Unconfirmed: Amaze x Citi Rewards pairing may be dead

While you won’t find this anywhere in the operating manual, one of the worst-kept secrets is that pairing Amaze with the Citi Rewards Card is an easy path to 4 mpd almost everywhere.

That’s because all Amaze transactions code as online, which triggers the Citi Rewards Card’s 4 mpd bonus (with exceptions for mobile wallet and travel-related transactions), capped at S$1,000 per statement month. 

However, that may no longer be the case.

I need to emphasise that nothing is confirmed at this point, and I was debating whether it was too early to cover this story.

On the one hand, I’d hate to be the cause of unnecessary alarm if all this turns out to be much ado about nothing. But on the other, I certainly think it’s worth highlighting, in case you had plans to use the Amaze x Citi Rewards combination for a big ticket transaction in the coming days. If so, it might be a good idea to hold off or switch to another option until we get further clarity. 

What’s happening with Amaze transactions on the Citi Rewards Card?

We’re still trying to piece together an exact timeline, but from what I’ve gathered in the MileChat, Amaze transactions charged to the Citi Rewards Card after a certain point on Friday 19 January 2024 only earned the base 1X points (0.4 mpd), and not the bonus 9X points (3.6 mpd).

This affects all kinds of transactions, regardless of the underlying MCC: Atome, dining, duty free, shopping, you name it. It even seems to affect MCCs that are on the Citi Rewards whitelist. For example, using Amaze + Citi Rewards at a clothes merchant does not trigger 10X, when using a naked Citi Rewards (i.e. no Amaze pairing) does.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Citi has now shut down its ThankYou Rewards Portal for Citi Rewards Cardholders, and with it the ability to check points breakdowns by day. Tracking is not impossible, of course, if you’ve built the right Excel spreadsheet. But if not, you’ll find it harder than ever to do your sums.

So far, we’ve been able to rule out a late posting of 9X. That’s because cardholders who used a naked Citi Rewards for transactions post 19 January 2024 have already seen their 9X credited. 

This leaves us with three possible explanations:

1. It’s a glitch specifically related to Amaze, which will be resolved in due course
2. Amaze no longer converts offline transactions to online ones
3. Amaze transactions are now blacklisted from the bonus 9X

(1) is the best case scenario, though it’s hard to see why there’d be a 9X glitch specifically affecting Amaze, and not other whitelisted transactions.

The bigger fear is that something has changed permanently, in which case we need to give (2) and (3) serious consideration.

Amaze no longer converts offline transactions into online ones

One reason why Citi Rewards Cardholders are earning only 1X points on Amaze could be that Amaze no longer converts offline transactions into online ones.

This can come about from a change in the way transactions are processed or tagged on the back-end, though for what it’s worth a check on the DBS digibot shows that Amaze transactions made in-store still code as online spend.

This may not be conclusive, because different banks may rely on different indicators to determine if a transaction counts as “online”. However, it’s certainly a relief if true, as it preserves another important use case for Amaze: pairing with the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card.

KrisFlyer UOB Credit Cardholders earn an uncapped 3 mpd on online shopping (provided they spend at least S$800 on SIA Group transactions in a membership year), with an extensive range of MCCs covered. Pairing it with Amaze allows you to soak up big ticket transactions that would burst the bonus caps on other 4-6 mpd cards, such as shopping at luxury boutiques.

Amaze transactions are blacklisted from 9X points

Another possibility is that Citi has decided to blacklist Amaze transactions from earning the bonus 9X points on the Citi Rewards Card.

This blacklisting wouldn’t take the form of a specific MCC, since Amaze transactions simply follow the MCC of the underlying merchant. More likely it would be an exclusion of anything with AMAZE* in the transaction description. Citi previously excluded Amaze-tagged AXS, Bus/MRT, EZ-Link and transit transactions from earning rewards, so it wouldn’t be too hard for them to implement. 

For what it’s worth, I don’t see anything new in the Citi Rewards T&Cs. Citi has announced that there will be some changes coming into effect from 1 April 2024 — which I’ve covered in a separate article — but these involve the addition of further MCCs to the travel-related blacklist and have nothing to do with Amaze per se.

Citi Rewards Card further expands travel-related blacklist

So if Citi has indeed blacklisted Amaze from the Citi Rewards Card, my theory is that it’s been snuck in under the blanket “mobile wallet” exclusion. Amaze, you’ll recall, now has a wallet function of its own, and while wallet top-ups are a completely different kettle of fish from card-linked transactions, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bank tried to make the argument.

We know, from past experience, that Citi is not above a “shadow blacklist”, as seen from the exclusion of MCCs 4111 and 4789 from the Citi Reward’s 9X bonuses notwithstanding the fact that neither is explicitly stated in the T&Cs.

Conclusion

Mark this as developing, but Amaze transactions on the Citi Rewards Card have recently stopped receiving the bonus 9X points. I expect we’ll get additional data points in the days ahead, which we’ll need before we can conclusively say the combination is dead.

Truth be told, the Amaze x Citi Rewards pairing was never a way the bank intended the card to be used (which is probably why DBS nerfed it so early on). Even if it ends up surviving this brouhaha, we need to come to terms with the fact that it’s living on borrowed time.

Have you been getting your 9X bonus points for Citi Rewards transactions post 19 January?