American Express has sent out a notification about an upcoming change to its rewards exclusion list, which takes place on 30 September 2025.
From this date, cardholders will no longer earn rewards for topping up stored value cards or digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay. This affects all rewards-earning cards, whether cashback, KrisFlyer miles, HighFlyer points or Membership Rewards points.
American Express excluding rewards for stored value facility top-ups
As expected, this announcement generated a fair bit of confusion. Weren’t GrabPay top-ups already excluded?
Indeed they were. American Express excluded GrabPay top-ups a long time ago— for its KrisFlyer and Membership Rewards-earning cards in March 2020, and the HighFlyer/True Cashback Card in April 2023.
What’s happening now is that they’re expanding the ambit. If you compare the old and revised versions (which I’ve done on Draftable), you’ll see that the following clause…
| Payments for the purpose of GrabPay top–ups (with effect from 4 April 2023); |
…has been replaced by this.
| Payments for the purpose of stored value card purchase / load / top–ups and/or the topping–up or loading of currency (or equivalent) for digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay (with effect from 30 September 2025) |
Basically, there are other stored-value cards and wallets for which rewards can be earned. For example, you can currently earn miles or points for topping up NETS FlashPay Cards, Touch ‘n Go cards, and Suica.
Each of these has their own drawbacks though. The NETS app charges S$0.50 per top-up for AMEX cards (it’s free if you do it at an MRT station), and each transaction is limited to S$100, with a maximum of five top-ups per day. With Touch ‘n Go, there is a 1% fee for credit card top-ups, plus a further 3.25% foreign currency transaction fee (though a recent FCY spending promo made it more worthwhile).
There are, of course, more exotic ways of doing things, which are rude to mention in polite company. Suffice to say, I imagine those who know will be rushing to utilise these prior to 30 September, so run Forrest run.
For the avoidance of doubt, you can still earn rewards when buying NTUC or Cold Storage vouchers, as these do not code as stored value facilities.
What else do AMEX cards exclude?
American Express keeps separate exclusions lists for its four types of cards, which can be found below.
AMEX Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Cards
a) Charges processed and billed prior to the Enrolment Date or charges prepaid on any Card Account prior to the first billing statement for that Card Account following the Enrolment Date;
b) Cash Advance and other cash services;
c) Express Cash;
d) American Express Travellers Cheque purchases;
e) Charges for dishonoured cheques;
f) Finance charges – including Line of Credit charges and Credit Card interest charges;
g) Late Payment and collection charges;
h) Tax refunds from overseas purchases;
i) Balance Transfers;
j) Instalment plans;
k) Annual Card fees;
l) Amount billed for purchase of KrisFlyer miles to top-up your miles balance;
m) Bill payments and all transactions via SingPost (e.g. SAM kiosks, mobile app, online portal);
n) Payments to insurance companies (except payments made for insurance products purchased through American Express authorized channel);
o) Payments to Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) service stations;
p) Payments for public transit in Singapore, including transactions on public trains and buses, and all transactions bearing the merchant description “BUS/MRT” (with effect from 15 May 2025);
q) Payments for the purpose of stored value card purchase / load / top-ups and/or the topping-up or loading of currency (or equivalent) for digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay (with effect from 30 September 2025);
r) Payments to utilities merchants (with effect from 12 February 2021);
s) Payments to public/restructured hospitals, polyclinics and other public/restructured healthcare institutions and facilities (with effect from 1 October 2022);
t) Transactions relating to education and other non-profit purposes (including charitable donations) (with effect from 1 October 2023);
u) Charges at merchants or establishments that are excluded by American Express at its sole discretion and notified by American Express to you from time to time.
AMEX Membership Rewards Cards
a) Charges processed and billed prior to the Enrolment Date or charges prepaid on any Card Account prior to the first billing statement for that Card Account following the Enrolment Date;
b) Cash Advances and other cash services;
c) Express Cash;
d) American Express Travellers Cheque purchases;
e) Charges for dishonoured cheques;
f) Finance charges – including Line of Credit Charges and Credit Card interest charges;
g) Late payment and collection charges;
h) Tax refunds from overseas purchases;
i) Balance transfer;
j) Instalment plans;
k) Annual Card fees and Membership Rewards fees;
l) Pay portion billed for a “Pay + Points” rewards, where the Card Member uses points along with paying a specific amount to redeem the reward;
m) Amount billed for purchase of Membership Rewards points to top-up your points balance;
n) Bill payments and all transactions via SingPost (e.g. SAM kiosks, mobile app, online portal);
o) Payments to insurance companies (except payments made for insurance products purchased through American Express authorized channel);
p) Payments to Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) service stations;
q) Payments for public transit in Singapore, including transactions on public trains and buses, and all transactions bearing the merchant description “BUS/MRT” (with effect from 15 May 2025);
r) Payments for the purpose of stored value card purchase / load / top-ups and/or the topping-up or loading of currency (or equivalent) for digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay (with effect from 30 September 2025);
s) Payments to utilities merchants (with effect from 12 February 2021);
t) Payments to public/restructured hospitals, polyclinics and other public/restructured healthcare institutions and facilities (with effect from 1 October 2022);
u) Transactions relating to education and other non-profit purposes (including charitable
donations) (with effect from 1 October 2023*); – *This exclusion does not apply to The Centurion® Card and The Platinum Card®
v) Charges at merchants or establishments that are excluded by American Express at its
sole discretion and notified by American Express to you from time to time.
