YouTrip vs Wise vs Revolut vs Amaze in Singapore (2026): The Real Cost of Your Overseas Spend, Per $1,000

Most Singapore travelers pick a multi-currency card the same way they pick a phone plan: somebody at lunch said "use YouTrip" and that became the answer for life. The card you carry quietly costs you $5 to $80 per $1,000 of overseas spend that you never see itemised.

All four contenders here are genuinely good. None of them is a bad choice. But each is optimised for a very different person, and the gap between picking the right one and picking the wrong one widens fast once you start spending real money abroad.

This post does what every other comparison refuses to do: work out the actual dollar cost on three real scenarios, citing the official fee pages of all four providers. No "best card overall" verdict, because there isn't one. The right card depends on how you spend.

Last verified: 5 May 2026, with all rates and fees pulled from each provider's official Singapore pricing page.

Table of Contents

1. The 3 things that actually decide your overseas spend cost

2. YouTrip - the no-thinking pick for occasional travel

3. Wise - the long-stay multi-currency holder

4. Revolut - the high-spender with weekday discipline

5. Amaze - the miles-stacker hybrid (with caveats)

6. Side-by-side: every fee that matters

7. Three real scenarios with dollar maths

8. Which card is actually right for you

1. The 3 things that actually decide your overseas spend cost

Strip away the marketing and there are exactly three numbers that determine how much an overseas transaction costs you.

• The exchange rate spread - The gap between the rate the card gives you and the actual interbank rate. This is where 80% of the cost lives. A 1% spread on a $5,000 trip is $50.
• Fixed and percentage fees on top - Top-up surcharges, ATM withdrawal fees, weekend surcharges, fair-usage fees once you cross a monthly limit. Smaller numbers individually, but they stack.
• What you give up in rewards - A pure FX card pays no miles or cashback. Spend $5,000 abroad on YouTrip versus a 4 mpd miles card and you have given up roughly $300 of redeemable miles. That is a real cost too.

The honest framework is this: total real cost = (FX spread + explicit fees) minus (rewards earned). The card with the cheapest FX is not always the cheapest card. The card that earns the most miles is not always the most rewarding. Run your own numbers against your own travel pattern.

Before you commit, also check whether the credit cards already in your wallet are doing useful work overseas. A surprising number of Singapore cards waive the annual fee and quietly include free travel insurance and miles on overseas spend, which can change the maths.

2. YouTrip - the no-thinking pick for occasional travel

YouTrip remains the default Singapore travel card for a reason. The fee schedule is genuinely simple, the wholesale exchange rate is real, and almost nothing costs anything until you withdraw cash.

What you actually pay

• Annual fee - Free
• Card issuance and setup - Free
• Top-up via PayNow, FAST, Mastercard or Visa debit - Free
• Top-up via Visa credit card - 1.5% service fee
• Currency exchange in app - Free, at Mastercard wholesale rate across 150+ currencies
• Overseas card spend - Free, no transaction fee, no FX markup
• Overseas ATM withdrawal - Free up to S$400 per calendar month, then 2% (the foreign ATM operator may charge their own fee on top)
• Card replacement - S$10

Where it actually wins

For a once-or-twice-a-year traveler doing $2,000 to $5,000 of overseas spend, YouTrip is hard to beat on a pure cost basis. Zero markup, zero monthly fees, and the in-app currency exchange genuinely uses the wholesale rate (you can sanity-check it against XE.com).

It also handles online USD subscriptions like Netflix or Apple One cleanly. Pre-load USD when the rate looks favourable, set the card as the payment method, and your monthly bill is locked at your top-up rate.

Where it loses

No miles, no cashback, ever. If you are spending $10,000 a year overseas, you are leaving $300 to $600 of miles on the table compared to a stack like Amaze plus a 4 mpd card. The S$400 monthly free ATM cap is also low for anyone doing a long-stay trip in a cash-heavy country like Japan or Vietnam.

YouTrip official sources: the fees overview and the YouTrip ATM withdrawal article both confirm the numbers above.

3. Wise - the long-stay multi-currency holder

Wise is the card you want if you genuinely live in multiple currencies, send international transfers regularly, or get paid in foreign currency. As a pure travel-spend card, it is fine but slightly more expensive than YouTrip on most pairs.

