Amex True Cashback card review: 1.5% on everything, if they take Amex

The Amex True Cashback is one of the simplest cards around: one rate, no cap, no minimum. The catch isn't the rate. It only counts at places that take Amex, and each purchase is rounded to the nearest dollar first.

Here's what it pays, how the rounding works, what earns nothing, what it costs, where Amex fits, and a worked year you can redo with your own numbers.

The True Cashback at a glance

Figures from the True Cashback Benefits Terms and Conditions, Card Member Agreement and Cashback Terms and Conditions (2026), and the Amex product page, checked 1 Nov 2026. The welcome offer is left out on purpose. Offers change often, and the product page has the current one.

How much cashback does the True Cashback give?

The Cashback Terms and Conditions set one rate: 1.5% on purchases of eligible goods and services, with no minimum spending and no earn cap. The terms set no different rate for foreign currency, so a purchase in yen earns the same 1.5% as one in Singapore dollars.

Cashback is paid every month as a credit on your statement. Purchases you've made but that haven't posted yet are counted the following month, once they post. Cashback earned on supplementary cards goes to the main cardholder's account.

A $200 grocery run earns $200 × 1.5% = $3.00. A month of $1,500 of eligible spending earns $1,500 × 1.5% = $22.50, give or take the rounding below.

Bottom line: nothing to track except where you can use it. That simplicity is the design.

Why a $12.49 lunch earns 18 cents and a $12.50 one earns 19

The terms say each purchase is rounded to the nearest dollar before the 1.5% is applied. The cashback is then taken as the exact digits to two decimal places, which means anything beyond the cents is dropped, not rounded.

The terms give their own example: a $19.50 purchase counts as $20, and earns 1.5% × $20 = $0.30. A $19.49 purchase counts as $19, which is $0.285, and earns $0.28.

On bigger purchases, the rounding barely registers. On a lot of small ones, it nibbles at the rate, because every purchase is rounded and cut on its own.

Bottom line: mostly purchases over $20 and the rate is very close to 1.5%. Mostly kopi and snacks and it's lower. Your own statement will show you.

What doesn't earn cashback

This is where the True Cashback differs from Amex's miles cards. The exclusions list (updated 21 August 2025) has a separate, shorter section for this card. As at 1 Nov 2026, it excludes: - cash advances, Express Cash and travellers cheques; - interest, finance charges, late payment charges and annual fees; - balance transfers and instalment plans; - overseas tax refunds; - public transport in Singapore, including anything with the description BUS/MRT; - top-ups to stored-value cards and wallets, including GrabPay and ShopeePay (from 30 September 2025).

What's not on the list matters as much. Insurance premiums, utilities, school fees and hospital bills, which many cards exclude, aren't named here. So a $1,200 annual insurance premium paid on this card, at an insurer that accepts Amex, would earn $1,200 × 1.5% = $18.

Bottom line: the bills other cards leave out are where this card can quietly earn. The biller has to accept Amex, and not charge a card fee that eats the 1.5%.

Where Amex is and isn't accepted

Which cards a shop takes is the shop's decision. Each card network, Visa, Mastercard and American Express, charges merchants its own fees. Some merchants accept one network and not another, or accept a network for some payments and not others.

There's no official figure I can find for the share of shops in Singapore that take Amex, so I won't quote one. Acceptance is uneven. Some hawker stalls take PayNow or NETS and no cards at all. In malls and online it's more often there, though not always. That's observation, not data, so check the places where you spend the most.

A card's rate only applies to spending that actually goes on it. If a third of your month is at places that don't take Amex, that third earns whatever your other card earns, not 1.5%.

Bottom line: when comparing, estimate how much of your usual month would really go on this card. The rest needs a card on another network.

The annual fee, and when it pays for itself

The fee is $174.40 including 9% GST, waived for the first year. From the second year, the cashback has to cover it before the card is ahead.

At 1.5%, that takes $174.40 ÷ 1.5% = about $11,627 of eligible spending a year, which is roughly $969 a month. Below that, the card returns less than its fee.

Supplementary cards: the first 2 are permanently free, and each one after that is $87.20. Their spending earns cashback for the main account.

Bottom line: under about $970 a month, check whether a fee waiver is offered at renewal, or what a card with no annual fee would pay instead.

Paying overseas

The True Cashback earns the same 1.5% on foreign currency, and Amex adds a 3.25% conversion commission (Card Member Agreement). On a $2,000 holiday paid in yen: - Cashback: $2,000 × 1.5% = $30 - Fee: $2,000 × 3.25% = $65

So overseas spending on this card costs more in fees than it earns back. If a terminal offers to charge you in SGD, the agreement says the shop then picks the exchange rate and any fees, and Amex doesn't convert it. The miles cards post goes through why the shop's rate is rarely the better deal.

Bottom line: the 1.5% overseas is not a reason on its own to use this card abroad. The fee is the bigger number.

How it compares on cashback per $1

Flat-rate cashback cards with no minimum spend, ranked by their rate on ordinary spending, as at 24 Oct 2026, from Sum's reading of each bank's terms:

Rate is only part of it. Each card has its own exclusions (the UOB Absolute pays 0.3% on some merchant types, for example), its own rounding and its own fees. And the network column decides where each card works at all.

A worked year

Say Farhan is 29, puts about $1,500 a month on the card at places that take Amex, and pays his $1,200 yearly insurance premium on it. Made-up example.

In his first year, with the fee waived, that's about $288 back. From the second year, after the $174.40 fee, it's $288 − $174.40 = about $113.60.

If $500 a month of Farhan's spending is at places that don't take Amex, his card spend drops to $1,000 a month, and the cashback to about $180 + $18 = $198, or $23.60 after the fee.

Bottom line: swap in your own monthly spend, and be honest about how much would really go on an Amex. The calculator page does the same sums: Amex True Cashback on the card rewards calculator.

Three things to remember

1. 1.5% on eligible purchases, no minimum, no cap, paid monthly. Each purchase is rounded to the nearest dollar first.
2. Its exclusions list is short. Insurance, utilities and education earn, where the merchant takes Amex. Transport and wallet top-ups don't.
3. The rate only counts where the card is accepted. Check where you spend most before relying on it.

Ethan's rating

6.5out of 10

Earn rate

• Very low
• Low
• Moderate
• High
• Very high

Effort to earn

• Effortless
• Easy
• Some effort
• Shiong
• Very shiong

Value for the fee

• Way overpriced
• Overpriced
• Fair
• Good value
• Great value

Against other cashback cards

No minimum spendCashback cards: the lower the monthly minimum, the higher the rating.

• Bottom
• Below average
• Average
• Above average
• Top

Where it earns

• DiningFair
• GroceriesFair
• TransportFair
• OnlineFair
• TravelFair
• OverseasLow
• Everything elseFair

One person's opinion, from the terms in this review. Your own spending decides what a card is worth to you.

Track it in Sum

Import your card statements. The card optimiser works out each purchase the way the terms do, rounding included, and shows what each card earned. For a flat-rate card, the useful part is the other side: which purchases went on a different card.

Ethan

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