The Best Card to Top Up Instarem Amaze For Now… Free Balance Transfer?

Looking for the best card to top up your Instarem Amaze wallet? Given that the Merchant Category Code (MCC) of Amaze is 6051 which is virtually excluded from just about every credit card we can think of, the OCBC NXT card is perhaps the best card one can use to top up the Instarem Amaze wallet and get something out of it.

Cashflow is by itself a reward

As I have mentioned in my review of OCBC NXT, having cashflow in itself is a form of reward. Cash sitting in your bank account generates interest, and with bank interest as high as 3% to even 5% these days, that can be a substantial amount of money.

By my calculation, you can get anywhere between 0.88% to 1.46% of “rebates” on your top-up amount depending on the interest you get from your bank account. Again, the “rebate” is from the interest earned when your cash sits in your bank account while you pay off your OCBC NXT statements over the next few months. You should probably read my OCBC NXT review in full to know how this works.

Note that the following assumes that your transaction is at least S$1,000 so that it is broken up into a 6-month instalment:

	3% p.a.	4% p.a.	5% p.a.
Total	0.88%	1.17%	1.46%

5th July 2023 is coming

From 5th July 2023 onwards, a 2% fee is payable should you use your Amaze wallet to top up other wallets (like Grab). Until then, such top ups are at the very reasonable price of free.

Theoretically, a person could top up his/her Amaze wallet, send it over to Grab, then cash it out from there. It’s quite an interesting interaction that would net a person free cashflow, kinda like a balance transfer without charge.

It’s perhaps no wonder Amaze is imposing a fee soon, and I can’t imagine OCBC takes a positive view to such a use case. But hey, there’s more than a week to make hay while the sun is still shining. I’ve read recent accounts that OCBC card applications are super quick to process.

Scary, dangerous… bad, balance transfer bad!

For whatever reason, there are some who seem a little agitated whenever I bring up the idea of balance transfers. Might land someone in trouble, they’d say.

Personally, I feel that credit is as every bit as dangerous as people say they are if you don’t pay them off in a timely manner. Miss your credit card payment? Late fees and obscene interests. Default on your mortgage? Foreclosure of your property. Use balance transfer to invest and make losses? Well you get the picture.

The long short is: as long as you pay off such loans in timely manner and use the funds prudently, you are safe.

Otherwise, if you can’t count on yourself to do so, please stay far far away from credit cards, balance transfers, and perhaps any type of loan for that matter.

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