What you actually pay

• Card issuance - S$8.50 (digital card free)
• Annual fee - None (no subscription)
• Express delivery - From S$16
• Card replacement - S$4 (free for expired cards)
• Top-up to your Wise account from a Singapore bank - Free
• Currency conversion - Mid-market rate plus a variable fee per currency. SGD to USD is about 0.25%; major travel currencies like JPY, EUR, THB and KRW are typically 0.36% to 0.5%; exotic pairs go higher
• Overseas ATM withdrawal - Free up to S$100 per month, then 1.75% on the amount above S$100. ATM operator may also charge
• Local Singapore ATM withdrawals - Not allowed
• Topping up external e-wallets - 2%

Where it actually wins

If you hold balances in multiple currencies (USD salary, GBP pension, EUR rental income), Wise is unmatched. You can convert at the mid-market rate, hold the balance, and spend straight from the right currency wallet abroad with effectively zero spread on that leg.

Wise also publishes its conversion fees in advance and shows you the total before you commit. That transparency is rare. Pricing for the card is documented in full on the Wise card-fees page.

Where it loses

For a typical Singapore traveler who only converts SGD to JPY for a Tokyo trip, the 0.41% conversion fee on JPY is a real cost that YouTrip does not charge. It also has the lowest free ATM allowance of all four cards (S$100/month vs S$350-S$400 for the others).

And there are no miles or cashback. Ever. Same downside as YouTrip on the rewards front.

4. Revolut - the high-spender with weekday discipline

Revolut is the most rules-heavy card of the four, and most casual users never read past the headline "free FX" claim. Get the rules right and the free Standard plan is genuinely competitive on big-ticket weekday spend. Get them wrong and you can pay 1% to 2% more than YouTrip on the same purchase.

What you actually pay (Standard plan)

• Plan subscription - Free
• First Revolut card - Free, S$4.99 delivery fee
• Top-up from a Singapore bank - Free
• Top-up from cards - 0.30% (SG-issued Visa debit) to 2.08% (international consumer debit), per the Standard fees page
• Currency exchange - Free up to S$5,000/month combined across all currencies; 1% fair-usage fee on any amount above
• Weekend surcharge - Additional 1% on any FX done outside Foreign Exchange Market Hours (Friday 5pm New York time to Sunday 6pm New York time). For a Singapore traveler, that means most of Saturday afternoon to Monday morning local time
• Overseas ATM withdrawal - Free up to S$350/month or 5 withdrawals/month (whichever comes first); 2% or S$1.49, whichever is higher, above
• Local Singapore ATM withdrawals - Not allowed

Where it actually wins

Two specific people will love Revolut. First, the high-volume Singapore-based weekday traveler with under S$5,000/month of FX spend who can avoid weekend transactions. They get genuinely free FX at competitive rates with no per-transaction surcharge.

Second, the heavy traveler who upgrades to Premium or Metal. Premium lifts the free FX limit to S$15,000/month and removes the weekend surcharge entirely. Metal removes the FX limit completely and adds 1.5% cashback on card payments. For someone doing $30,000+/year of overseas spend, the maths can pencil out.

Where it loses

Revolut sets its own exchange rate, not strictly mid-market. The rate is competitive but not always the absolute best, and the spread is not published. For weekend shopping (Saturday brunch in Bangkok, Sunday outlet mall in Tokyo) the additional 1% surcharge stacks with that rate, so a single weekend purchase can cost 1% to 1.5% more than the same purchase on YouTrip.

The S$5,000/month FX cap also catches anyone funding a holiday from a single Revolut top-up. A $3,000 Tokyo trip, a $1,500 KrisFlyer flight, and a $1,000 Klook booking in the same calendar month would push you S$500 over and trigger the 1% fair-usage fee on that excess.

5. Amaze - the miles-stacker hybrid (with caveats)

Amaze is the contrarian pick. On paper its FX is worse than the other three. In practice, the right user pairs it with a 4 mpd miles credit card and comes out ahead on net cost once miles value is counted. The wrong user just pays the 2.1% spread and loses.

What you actually pay

• Annual fee, card issuance, replacement - Free
• Top-up via PayNow or linked bank - Free
• Top-up via Apple Pay - 1.5% (minimum S$0.50)
• Wallet mode (spend from Amaze SGD balance) - Free domestically, free abroad, no extra FX markup beyond Amaze's rate
• Linked card mode for SGD transactions - 1% fee, minimum S$0.50
• Linked card mode for FX transactions - Up to 2.1% FX spread, which Amaze positions as cheaper than the typical 3.25% to 3.5% bank FX admin fee
• Overseas ATM withdrawal - 2% fee

How the miles stack actually works

In linked card mode, Amaze charges the FX transaction to your linked Mastercard credit card in SGD. Your bank sees a domestic SGD transaction, not a foreign one. If the linked card earns miles on general spend, you collect miles on what was originally a foreign transaction.

