Those with Singapore-issued Amex cards would have received a notice of upcoming changes to its T&Cs.
Foreign Currency Transaction Fees
First, Amex will be increasing the fees for foreign currency transactions from 2.5% to 2.95%. For those not using Amex cards for overseas spend, this shouldn’t impact you much at all. In fact, Amex has had one of the lowest FCY fees in the market for sometime, so it was only a matter of time when Amex would revise it.
Earning Points and Miles
Now this may affect more of you since it involves the earning of points and miles. Essentially, Amex has added some additional spend categories that do not qualify for the earning of any points or miles. These include:
- Bill payments and all transactions via SingPost SAM kiosks and mobile app
- Payments to insurance companies (except payments made for insurance products purchased through American Express authorised channels)
- Payments to SPC
- Payments for the purpose of GrabPay top-ups
The aforementioned exclusions will take effect on 1 Mar 2020.
For those who are using their Amex KrisFlyer Ascend for GrabPay top-ups to earn 3.2 mpd on the first S$200 per month, you’ll be affected by this move. However, you’ll still continue to earn miles on other Grab services (i.e. transport and food etc.).
With regard to the exclusion for earning points and miles at SPC, this is pretty much in line with what UOB has been doing by excluding the earning of UNI$ at SPC and Shell. Nonetheless, there are still good cards out there that can earn you 4 mpd at gas stations, such as the Maybank World Mastercard.
Overall, the impact is quite limited, and if it’s any consolation at least Amex has got the courtesy to inform cardmembers of this move weeks in advance!