What’s the best card to use with Amaze?

While Instarem’s Amaze Card is far from dead, I wouldn’t be surprised if the dancing pallbearers are getting warmed up. 

Over the past year, we’ve seen numerous nerfs- some from Amaze itself, like capping cardholders to 500 InstaPoints per month or adding a 1% fee for SGD transactions over S$1,000, others from the banks, like UOB’s recent move to exclude Amaze transactions from rewards. 

Long story short, while Amaze is still a useful tool for miles chasers who want to earn 4 mpd at a lower FCY fee than bank cards, or turn offline transactions into online ones, the ground beneath it is rapidly disappearing. 

Who knows whether this article will even be needed this time next year, but until then, here’s the best cards you can pair with Amaze- and those you shouldn’t. 

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💳 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 Does not earn points with DBS or UOB cards

What card should I pair with Amaze?

First, a brief reminder of the ground rules:

• Amaze transactions code as online
• Amaze transactions will be billed in SGD
• Amaze transactions retain the original MCC of the underlying transaction
• Amaze transaction descriptions are changed to AMAZE*merchant name
• Amaze can be paired with up to five Mastercard credit or debit cards
• DBS, POSB and UOB cards no longer award points for Amaze transactions
• Citi excludes certain Amaze transactions, but so long as you avoid transit-related transactions (i.e. bus/MRT/EZ-Link) you have nothing to be concerned about

Given this, there’s only two cards I would recommend for pairing. 

💳 Recommended Amaze Pairings
Card	Earn Rate	Cap
Citi Rewards Apply	4 mpd1	S$1K per s. month
OCBC Rewards Apply	4 mpd2	S$1.1K per c. month
1. 1. All online transactions except travel (airlines, hotels, rental cars, tour agency, cruises etc.)  and in-app mobile wallet (T&Cs) 2.  Clothes, bags, shoes and shopping (T&Cs)

#1: Citi Rewards Card

Citi Rewards Card
Apply
Earn Rate	4 mpd
Eligible Transactions	All online transactions except Travel and in-app mobile wallet
Capped at	S$1,000 per statement month

Since Amaze converts all transactions into online spending, any transactions charged to Amaze x Citi Rewards will earn 4 mpd on the first S$1,000 per statement month.

The only exclusion (apart from general exclusion categories like insurance and charitable donations) are travel-related transactions, which Citi defines as the following:

In other words, don’t use your Amaze x Citi Rewards to:

• Buy flight tickets
• Pay for a hotel stay
• Pay a tour agency or activities provider 
• Buy train tickets
• Book a rental car
• Book a cruise

Fortunately, there’s still many other categories where you could slot this in, like dining, groceries, shopping and transport (e.g. taxis and ride-hailing).

Explained: Citi Rewards Card blacklist for “travel-related” transactions

Another use case for Amaze x Citi Rewards is to circumvent Citi’s restriction on in-app mobile wallet payments.

As a reminder, if you add the Citi Rewards Card to Apple or Google Pay, and use Apple or Google Pay to make an in-app transaction with an app like Deliveroo or Kris+, you will only earn 0.4 mpd instead of 4 mpd.

You can solve this problem by:

1. Pairing the Citi Rewards Card with Amaze
2. Adding Amaze to Google Pay
3. Paying in-app with Google Pay using Amaze

There’s really no need to do this with Deliveroo, since the app accepts naked cards, but Kris+ forces you to pay with Apple or Google Pay.

#2: OCBC Rewards

OCBC Rewards
Apply
Earn Rate	4 mpd
Eligible Transactions	Clothes, bags, shoes and other shopping
Capped at	S$1,110 per c. month
If you have the legacy OCBC Titanium Rewards Blue and Pink cards, remember that each of them has their own 4 mpd cap.

The OCBC Rewards Card earns 4 mpd on the first S$1,110 per calendar month spent on shopping, which is defined as the following MCCs. 

Unfortunately, this is nowhere as broad as the Citi Rewards Card’s scope, so the main situation where you’d want to pair Amaze would be for overseas shopping at factory outlets, department stores and duty-free. 

OCBC also has a specific list of merchants like Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon and Taobao where bonuses can be earned, but pairing Amaze would not work in this case because bonuses are awarded based on transaction descriptions, as opposed to MCCs. Amaze modifies the transaction description, so bonuses will not be awarded.

What about general spending cards?

In addition to the Citi Rewards or OCBC Rewards Card, you could pair general spending Mastercards with Amaze.

There is a trade-off involved, however. Amaze will have a lower FCY fee than the bank (2% vs 3.25%), but since amounts are converted into SGD, you’ll be earning at the local general spending rate instead.

The workings are summarised in the table below. 

Card	With Amaze @ 2% FCY fee	Naked @ 3.25% FCY fee
Citi ULTIMA Apply	1.6 mpd 1.25¢	2 mpd 1.63¢
Citi Prestige Apply	1.3 mpd 1.54¢	2 mpd 1.63¢
OCBC 90°N MC Apply	1.3 mpd 1.54¢	2.1 mpd 1.55¢
Citi PremierMiles Card Apply	1.2 mpd 1.67¢	2.2 mpd 1.47¢
HSBC TravelOne Card Apply	1.2 mpd 1.67¢	2.4 mpd 1.35¢
Earn Rate Cost Per Mile

It clearly wouldn’t make sense to pair the Citi PremierMiles Card or HSBC TravelOne Card with Amaze, because your cost per mile with a naked card would be lower.

But even where the rest are concerned, you could derive a lower cost per mile by using a non-Amaze option.

Card	@ 3.25% FCY fee	Remarks
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Online only. Cap S$1.5K per c. month
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Online only. Cap S$1K per c. month
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Cap S$1K per c. month on bonus category
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Cap S$2K per c. month on bonus category
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Mobile contactless only. Cap S$1.1K per c. month
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd 0.81¢	Min S$1K max S$2K per s. month
Maybank World MC Apply	3.2 mpd 1.02¢	Min. S$4K per c. month
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	3 mpd 1.08¢	Selected MCCs only
Maybank Horizon Apply	2.8 mpd 1.16¢	Min. S$800 per c. month
Earn Rate Cost Per Mile

The only catch is that minimum spends and caps apply to some of the cards above, so if you’re spending very little (or a whole lot), then certain Amaze x general spending cards may make sense.

Conclusion

While DBS and UOB have left the Amaze party, the rest of the banks are still willing to dance. The bad news is that UOB took most of the punchbowl with it, and the only decent Amaze pairing left is really the Citi Rewards Card.

If it’s any consolation, even if Amaze does join Imagine and Fevo in the great beyond of plucky debit cards, there’ll still be many other options for overseas spending, with reasonable cost per mile rates.