[Gansan]

Originally Posted by nowwhat?

Turns out she forgot to press Enter after keying in the amount. When I entered my PIN, that got appended to the amount that was already there.

Took me about an hour until they figured out how to void the transaction.

A year ago, the stabilizer of my fridge went kaput one night and I went shopping for a new one, since we were getting high voltage. It was about 9.30 PM, and I went to a shop near my home. Bought a stabilizer for Rs 1230.00, paid by credit card and entered PIN in the machine. Naturally, no amount was visible. Got a shock when I received an instant sms from Citibank that I had just spent Rs 123000.00 at so and so shop!

It was a small shop and the chap was an only employee. He tried and tried to void the transaction and failed. Then he called his boss, who had left some time earlier. I spoke to boss and he said he had already reached home, and will come and void the transaction the next day. I was waiting when they came to open the shop. Despite repeated attempts, he could not void it either. We took the machine to the nearest Axis bank where this chap had his account, and sought the help of the manager. She informed void has to happen on the same day of transaction else settlement alone is the option.

This fellow said they will deduct 1.5% if he went for settlement and he can't lose the money. I said it was not my mistake. It was a deadlock. Finally he said if I agreed to forego the percentage he was to lose, he will make settlement and pay me the cash immediately. I was tired of the arguments and agreed. Fortunately my card due date was more than a month away, so put the money in a short term deposit till the due date and recouped some of my loss.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by Parth46

AMEX is more than happy to waive it off if you have a good spend pattern and spend beyond atleast a certain threshold every year. I try to charge almost every card transaction on my AMEX, and haven't paid a single penny in annual fees over the last 5 years I've had AMEX cards.

Acceptance is also getting better by the day, and works well for the outlets I frequent in a city like Bangalore.

I really don't think any other card comes close from a benefits POV, except perhaps the very elite ones with a hefty fee.

You must be high spender or a very good negiotiator. I used the Gold charge card for a couple of years and the Platinum Travel card for one. I could only manage a fee waiver of 50%.

Yes the benifits are good but I always found difficulty in acceptance. Most big spends usually happened on other cards since the shops were willing to offer a better discount for other cards or they had some cashback offer.

Never used Amex for fuel because they don't waive off the surcharge.

Last year I redeemed indigo vouchers worth about 10k from Amex. If I deduct the 5k odd I paid for card fees, the net benefit was only 5k. Compare this to the 4k cashback I got from HDFC for an 80k spend. With no annual fee and wider acceptance, I feel I got a better deal from HDFC.

[amitpunjani]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

You must be high spender or a very good negiotiator. I used the Gold charge card for a couple of years and the Platinum Travel card for one. I could only manage a fee waiver of 50%.

Yes the benifits are good but I always found difficulty in acceptance. Most big spends usually happened on other cards since the shops were willing to offer a better discount for other cards or they had some cashback offer.

Never used Amex for fuel because they don't waive off the surcharge.

Last year I redeemed indigo vouchers worth about 10k from Amex. If I deduct the 5k odd I paid for card fees, the net benefit was only 5k. Compare this to the 4k cashback I got from HDFC for an 80k spend. With no annual fee and wider acceptance, I feel I got a better deal from HDFC.

In today world when privacy is a myth, trust me Amex is the best when it comes to providing services. I have been using Amex from past 5 years and there are phenomenal. Swear by the customer services they provide, absolutely top notch!!

Yes, there aren't widely accepted, but those instances are rare, there the cash works!!

[BenjiRoss]

Originally Posted by Gansan

An yer ago, the stabilizer of my fridge went kaput one night and I went shopping for a new one, since we were getting high voltage. It was about 9.30 PM, and I went to a shop near my home. Bought a stabilizer for Rs 1230.00, paid by credit card and entered PIN in the machine. Naturally, no amount was visible. Got a shock when I received an instant sms from Citibank that I had just spent Rs 123000.00 at so and so shop!
.

One option you have is to call your credit card company immediately and request a decline in the transaction. It may work.
For my HDFC card, any unusual spend results in an immediate phonecall asking if the transaction is genuine.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

One option you have is to call your credit card company immediately and request a decline in the transaction. It may work.
For my HDFC card, any unusual spend results in an immediate phonecall asking if the transaction is genuine.

May be a genuine typo from the store. Please go back with your credit card and the receipt for the transaction. Ask the vendor to reverse the earlier transaction and charge the new one.

It happened in my case, though in reverse. Some newbie employee billed me 18.00 rupees for an apparel purchase instead of 1800/- In fact I was the one who pointed it out to her and the look of fear mixed with relief on her face was worth seeing!

[nareshov]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

...
Never used Amex for fuel because they don't waive off the surcharge.
...

Received a mail from AMEX today:

Did you know, using your American Express® Card for buying fuel at HPCL fuel stations is a smart way to great savings! Simply start using your Card across various HPCL fuel stations in India and enjoy 0% surcharge on transactions of up to Rs.25,000.

0.3% surcharge on transactions above Rs.25,000.

[SpoiledBratt]

Originally Posted by nareshov

Received a mail from AMEX today:

I have recently started using AMEX credit card and they really offer superb benefits ofcourse if you spend. Yes there is no surcharge if you get the fuel filled at HPCL, any non-HPCL outlet yes you will be charged. Received an email today from AMEX containing Rs.700 voucher for bookmyshow.

