Team-BHP - Credit Card Points, what do you redeem them for

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Originally Posted by quadra (Post 2158173)

The thing with booking your tickets via miles is that you need to book well in advance. I had few points to convert and hence called up the flight cc. They told that for every flight, there is a limited %age of seats which can be booked via miles & looks like the %age is in single digit. Seats were not even available for next week from the date which i wanted the tickets for. So be careful folks.

Does the air miles pay for just the base fare or the full amount (including taxes)? I recently converted my HDFC Platinum card rewards to King Miles.

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Originally Posted by Jaguar (Post 2161410)

Does the air miles pay for just the base fare or the full amount (including taxes)? I recently converted my HDFC Platinum card rewards to King Miles.

Air miles pay for the full fare. However there does exist some nominal charges to be paid.

Couple of months back, booked a flight for a t-bhpian using my miles from MUM-DEL. Paid only 1000 odd INR i believe.

Hope this helps

I have an Amex IA card for last seven years. I accumulated a lot of points at one time and had a 10 day trip to Phuket and Bangkok. 2 x Business class fares + 10 days in hotel, all from points! The only outgo was the Government Taxes on free ticket. It was something to the tune of 3K per ticket.

I got an ICICI card when I put some money in their FD three years ago. I have accumulated a lot of points on card, but have yet to redeem them.

One good thing about Amex is that there is minimum fraud compared to Visa or MasterCard, especially in South East, so it is safe to carry. In case of loss of card you get a replacement fast and are insured against its use by third party.

To my utter shock, I just realized that i never redeemed points from my credit cards till date with a spend of roughly Rs.30,000 per month on my cards

Will try to understand sometime over this weekend, what's my total redeemable points and what i can get for them:)

I have a Stanchart Platinum rewards credit card and till date accumulated some 6000 odd points and was planning to redeem them. However the rewards catalogue has put me off. The points required to redeem for even one Shopper stop voucher of 500/- is way too high - 990 to be exact. Even a Fame Adlabs voucher of Rs 50 requires around 150 points:Shockked:. Whats the logic behind these exorbitantly priced rewards? :Frustrati

Also would like to know - is it possible to transfer the points from one card to another card of different company? Something similar to balance transfer.

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Originally Posted by ghodlur (Post 2204004)

I went through the same frustration when trying to claim the reward points from my SCB card. Then i remembered the proverb, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth". The selection process became a lot more easier after that.

I redeemed my points for Hi-Design gift vouchers (for my wife) as well as movie tickets from Fame.

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Originally Posted by shankar.balan (Post 2171997)

best gift available for redemption in my opinion is free fuel vouchers!

+1 to this. I have redeemed 3000 points for fuel (1 point = 1 rs) from my Indian oil citibank Titanium card. That's the best value on offer and that's why I tank up only from IOC pumps which gives 4 points for every 150 rs spent. Have accumulated another 1500 points on the card.
Have around 3400 point on ICICI platinum card, another 2500 on gold card and another 2500 on HDFC gold card, but the rewards catalogue is not inspiring. Will wait and accumulate more points and then cash in may be.

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Originally Posted by ghodlur (Post 2204004)

Take it philosophically. Had you bought with cash you would not have had the points! Make the best of the offers and get what you can.

I do not think that points are transferable across banks, though they are on different cards within a bank, of course with some reservations and conditions.

The logic behind the exorbitantly priced rewards is simple - take it leave it. On a more serious note the bank takes around a percentage from the merchant, as well as absorb delayed payments. Hence expect them to give you around 1/4% to 1/2% on your purchase. So if you get a point for every Rs.100 spent, your reward should be 25 to 50 paisa per point, and that is what it is most of the time.

Guys, I seek your help. Lately, I've been forced to buy over the internet and being a Debit-Card holder has its disadvantages when the same cannot be used a Credit Card is required. I require it for once in a bluemoon purchases over the internet and as per the best information I could gather, I need a 'Free for Lifetime' card. I've been asked to go for Citi or HDFC or Manhattan (due to good Customer support) and though I have a Savings Account with SBI, I've been advised against their cards.

Guys, in the context of my prospective purchase pattern and the parameters mentioned above please suggest me a good Credit Card.

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Originally Posted by tsk13 (Post 2208286)

This thread is about redeeming credit card points.

There is another thread on credit card issues, please search for it. Go through that thread to get an idea of which cards to avoid. :D

I would suggest HDFC bank platinum credit card. It is a lifetime free card and provides fuel surcharge waiver on ANY brand fuel pump on ANY bank chargeslip. :thumbs up

Rohan

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Originally Posted by Aroy (Post 2204350)

Take it philosophically. Had you bought with cash you would not have had the points! Make the best of the offers and get what you can.

I have seen that generally one point = Re 0.50 in case of cards that offer two or more points for every Rs 125.00 or Rs 150.00 spent. eg: HDFC Bank card. Even here the redemption value will differ according to silver/Gold/Platinum.

In case of cards that offer only one point for every Rs 150.00 or so spent, one point normally represents Re 1.00 at the time of redemption. eg: Citibank.

For example on my HDFC Bank Visa Signature Platinum card, for redeeming one Reebok coupon worth Rs 500, I have to surrender ~ 950 points.

For the same coupon on my Citibank Mastercard Platinum, I have to surrender only 500 points. This bank has an even better scheme; instead of redeeming from a rewards catalogue, I can buy whatever I want at a shop and adjust the points for money before the payment due date. Naturally I use my Citi card a lot more than my HFDC card!