We’ve had an excellent run with the amaze card, which was THE greatest abroad card to make use of for anybody desirous to earn miles however but unwilling to pay 3% – 3.5% of additional charges (on prime of awful financial institution alternate charges). Domestically, the amaze card was additionally an effective way for us UOB cardholders to bypass UOB$ retailers (which gives reductions however with the trade-off being a horrible rewards earn fee).
As of yesterday, 1 October, UOB has formally nerfed the amaze hack.
DBS first did this in 2022, and now UOB is the subsequent child on the block to observe swimsuit.
However all isn’t misplaced.
There stays a couple of choices that we are able to nonetheless use to pair with the amaze card, particularly:
- Citi Rewards
- OCBC Rewards / Titanium
Each playing cards will nonetheless yield you 4 miles per greenback (mpd) and right here’s how you should utilize them.
Observe that whenever you pair your bank cards with amaze, it allow you to save on the FCY transaction charges however since quantities are transformed into SGD, your rewards might be primarily based on the native SGD earn fee as an alternative.
Between paying the ~2% markup on amaze and earn on the native mpd fee, vs. paying ~3.5% in FCY conversion charges and a awful alternate fee for abroad mpd earn charges, the previous is mathematically a greater possibility.
Click on right here to examine pesky FCY charges whenever you use your bank card to pay overseas.
Utilizing the bare Citi Rewards card by itself will solely offer you 4 mpd for on-line transactions. Sadly, this meant that tapping your bodily card and utilizing cell in-app funds (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) wouldn’t qualify.
However there’s a loophole: you possibly can merely hyperlink your Citi Rewards card with amaze, and faucet your amaze card or use it to pay together with your cell in-app cost.
This allowed Citi Rewards cardholders to earn 4 mpd on even native spend, resembling in-person eating, groceries, buying and transport (e.g. taxis and ride-hailing).
Amaze converts all transactions into on-line spend, which implies that when paired with the Citi Rewards Card, you possibly can earn 4 mpd – capped to your first S$1,000 per 30 days.
The one exception is for travel-related transactions (resembling air tickets, inns or rental automobiles), that are particularly excluded from incomes the 4 mpd fee by Citi.
OCBC Rewards x amaze
Observe: The previous identify is OCBC Titanium, in case you’re a legacy cardholder like me.
OCBC Rewards provides 4 mpd for sure shopping-related transactions like department shops. Pairing it with the amaze card then makes it an ideal mixture for paying at abroad departmental shops – resembling Lotte Responsibility Free, and even buying retailers resembling Lululemon or Louis Vuitton – at any time when we journey.
I’ve used this combo to earn loads of miles on my US and Korea journeys, for example.
The one factor you gotta be careful for is to ensure the buying service provider you’re spending at falls beneath the whitelisted listing or classes to your OCBC Rewards playing cards. As an illustration, you may be inclined to assume that you simply’ll earn 4 mpd with this card whenever you sohop at IKEA, Greatest Denki, Courts or Harvey Norman…however that’s not the case.
Don’t have the amaze app (or card) but? Join right here to get yours!
Workaround options for abroad spend
The only approach to take care of this might be to make use of the next playing cards on this order:
- amaze x Citi Rewards: for nearly the whole lot besides travel-related transactions (so don’t use this to pay to your lodge or prepare tickets!)
- amaze x OCBC Rewards: for all my buying (ensure you verify that the service provider isn’t throughout the exclusion class first!)
- Your greatest normal spending FCY card, such because the UOB PRVI Miles (2.4 mpd) or DBS Vantage (2.2 mpd).
If you wish to maximise your miles additional, you might additionally think about including these 2 playing cards into your stack:
- UOB Visa Signature Card: in case you can hit a minimum of S$1,000 in FCY in that month. Observe that this card is just for the richer people, as a result of its min. revenue requirement of $120k to use.
- Maybank World Mastercard: provided that you possibly can clock a min. of S$4,000 per 30 days, for an uncapped 3.2 mpd on FCY spend
I personally wouldn’t hassle, since I don’t journey typically sufficient or spend that a lot in FCY annually to justify the additional trouble of getting 1 – 2 extra new playing cards only for this workaround. Nevertheless, in case you journey typically for work or holidays, and also you’re wealthy sufficient to fulfill the minimal revenue threshold or hit the minimal spend, then this may be price contemplating.
Youtrip vs. amaze: which is best? Click on right here to learn! Spoiler: amaze for miles, Youtrip in case you don’t care about incomes rewards otherwise you have a tendency to make use of money whereas abroad.
Is the amaze card nonetheless price maintaining?
For now, my reply remains to be a sure – I received’t be cancelling my amaze card but. There isn’t a robust sufficient cause to take action, since you should utilize it with Citi Rewards and OCBC Rewards to nonetheless clock $2,100 and get 8,400 miles every month.
The problem is that I used to rely closely on the amaze x UOB Girl’s mixture to pay for all my abroad meals and drinks, in addition to the amaze x UOB Krisflyer pairing for any huge ticket spending or my leftover bills as soon as my different spending caps have been hit. These will now not work from now.
We’ve had an excellent run with amaze, and it’s price maintaining a watch out to see if any banks get impressed to observe UOB and DBS of their therapy of amaze.
The worst nerf that might occur subsequent can be if Citibank decides to nerf amaze too. If that takes place, then it’d very properly kill off amaze, which is able to go away us shoppers worse off.
I definitely hope not.
With love,
Daybreak