Originally Posted by heydj

I have American Express Gold Card. Against 18K points got Rs 7.5k at conversion rate of almost 0.42.

Delving deep into spend against points - if I spend Rs 4k in four Rs 1k individual transaction every month then I get 1k points. This means every 18 months I get 18k points or if I spend Rs 72k then I get 18K points, which further I redeem for Rs7.5k.

That means I get 10.42% of my money back provided I do the spends as given above.

Can someone confirm if there is any other credit card that gives better returns?

Hey, I dont know if you are aware that if you swipe out 8 trnxs of more than 1k each you earn yourself a 1000 rs. Bookmyshow voucher. I am told about this. Because this is my first usage month i am eagerly waiting for this to happen.

[binand]

Originally Posted by SpoiledBratt

Hey, I dont know if you are aware that if you swipe out 8 trnxs of more than 1k each you earn yourself a 1000 rs. Bookmyshow voucher. I am told about this. Because this is my first usage month i am eagerly waiting for this to happen.

You might want to consider that if you don't swipe those 8 transactions of Rs. 1000 each but just swipe for Rs. 1000 on BMS, you will end up watching all those movies and yet with Rs. 8000 in the bank.

And the OP's 10.42% return over 18 months - if he doesn't swipe those 4 transactions of Rs. 1000 each month but simply open an RD of Rs. 400 for 18 months, he'll still have that Rs. 7500 extra and also 18 x 3600 = 65K unspent.

In other words, don't spend on credit simply for the rewards. Don't spend more than you can afford. It is easy to lose control, and quite difficult to get your life back on track.

Incidentally - on my Citibank (Debit) Card I get Rs. 1000 worth of tickets every month (or 6 tickets, whichever limit is hit first) on BMS without having to spend anything at all (it is a buy-one-get-one-free scheme, so I have to buy one ticket to get one free). That is the kind of reward I like.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

One option you have is to call your credit card company immediately and request a decline in the transaction. It may work.
For my HDFC card, any unusual spend results in an immediate phonecall asking if the transaction is genuine.

My first action was to call Citibank to reverse the transaction, but they declined, saying the only way was for the dealer to void it. If we enter the PIN, we have approved it.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by amitpunjani

In today world when privacy is a myth, trust me Amex is the best when it comes to providing services.

Can you explain how Amex provides more privacy compared to other cards?

[Parth46]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

You must be high spender or a very good negiotiator. I used the Gold charge card for a couple of years and the Platinum Travel card for one. I could only manage a fee waiver of 50%.

Yes the benifits are good but I always found difficulty in acceptance. Most big spends usually happened on other cards since the shops were willing to offer a better discount for other cards or they had some cashback offer.

You could say I'm both, but I've never needed to negotiate with them at all regarding annual fee waiver. I just call them and they're always more than happy to reverse all of that based on my spend with them - yes, it does amount to at least a couple of lacs every year, cos I travel a fair bit and put it all on my AMEX cards. Even my day to day spending is done with my gold charge card and some online payments are configured for auto debit with AMEX as well.

Their superlative customer support is the icing on the cake, and I feel they've got the best, most professional support in this industry right now.

[rkg]

HDFC Regalia card
Each point is = Rs 0.75 if redeemed at www.hdfcregalia.com
Just now recharged my mobile with Rs 425. Point used were 567.
If one takes into consideration of 4 points per Rs 150 spent, it is equal to 2% discount on every transaction through card

[Akshay1234]

So just redeemed a bit over half the points we had gathered on the Citi Prestige card, and converted them to JP miles. Each point is worth 4 JP miles. And what do you know, my moms ticket in business class to London is turning out to be free So what would have normally cost 1.3l, is coming at a cost of a few thousand in taxes.

Have also got the HDFC Infinia, but with the Prestige I just don't end up using that card.

[Pancham]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

So just redeemed a bit over half the points we had gathered on the Citi Prestige card, and converted them to JP miles. Each point is worth 4 JP miles. And what do you know, my moms ticket in business class to London is turning out to be free So what would have normally cost 1.3l, is coming at a cost of a few thousand in taxes.

Have also got the HDFC Infinia, but with the Prestige I just don't end up using that card.

I believe the amount of taxes would be too high. As per my understanding redeeming jp miles for international air tickets is not value for money. Since almost 50% of the fare is taxes. So you end up spending a lot of miles and still paying a lot in taxes. Whereas domestic tickets turn out to be very cheap.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by sriharsha_m87

It used to be offline process and the cashback used to be from next billing cycle and the whole process used to take almost 10 days.

Recently they added a new option to the rewards redemption page where you can convert reward points to cash online, I used it a couple of days back and got the amount reflected in CC statement the very next day.

Thanks for sharing! I was about to submit an offline request.

Originally Posted by sriharsha_m87

I converted 2171 points and I got Rs. 868 at 0.4 conversion rate. So no fee was charged I guess.

But I do remember some Rs. 75 redemption free, which is probably charged if you redeem any gifts.

Unfortunately from this month the conversion rate is 0.3.

The redemption fee applies to gifts only AFAIK.

Originally Posted by sansvk

Redeemed 21880 points for Rs 6k today from my HDFC CC.
Its less than 0.3.

Yes, it's almost half now - from 0.4 earlier to 0.25 now.