InstaReM's AMAZE MasterCard

[vegavega25]

.. the banks start to target instarem, their only competitive edge is the saving on forex (which is jacked up behind the scenes using a invisible rate by 1~%).

Agree. The use case will remain foreign currency spending only, because of the low mark-up on charges. At least on general spending, or for all purchases if someone (like yours truly) keeping track of bonus category-specific purchases across cards too tedious.

 

[revhappy]

Being able to earn 4mpd on the Citi rewards card because Amaze converts offline transactions to online.

Yes, I just calculated, even though I am not a miles guy and I am more of a cashback guy. Amaze with Citi 10X rewards is worth it even for pay with points, even though milelion's Aaron thinks I am stupid to do it.

Here is the calculation:
Pay with points is 374 points gives you $1.
To earn 374 points via 10X rewards means you need to spend $37.
So 1/37 = 2.7% cashback rate.
This is better than my next best card UOB absolute giving me 1.7% cashback.

Anybody can confirm my calculation is correct?

 

[chopra]

Yes, I just calculated, even though I am not a miles guy and I am more of a cashback guy. Amaze with Citi 10X rewards is worth it even for pay with points, even though milelion's Aaron thinks I am stupid to do it.
Here is the calculation:
Pay with points is 374 points gives you $1.
To earn 374 points via 10X rewards means you need to spend $37.
So 1/37 = 2.7% cashback rate.
This is better than my next best card UOB absolute giving me 1.7% cashback.
Anybody can confirm my calculation is correct?

i didnt follow e calculation but e order of magnitude looks correct.



Read HWZ Forum Rules!

 

[Bam25th]

Yup he did, the link is in my earlier post. Posting here for easy ref.

Sadly I agree with milelion's conclusion. Even if the nerf, there is still a viable use case for Amaze CRMC (for local offline spend) and overseas spending. Amaze clearly knows how far it can push the boundaries.
If Citi starts excluding Amaze though...

https://milelion.com/2022/07/01/nerfed-again-amaze-card-no-notice-cashback-devaluation/

Wow lucky I happened to see this thread by chance.

No more cashback or points for local spend? Time to dump the card…… only time to use the card is during overseas travels, but how often do I go overseas…. Zzzzzz

 

[Trazora]

Wow lucky I happened to see this thread by chance.

No more cashback or points for local spend? Time to dump the card…… only time to use the card is during overseas travels, but how often do I go overseas…. Zzzzzz

still ok to convert recurrent/offline spend to online and get 4mpd on citi rewards mc

 

[plustwo]

fintechs all desperate to cut costs because their funding is drying up. expect to shred this card by next quarter. only good news is maybe their wallet top up feature will be wrong mcc in the first few days so you can fulfil whatever min spending on new cards

 

[Bam25th]

still ok to convert recurrent/offline spend to online and get 4mpd on citi rewards mc

Hmmm but I don’t have Citibank Mc and don’t intend to apply for one just for amaze, especially since they probably will change rules in future again.

Was using sc cashback mc previously.

 

[furryballs]

With the spending quarter ending on 30 June, when will the cash rebates for Apr-Jun 22 be credited to Instarem?

 

[revhappy]

With the spending quarter ending on 30 June, when will the cash rebates for Apr-Jun 22 be credited to Instarem?

25th Jul

 

[furryballs]

25th Jul

Thanks! Will clear it out and Cold Storage the card.
Reverting to Revolut/YouTip for less uncertainty in refunds

 

[magicianofdk]

Yes, I just calculated, even though I am not a miles guy and I am more of a cashback guy. Amaze with Citi 10X rewards is worth it even for pay with points, even though milelion's Aaron thinks I am stupid to do it.

Here is the calculation:
Pay with points is 374 points gives you $1.
To earn 374 points via 10X rewards means you need to spend $37.
So 1/37 = 2.7% cashback rate.
This is better than my next best card UOB absolute giving me 1.7% cashback.

Anybody can confirm my calculation is correct?

I believe the main point of using UOB absolute (instead of other cashback card) is to topup grabpay. Things that gives point for Citi reward will definitely give points for grabpay MC.

With that said, UOB absolute + grabpay will give 1.7% +1.2%(worth of grabpoints) at least and that doesn't include the grab challenge and flash sales in grab app that is capable of pushing the overall cashback up to 4.9% worth.

In short, turning cc points to cashback isn't worth it unless in desperate times

 

[spikeling]

Yes, I just calculated, even though I am not a miles guy and I am more of a cashback guy. Amaze with Citi 10X rewards is worth it even for pay with points, even though milelion's Aaron thinks I am stupid to do it.

Here is the calculation:
Pay with points is 374 points gives you $1.
To earn 374 points via 10X rewards means you need to spend $37.
So 1/37 = 2.7% cashback rate.
This is better than my next best card UOB absolute giving me 1.7% cashback.

Anybody can confirm my calculation is correct?

Citi 15% discount on points only until 13 July... the normal conversion rate is $1 : 440 points.

 

[Ideas!!]

One case for Amaze still is avoiding the 1% foreign transaction fee on SGD transactions that are processed overseas so you can get them on the card you want but would normally charge you 1%

 

[plustwo]

someone has to bear the costs of running this card eventually and vc funding is drying up.

when they charge your card they have to pay ~2% to the payment processor and give you a 1% cashback on top of it. the only thing they can clawback some money from is the fx conversion. imagine only 10% of total transactions going through are in foreign currency. how much is their losses. this card was never meant to last. in the end they will probably breakeven by selling your spending data.