AMEX True Cashback Card
a) Charges processed and billed prior to the Enrolment Date or charges prepaid on any Card Account prior to the first billing statement for that Card Account following the Enrolment Date;
b) Cash Advance and other cash services;
c) Express Cash;
d) American Express Travellers Cheque purchases;
e) Charges for dishonoured cheques;
f) Finance charges – including Line of Credit charges and Credit Card interest charges;
g) Late Payment and collection charges;
h) Tax refunds from overseas purchases;
i) Balance Transfers;
j) Instalment plans;
k) Annual Card fees;
l) Payments for public transit in Singapore, including transactions on public trains and buses, and all transactions bearing the merchant description “BUS/MRT” (with effect from 15 May 2025);
m) Payments for the purpose of stored value card purchase / load / top-ups and/or the topping-up or loading of currency (or equivalent) for digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay (with effect from 30 September 2025);
n) Charges at merchants or establishments that are excluded by American Express at its sole discretion and notified by American Express to you from time to time.
AMEX Singapore Airlines HighFlyer Cards
a) Charges processed and billed prior to the Enrolment Date or charges prepaid on any Card Account prior to the first billing statement for that Card Account following the Enrolment Date.
b) Cash Advance and other cash services.
c) Finance charges – including Line of Credit charges and Credit Card interest charges.
d) Late payment and collection charges.
e) Tax refunds from overseas purchases.
f) Balance Transfer.
g) Instalment plans, except where American Express determines otherwise.
h) Annual membership fees.
i) Amount billed for purchase of HighFlyer Points to top-up your points balance.
j) Purchase and top-up charges for EZ-Link cards using American Express Cards.
k) Bill payments and all transactions via SingPost (e.g. SAM kiosks, mobile app, online portal) (with effect from 4 April 2023);
l) Payments to insurance companies (except payments made for insurance products purchased through American Express authorized channel) (with effect from 4 April 2023);
m) Payments to Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) service stations (with effect from 4 April 2023);
n) Payments for public transit in Singapore, including transactions on public trains and buses, and all transactions bearing the merchant description “BUS/MRT” (with effect from 15 May 2025);
o) Payments for the purpose of stored value card purchase / load / top-ups and/or the topping-up or loading of currency (or equivalent) for digital wallets, including but not limited to GrabPay and ShopeePay (with effect from 30 September 2025);
p) Payments to utilities merchants (with effect from 4 April 2023);
q) Payments to public/restructured hospitals, polyclinics and other public/restructured healthcare institutions and facilities (with effect from 4 April 2023);
r) Transactions relating to education and other non-profit purposes (including charitable donations) (with effect from 1 October 2023);
s) Charges at merchants or establishments that are excluded by American Express at its
sole discretion and notified by American Express to you from time to time.
While there are small differences between the lists, these are the common exclusions:
- Charitable donations
- GrabPay top-ups
- Insurance premiums
- Public hospitals
- SimplyGo
- Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) service stations
- SingPost
- Utilities bills
Private and non-profit hospital bills, CardUp, and government services still earn rewards, to the extent that AMEX cards are accepted (fun fact: I earned miles on my Australia ETA application fee with the AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend).
Also, the AMEX Platinum Charge and AMEX Centurion Card still offer rewards for charitable donations and education. The AMEX True Cashback Card still offers rewards for charitable donations, education, utilities, and public hospitals, among others.
Conclusion
From 30 September 2025, American Express cards will exclude rewards for top-ups of stored value facilities. I’m surprised this went on for as long as it did, given the MS potential, but I suppose it’s another story to tell the younglings.
If you have, shall we say, unfinished business, make sure you settle it prior to this date.
Now that its dead, can share the hack?
Nets flash pay MS
What’s MS?
How you extract it out of flash pay?
what’s the exotic, impolite way?