Instarem has just announced some major negative changes to the Amaze Card. With these changes, it’ll be harder to get value from this once popular and almost necessary card.
| 1% fee on all SGD transactions (min S$0.50 fee) |
| No more InstaPoints when you pay with a linked credit card |
| InstaPoints no longer redeemable as cashback |
| InstaPoints are redeemable for KrisFlyer miles |
We’ll break down in detail what all of these changes mean to you.
All SGD transactions will come with a 1% transaction fee
Currently, SGD transactions with the Instarem Amaze Card above S$1,000 a month come with a 1% transaction fee.
However, Instarem just announced that from 10th March 2025, all transactions made by the Instarem Amaze Card in SGD will come with a 1% transaction fee regardless of the amount spent.
Pairing Instarem Amaze with Citi Rewards Mastercard
To recap, the main use case of the Instarem Amaze card is to pair it with the Citi Rewards Card. The Citi Rewards card provides a 4 mpd bonus on most online transactions up to S$1,000 per statement month.
By pairing the Instarem Amaze Card with the Citi Rewards card, users could turn all offline transactions into online transactions, thereby effectively earning 4 mpd on almost everything.
With Instarem’s upcoming changes, it will now come with a 1% transaction fee to make transactions in SGD with the card which is untenable.
Note that there is a minimum S$0.50 transaction fee regardless of the amount spent. Therefore, it is very expensive to use the Instarem Amaze card if your transaction amount is small.
For reference, a S$1 transaction with a S$0.50 Instarem fee will mean a 50% overall fee instead of the advertised 1%. You’ll have to spend above S$50 in the transaction for the fee to be truly 1%.
Remaining Uses of Instarem Amaze
The new fee structure only affects local SGD transactions. If you’re using the Instarem Amaze card for foreign transactions, there are no changes to the fees for now.
Although there are no explicit fees for foreign transactions with the Instarem Amaze Card, it’s commonly known that the exchange rate that Instarem provides is typically 2% above the spot exchange rate (Google rate).
Your opportunity cost here will be the multi-currency cards like Youtrip which has great forex rates, or the Trust Cashback Card which provides both a great forex rate and an additional 1% cashback.
InstaPoints Transfers to KrisFlyer
InstaPoints, the reward currency by Instarem, used to be the cherry on top for using the Instarem Amaze Card. There are significant changes coming to the rewards program come March.
- InstaPoints will no longer be redeemable for Cashback. This used to be at a rate of 2000 InstaPoints to S$20.
- InstaPoints will be redeemable for Singapore KrisFlyer Miles at a rate of 1200 InstaPoints to 400 KrisFlyer miles.
- Users can only earn InstaPoints when they pay with the Instarem Wallet. No InstaPoints will be awarded when the payment is made with an underlying credit card. You’ll earn 0.5 InstaPoints for every S$1 spent with the Instarem Wallet.
With the new earn rate and redemption rate, that works out to about 0.16 mpd on the Instarem Amaze Card which is horrible.
These are bad for the InstaPoints program all around. It’ll now be much harder to earn InstaPoints as compared to before. On top of it, given the poor miles redemption rate, there’s really no reason to earn as many InstaPoints as you can.
Alternative Cards
Since the change mostly affects physical transactions made in Singapore, the alternatives will be cards that earn a high mpd rate on most general transactions.
The cards that fit in well here will be those that earn 4 mpd on contactless payments.
| Card | Earn Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
 UOB Preferred Platinum Card | 4 mpd | S$1,000 per calendar month on contactless |
 UOB Visa Signature | 4 mpd | S$2,000 per calendar month on contactless, foreign transaction |
Final Thoughts
We are getting closer to the end of the heyday provided by the Instarem Amaze Card. With new entrants to the card space such as the Trust Cashback Card and the recently refined Chocolate Finance Debit Card, it’s getting hard to find reasons to continue using the Instarem Amaze Card, especially in Singapore.
Unless your goal is to earn as many airline miles as possible, the cost to acquire these miles is getting more expensive than before. We wouldn’t be surprised for the day when Citibank finally pulls the plug and stops rewarding rewards on all Instarem transactions.
