripe transactions.

Then attempt to make a transaction. It will fail, obviously, but you can then visit the Activity tab and see what the MCC would have been had it gone through. You can then select the correct card to pair with Amaze accordingly. 

Conclusion

Apply here

T&Cs

Use code 7HK2A2 for 225 bonus InstaPoints

While the Amaze party is starting to wind down, there’s still some punch in the punchbowl, if you catch my drift. 

The way I see it, Amaze has three main use cases: 

• It turns offline transactions into online ones, making it easy to earn 4 mpd with the Citi Rewards Card and KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card
• It allows UOB cardholders to earn UNI$ at UOB$ merchants
• It’s still cheaper than using a credit card overseas, because of identical rewards, smaller spreads and InstaPoint rebates

Of course, this won’t last forever. DBS was the first bank to exclude Amaze transactions, but it certainly won’t be the last. Sooner or later, banks will start to question why they’re letting Amaze eat their FCY fees while subsidising its operations via rewards. And when they pull the plug, Amaze basically becomes another Revolut or YouTrip. 

So my advice from day one still stands: make hay while the sun shines. Every month that you can earn 4 mpd for less than the banks charge is a good month, and when the party finally ends, at least we’ll always have the memories.