GrabPay’s death by a thousand cuts is continuing according to schedule.
After slashed earn rates, increased redemption costs, devalued partner transfers, and the removal of points for credit & debit card payments, then for all transactions except F&B, there’s still further ways the bar can be lowered.
Effective 25 November 2022, GrabPay no longer supports e-wallet top-ups. This may sound inconsequential to some, but removes a key use case- and heaven knows there aren’t many of those left.
GrabPay removes support for e-wallets
Grab maintains a list of unsupported GrabPay transactions, for which the GrabPay Card simply won’t work. This was quietly updated yesterday, with a new addition (highlighted in red).
Why can’t I use my GrabPay Card at some merchants? Note: This article lists entities and transaction types that are not supported by the GrabPay Card. To learn more about what you can use your GrabPay Card for, please see the linked article instead. Grab is dedicated to ensuring you have a fuss-free payment experience. However, if you’re unable to use your GrabPay Card at some merchants, it may be because the merchant or entity is unsupported. All merchants have a Merchant Category Code (MCC), which we use to verify the merchant type. You may refer to the list below for the types of merchants and transactions that are not supported:
Please note that we review and update this list on a regular basis. |
GrabPay Cards can no longer be used to top-up prepaid wallets like Amaze, Revolut or YouTrip. This matters because topping up Revolut was one of the last remaining use cases for GrabPay.
The idea is that you’d top-up GrabPay with one of the following cards to earn 1.8 mpd or 1.5/1.7% cashback.
| 💳 Cards for GrabPay Top-Ups | ||
| Card | Earn Rate | Remarks |
 AMEX HighFlyer CardApply | 1.8 mpd | Only for owners of SMEs |
 AMEX True Cashback CardApply | 1.5% cashback | No cap |
 UOB Absolute Cashback CardApply | 1.7% cashback | No cap |
You’d then use your GrabPay Card to top-up Revolut, and use your Revolut balance for:
- Bank transfers (e.g. allowance, reimbursements, rental)
- Withdrawing up to S$350 of cash at overseas ATMs with no fees
| ❓ Why not just top-up Revolut directly? |
| Revolut does not support top-ups from AMEX cards. Therefore, the only way to move funds from AMEX to Revolut was through the GrabPay Card, which is on the Mastercard network |
It was basically a way of earning free miles or cashback, limited only by Revolut’s and GrabPay’s S$30,000 annual limit (i.e. 54,000 miles or S$510 of cashback each year).
For what it’s worth, there’s still two uses for GrabPay.
You can still top-up GrabPay with a prepaid wallet
Here’s an crucial point of distinction: you can no longer use GrabPay to top-up a prepaid wallet, but you can use a prepaid wallet to top-up GrabPay.
This is important, because it’s the easiest way of liquidating your Amaze cashback. Amaze recently launched its InstaPoints redemption catalogue, which allows cardholders to redeem points for cashback at a rate of 2,000 InstaPoints= S$20.
If you don’t fancy spending that money through the Amaze Card, you can instead use it to top-up a GrabPay account. Since the Amaze Card is a debit card, any amounts topped up are considered a transferrable balance, which can be sent to your bank account.
You can still use GrabPay for AXS
GrabPay Cards can still be used for AXS payments, which include a whole range of bills you normally can’t earn credit card rewards for.
| ✔️ AXS- Supported Payments | |
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It’s a simple matter of going to AXS e-station, entering your bill details, then selecting Credit Card > Other Banks on the payment screen (notwithstanding the fact the GrabPay Card is technically a debit card).
Complete the payment, and you’ve just earned 1.8 mpd or 1.5/1.7% cashback on these transactions.
Conclusion
GrabPay Cards can no longer be used to top-up e-wallet accounts, which eliminates the GrabPay > Revolut pathway. That was an easy source of miles or cashback for some users, since it’s still possible to earn rewards for GrabPay top-ups.
If it’s any silver lining, you can still use other e-wallets to top-up GrabPay, or use GrabPay for AXS transactions. No one knows how long those two will be possible, so make hay while you still can.
Wow how useless Grab has become. Is there any other way to top up revoult/trip using amex now?
See la, talk so much and now everyone suffers because of it
Moronic comment
25 November 2022 wasn’t just like any other black friday prior;
It was the darkest friday i had in my entire life.
Does anyone know if balance from youtrip can be used to top up grab still? Thanks
No, blocked on YouTrip’s end
Started to fail topping up Grab via Amaze. (started yesterday)
Just managed to top up Grab via Amaze wallet, albeit for a small sum of $20 only.
Also can’t topup grab from amaze (for a few months now)
I have no issues topping up grab with my amaze card (tried yesterday)
Any other way to take out balance from grabpay? Got 5k stuck in there because of this.. Now grabpay is useless
No way if it is from credit card.
But You can order grab food every meal
You can pay your taxes at AXS with it?
You may add in your bank account details and transfer the money out to your bank account.
Never knew you could use to top up revolut then cash out. Seems like the perfect way to create free money by cycling the UOB cashback card for free $510 yearly.
you think too lightly of Revolut’s robust AML system.
There had been another route to do exactly this. I had collected $510 this year, and my wife had collected about $400, before the route was closed sometime in October. It is getting much harder to find those paths to make free money now ! 🙂
Here I was waiting for 1st Jan for my limit to reset so I could use Amex->GPMC->Revolut again. Oh well.
i thought i was the only one doing it. was trying to save the last 5k grab wallet limit till Dec to get free $$
Lol, me too 🙂 Now the usecase for both Grab and for UOB Absolute credit card is so much reduced. Revolut I already uninstalled the app. Now I am keeping Grab and UOB absolute only for the AXS tax payment.