 

[silverbomb]

someone has to bear the costs of running this card eventually and vc funding is drying up.

when they charge your card they have to pay ~2% to the payment processor and give you a 1% cashback on top of it. the only thing they can clawback some money from is the fx conversion. imagine only 10% of total transactions going through are in foreign currency. how much is their losses. this card was never meant to last. in the end they will probably breakeven by selling your spending data.

not sure if this is right but i'm guessing they have arrangements for their payment processor based overseas in each of these countries (how exactly is perhaps an industry secret, especially when they are themselves Instarem a remittance company for years), and charges are 'charged' there so it's in the local currency hence they can avoid forex, but Amaze will 'slight' markup in each transactions which is where their margin comes in.

for local charge in local (SGD to SGD), there don't seem to be any markup and benefit for them in doing so (unless to sell user behaviour data to 3rd parties for consumer behaviour analytics purposes) which is perhaps why they've decidedly move to no longer give cashback aka insta points from 1 jul onwards given it's $ given out earlier during last year launch (Jul 2021) while travel is still not prevalent to encourage more take up rates of the Amaze card. Most new companies likes to dangle carrots during launch (rem Uber/Grab fight at the start, similar to Shopee, Lazada, etc) and slowly cut back once they have enough market penetration to cut back on the carrots which are deemed losses at their founding years.

 

[plustwo]

not sure if this is right but i'm guessing they have arrangements for their payment processor based overseas in each of these countries (how exactly is perhaps an industry secret, especially when they are themselves Instarem a remittance company for years), and charges are 'charged' there so it's in the local currency hence they can avoid forex, but Amaze will 'slight' markup in each transactions which is where their margin comes in.

for local charge in local (SGD to SGD), there don't seem to be any markup and benefit for them in doing so (unless to sell user behaviour data to 3rd parties for consumer behaviour analytics purposes) which is perhaps why they've decidedly move to no longer give cashback aka insta points from 1 jul onwards given it's $ given out earlier during last year launch (Jul 2021) while travel is still not prevalent to encourage more take up rates of the Amaze card. Most new companies likes to dangle carrots during launch (rem Uber/Grab fight at the start, similar to Shopee, Lazada, etc) and slowly cut back once they have enough market penetration to cut back on the carrots which are deemed losses at their founding years.

you are missing the point. the sgd to sgd transaction is already a losing proposition from the start. when they charge your cc they have to at least pay the interchange fee. even without the cashback they are already losing 2% every transaction.

 

[Ark Law]

not sure if this is right but i'm guessing they have arrangements for their payment processor based overseas in each of these countries (how exactly is perhaps an industry secret), and charges are 'charged' there so it's in the local currency hence they can avoid forex, but Amaze will 'slight' markup in each transactions which is where their margin comes in.

for local charge in local (SGD to SGD), there don't seem to be any markup and benefit for them in doing so (unless to sell user behaviour data to 3rd parties for consumer behabiour analytics purposes) which is perhaps why they've decidedly move to no longer give cashback aka insta points from 1 jul onwards given it's $ given out earlier during last year launch (Jul 2021) while travel is still not prevalent to encourage more take up rates of the Amaze card. Most new companies likes to dangle carrots during launch (rem Uber/Grab fight at the start, similar to Shopee, Lazada, etc) and slowly cut back once they have enough market penetration to cut back on the carrots which are deemed losses at their founding years.

Not really an industry secret. Simple business economics would dictate that contracting to a single payment service provider will net them a better rates (think transaction volume-based discounts) versus trying to scour "the best" in each country with 0 long-term international scalability.

The problem that these Fintechs have is that there is practically no margins to navigate with their debit card products. Unlike banks with their credit cards, penalties, fees, and charges. Even if these Fintechs have garnered a big enough user base to properly monetise, their new monetisation structure would make them not too disimilar different from a bank's card, and newer Fintechs funded by fresher VC cash will swoop in on the former Fintech's user base.

For them to be profitable, they gotta charge significant fees. And that's how Transferwise can be profitable. Charging fees for every single FX conversion and XB transfer, unlike Revolut

 

[silverbomb]

you are missing the point. the sgd to sgd transaction is already a losing proposition from the start. when they charge your cc they have to at least pay the interchange fee. even without the cashback they are already losing 2% every transaction.

i get from get-go it doesn't seem to be big benefit to them for SGD txns. however like mentioned, they may still earn (nett nett) from selling data of behaviour but this we'll never know unless someone works in Instarem

 

[silverbomb]

For them to be profitable, they gotta charge significant fees. And that's how Transferwise can be profitable. Charging fees for every single FX conversion and XB transfer, unlike Revolut

As for Transferwise, this is exactly why i don't use them because there are others that can do the same job without attracting additional fees for years. my transferwise card has been in my drawers for a long time.

Revolut still marks up on weekends so they're sorta profitting 2/7 days of the week while the rest of days in the week very low markup.

 

[plustwo]

i get from get-go it doesn't seem to be big benefit to them for SGD txns. however like mentioned, they may still earn (nett nett) from selling data of behaviour but this we'll never know unless someone works in Instarem

there is zero value proposition for the sgd transaction from the start. the only viable proposition was them probably having a 1 year agreement with the banks to not block it in exchange for sending them spending habits.