The popular Singapore stacks are UOB PRVI Pacific (4 mpd on overseas spend converted to SGD via Amaze), Citi PremierMiles (1.2 mpd general, 2 mpd overseas), and KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card (3 mpd overseas via Amaze in some periods). Always check current earn rates with your bank before relying on them.

Where it actually wins

On a $5,000 overseas trip with a 4 mpd linked card, the maths typically looks like this: $5,000 x 2.1% = $105 in FX spread, but $5,000 x 4 mpd = 20,000 KrisFlyer miles. At a conservative 1.5 cents/mile redemption value (economy short-haul), those miles are worth $300. Net benefit: $195 versus YouTrip's $0.

That benefit is real only if (a) you actually redeem your miles for value above 1.5 c/mile, (b) the linked card grants miles on the SGD transaction (not all do, and not all merchants), and (c) you do not let miles expire.

Where it loses

The big risk: many merchants and platforms have been re-categorised by Mastercard so that the SGD transaction is treated as an excluded MCC (typical exclusions include insurance, education, government payments, utilities, real-estate, and some travel agencies). When that happens you pay the 2.1% spread and earn zero miles.

For someone who does not redeem miles strategically, or whose preferred linked card excludes Amaze MCCs, the net effect is a 2.1% loss on every FX transaction. That is worse than every other card on this page.

6. Side-by-side: every fee that matters

All four cards on the same page, with the same line items. Where a feature differs between plans, the row reflects the free/default plan unless stated.

Amaze is intentionally not in the table above. It is structurally different (it routes the cost through a linked credit card) and the only fair comparison is on a per-scenario basis, with the linked card's miles included. That is what section 7 does next.

7. Three real scenarios with dollar maths

Three scenarios that cover the bulk of how Singaporeans actually use these cards. All numbers are total cost on the same SGD-equivalent spend, all assume weekday transactions unless flagged, and all include the explicit fees and a fair estimate of the FX rate gap. Miles are valued conservatively at 1.5 cents per mile.

Scenario A: $3,000 7-day Tokyo trip, all card spend, no ATM

Pure cost: YouTrip wins. Net of rewards: Amaze wins by $117 if (and only if) you actually redeem the miles at 1.5 c/mile or better. If you do not redeem miles regularly, YouTrip is $63 cheaper than Amaze and just as easy.

Scenario B: $500 weekend Bangkok trip with $200 cash withdrawal

YouTrip wins outright again on small weekend trips. Revolut's weekend surcharge specifically punishes Friday-to-Sunday holiday-mode spending, which is precisely when most leisure travelers actually use the card. Amaze's miles do not quite cover the spread on a small spend.

Scenario C: $1,200/year of recurring USD subscriptions (Apple One, Netflix, OpenAI, etc.)

For predictable recurring USD spend, Wise and YouTrip are essentially free, Revolut's weekend trap is unpredictable, and Amaze can be net positive but is exposed to MCC risk on subscription merchants (some streaming services have been recategorised in the past). For maximum safety with zero thinking, pre-load USD on YouTrip once a year when SGD is strong.

8. Which card is actually right for you

Skip the "best card overall" framing. Match the card to your actual travel pattern.

• Occasional traveler ($2K-$5K/year overseas spend, 1-2 trips) - YouTrip. The simplicity and zero markup beats every alternative on cost-per-decision.
• Heavy traveler with disciplined weekday spending ($10K-$30K/year) - Revolut Premium or Metal. The S$15K-unlimited free FX limit, removed weekend surcharge, and Metal cashback compound at this volume.
• Long-stay or expat with multi-currency income - Wise. Holding balances in real currencies and converting at mid-market is the only proper answer.
• Miles chaser who will actually redeem - Amaze plus a 4 mpd card (UOB PRVI Pacific is the popular pick). Net positive only if you redeem miles strategically and accept the MCC risk.
• Recurring USD subscriptions only - YouTrip with a one-time annual USD top-up when the SGD looks strong. Free, predictable, no MCC risk.
• Cash-heavy destination (Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, rural Indonesia) - YouTrip if you can stay under S$400/month ATM, otherwise pair it with a no-FX-fee credit card for cash advances. Wise is the wrong card here because of the S$100 free ATM cap.

It is also entirely reasonable to hold two of these. A common combination is YouTrip as the daily driver plus Amaze for big ticket bookings where the linked-card miles materially help. The cards are free to issue and free to hold, so the only cost is your wallet space.

If you spend a lot of time in Johor, the calculation flips again. Most JB merchants accept QR payments via Singapore banking apps that route through PayNow at zero FX fee, so a multi-currency card is often the wrong tool. There are smarter ways to handle a JB day trip without a forex card.