Good Earn Rate: Get 4X InstaPoints (4% Rebate) With Instarem Amaze Until 30th June

Until 30th June 2023, you can get 4 InstaPoints for every S$1 made using your Instarem Amaze as long as the funding source is your Amaze Wallet. Since each InstaPoint is worth 1 cent each, this is equivalent to 4% rebate!

This is for either local or foreign spending, and I have found this particularly good for the latter. For my recent travels, I have been using this promo rather happily instead of charging spend to my credit cards, and I’ll show you why later.

Promo details

To take advantage of this earn rate, each transaction needs to be at least S$10 or its equivalent in foreign currency. There is also a maximum 500 points given per transaction, which means there are no additional points given after S$125 of spend.

The funding source needs to be from your Amaze Wallet rather than one of your linked credit cards. This means you need to top up the Wallet with a credit card before using the Amaze card to pay for your transactions. While Visa cards attract a 2% fee to top up the wallet, it is free for Mastercard.

There is a list of excluded MCCs which includes common suspects like wallet top-ups (6540) and hospitals (8062), but other things are a-okay and you even get the points instantly. No prior registration is required.

Not that good for local spends

When it comes to local spending in SGD, this promo may not be the best. One can easily get much higher cashback from cards like UOB EVOL and HSBC Revolution which give 6.67% cashback or 4 miles per dollar almost anywhere that accepts contactless payment.

Nonetheless, it may be a good option for those who want a relatively fuss-free 4% rebate… well, fuss-free as long as your transactions are between S$10 to S$125 each. I would personally just use one of my high-earn credit cards for spending in Singapore.

My choice for foreign spending

For foreign spending, however, I have decided that this is a better deal than paying via a linked card with Amaze.

For starters, Amaze has started to offer exchange rates that are a little further from the spot rate than what it used to offer when you use a linked credit card to pay. Spends from the wallet give significantly better forex rates.

I made a couple of foreign currency transactions on a particular day, both with a linked card and the Amaze Wallet, and here are my findings:

Payment Type	Difference From Spot	Reward Per Dollar	Effective Reward
A) Amaze Wallet	0.75%	4 InstaPoints	3.25%
B) Amaze with Linked Card	2.6%	4 miles + 1 InstaPoint	2.4 to 3.4%* (or more)
C) 4 miles per dollar Credit Card	0.75% + 3.25% fee	4 miles per dollar	0% to 1%*

A) Spending from the Amaze Wallet resulted in a rate roughly 0.75% off the spot rate, while using a linked card was about 2.6% off. The rates given matches what Mastercard’s currency converter calculator indicates.

Since each InstaPoint is worth 1 cent each, we can do a simplified calculation that spending via the Amaze Wallet would net an effective reward of around 3.25% (4% – 0.75%).

B) For spending via a linked card, we can get 1 InstaPoint + 4 miles per dollar if we use Citi Rewards as the underlying card. If we assume miles to be worth 1 cent each, the effective reward would be 2.4% (4% + 1% – 2.6%). By this calculation, spending via the Amaze Wallet makes more sense.

Of course, everyone’s valuation of a mile can be drastically different, and if you value your miles at 1.25 cents each, the effective reward from spending with Citi Rewards + Amaze now becomes 3.4%. It only gets higher here if you are someone who values miles more.

C) Just for fun, I also included the case of using a 4 miles per dollar card directly without Amaze. The results aren’t pretty; you pay a 3.25% fee and get a rate that is about the same as spending with the Amaze Wallet (thanks Prof Glen for the info).

Some considerations while using this promo

Do note that there is a minimum of 2,000 InstaPoints required to redeem for cash. This may impact your decision whether to go with Amaze Wallet; if you can’t reach 2,000 points, your total rewards might as well be nothing.

I don’t think this is too big an issue. For one, you only need S$500 worth of spend under this 4X promo to get 2,000 points. Moreover, you can get 1,000 InstaPoints if you are a new user and sign up with my link. The points given are valid for a year, and you can continue to earn InstaPoints when you spend from a linked card after this promo ends.

On the flipside, if you already have some InstaPoints in your account, this promo might be what you need to cross the minimum threshold required to cash out your InstaPoints.

My personal flow chart

Transaction Size	Payment Source	Reason
Less than S$10	Linked card	Get miles without any InstaPoints
Between S$10 to S$208*	Amaze Wallet	Get 4X points per dollar which I think is better than 4 miles per dollar
Above S$208	Linked card	4 miles per dollar starts to exceed 4X rewards

*Even though Amaze Wallet promo gives the maximum of 500 points for transactions S$125 and above, a transaction of say S$200 only gives S$4.80 worth of rewards (this is based one a 1 cent per mile valuation). You would still be better off paying it with the Amaze Wallet even though you don’t get a full 4% rebate on this transaction.

The S$208 figure will be lower if you value miles higher than 1 cent per mile. For a 1.25 cents per mile valuation, you would want to switch to a 4 miles per dollar linked card for transactions S$150 and up.

Conclusion: great for those who are overseas and don’t value miles that much

In short, this promo is excellent for those who are travelling and don’t want value miles higher than 1 to 1.25 cents per mile. It might also come in handy if your Citi Rewards is maxed out, just as mine is, and this is the next best alternative.

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