We’ve had an excellent run with the amaze card, which was THE finest 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). Regionally, the amaze card was additionally an effective way for us UOB cardholders to avoid 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 following child on the block to comply with go well with.
However all isn’t misplaced.
There stays a number of choices that we will nonetheless use to pair with the amaze card, specifically:
- Citi Rewards
- OCBC Rewards / Titanium
Each playing cards will nonetheless yield you 4 miles per greenback (mpd) and right here’s how you need to use them.
Observe that if 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 can be based mostly on the native SGD earn fee as a substitute.
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 if 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 may 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, reminiscent of in-person eating, groceries, buying and transport (e.g. taxis and ride-hailing).
Amaze converts all transactions into on-line spend, which signifies that when paired with the Citi Rewards Card, you may earn 4 mpd – capped to your first S$1,000 per 30 days.
The one exception is for travel-related transactions (reminiscent of air tickets, accommodations or rental automobiles), that are particularly excluded from incomes the 4 mpd fee by Citi.
OCBC Rewards x amaze
Observe: The previous title is OCBC Titanium, in the event you’re a legacy cardholder like me.
OCBC Rewards offers 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 – reminiscent of Lotte Responsibility Free, and even buying retailers reminiscent of Lululemon or Louis Vuitton – each time we journey.
I’ve used this combo to earn loads of miles on my US and Korea journeys, as an example.
The one factor you gotta be careful for is to ensure the buying service provider you’re spending at falls below the whitelisted listing or classes in your OCBC Rewards playing cards. For example, you may be inclined to suppose that you just’ll earn 4 mpd with this card if you sohop at IKEA, Finest Denki, Courts or Harvey Norman…however that’s not the case.
Don’t have the amaze app (or card) but? Enroll right here to get yours!
Workaround options for abroad spend
The only strategy to take care of this may be to make use of the next playing cards on this order:
- amaze x Citi Rewards: for nearly all the things besides travel-related transactions (so don’t use this to pay in your lodge or practice tickets!)
- amaze x OCBC Rewards: for all my buying (be sure to examine that the service provider isn’t inside the exclusion class first!)
- Your finest 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 would additionally think about including these 2 playing cards into your stack:
- UOB Visa Signature Card: in the event you can hit no less than S$1,000 in FCY in that month. Observe that this card is just for the richer of us, on account of its min. earnings requirement of $120k to use.
- Maybank World Mastercard: provided that you may 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 usually sufficient or spend that a lot in FCY annually to justify the additional problem of getting 1 – 2 extra new playing cards only for this workaround. Nevertheless, in the event you journey usually for work or holidays, and also you’re wealthy sufficient to satisfy the minimal earnings threshold or hit the minimal spend, then this may be value contemplating.
Youtrip vs. amaze: which is best? Click on right here to learn! Spoiler: amaze for miles, Youtrip in the event you don’t care about incomes rewards otherwise you have a tendency to make use of money whereas abroad.
Is the amaze card nonetheless value preserving?
For now, my reply remains to be a sure – I gained’t be cancelling my amaze card but. There isn’t a powerful sufficient cause to take action, since you need to use it with Citi Rewards and OCBC Rewards to nonetheless clock $2,100 and get 8,400 miles every month.
The difficulty is that I used to rely closely on the amaze x UOB Woman’s mixture to pay for all my abroad meals and drinks, in addition to the amaze x UOB Krisflyer pairing for any large ticket spending or my leftover bills as soon as my different spending caps have been hit. These will not work from now.
We’ve had an excellent run with amaze, and it’s value preserving an eye fixed out to see if any banks get impressed to comply with UOB and DBS of their remedy of amaze.
The worst nerf that would occur subsequent could be if Citibank decides to nerf amaze too. If that takes place, then it would very nicely kill off amaze, which can go away us shoppers worse off.
I definitely hope not.
With love,
Daybreak
