Team-BHP - The Credit Card Thread

Just a small tip for those HDFC credit card customers who have become NRI recently or would become NRI in the near future.
As soon as HDFC credit card division detects that you have an NR savings account in HDFC, they shall block your HDFC credit card 30 days after sending you an email notification.
They expect you to take an NRI credit card instead - and then the paperwork for that requires you to send documents to India.

ICICI on the other hand does not care if you become NRI and the same credit card continues to work (or at least it has been the case for me).

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Now a question: does anyone know if ICICI virtual credit card (VCC) feature is still working? If yes, how do I enable the same?

Urgent help/advice needed.

Standard Chartered Credit Card generates statements every 24th of a month. I have been using the card since 3 years now, never missed any payments and paid much before the due date.

Recently I made a payment to Akbar Travels of around 90k and paid it within 3 weeks of the transaction.

Now when I check my balance I see a charge of Rs. 3805 with note as shown in the pic below.

Anyone has any idea what this charge is for? It says online or exchange interest but I made payments in INR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VWAllstar (Post 4719204)

Anyone has any idea what this charge is for? It says online or exchange interest but I made payments in INR.

It looks like you may have paid in a foreign currency though the site may have shown you the probable equivalent INR at the time of the transaction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by diyguy (Post 4719429)

It looks like you may have paid in a foreign currency though the site may have shown you the probable equivalent INR at the time of the transaction.

Yeah as per the note it comes across as you said. However, I have not paid in any foreign currency, for that I use Amex. Have written them an email, awaiting their reply.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S_U_N (Post 4718649)

Just a small tip for those HDFC credit card customers who have become NRI recently or would become NRI in the near future.
...
Now a question: does anyone know if ICICI virtual credit card (VCC) feature is still working? If yes, how do I enable the same?

Thank you for the heads-up on HDFC!

Also, +1 to the question on ICICI. Have a very old, and active, ICICI salary account. Zero balance. If it has the virtual CC option, will help me close of HDFC card.

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedgun (Post 4437722)

Seems ICICI has started charging customers for redeeming payback points. 99 + GST for every redemption made.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao (Post 4437823)

That's been true for a few years now. My card (Coral) allows redeeming for credit back to account, so I do it once a year.

I got an email from Payback and logged in and checked my points.
Then I thought I too should use Payback to turbocharge my points just like member Tejas08 does with his cards.

So did some researching and found this article by a user named Prithvi.

Source: Jago Investor Article

Read the article and comments and found a few interesting comments.

Quote:

Now let’s look at a scenario where it gets a little complicated, if you have a PAYBACK card from Brand Factory and you also have an ICICI Bank account and both of them are linked, this is when ICICI begins to loot you.
If you earn points at Brand Factory, the points get credited to your PAYBACK account and now when you spend those PAYBACK points, ICICI charges you a redemption fee.

Comment by Saurav Kataruka

Quote:

One of my friends redeemed 300 odd payback points and ICICI charged him Approx Rs 114 which is equivalent to 460 payback points

Comment by damodar

Quote:

On 15 June, 2016 statement ICICI bank charged me an amount of INR 28.09 for redemption of payback points

And a few more.
I think I will not use ICICI Cards unless in an emergency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ithaca (Post 4721001)

....
I think I will not use ICICI Cards unless in an emergency.

I haven't used points to buy anything online in ages, so never been hit by the whole 'per transaction' charges.

I redeem my points lumpsum once a year, cash back to my card account (4 points = 1 rupee).

Fee: INR 25 + taxes.

Being a sucker for Super-Premium Credit Cards and holding three such cards from three different banks, I absolutely see no reason to hold an ICICI credit card. The PAYBACK Points system of ICICI is not the best of Rewards program when it comes to Reward Points.

Amex fares better than the PAYBACK points system IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tejas08 (Post 4721138)

I use ICICI Amazon credit card. It doesn't have payback nonsense. I get 1% cashback on all spends, and 5% on Amazon, all directly as Amazon pay balance every month. My monthly spend on the card is about 50k, and I get 1000 to 2000 cashback every month. I also got Rs 750 on signing up. Good deal IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pseudo_coder (Post 4721144)

I know. Its a great mid-range card.

I am talking about comparisons with Super-Premium Category cards. I hold the HDFC Diner's Club Black Card. The ICICI Amazon Credit Card does not make sense for me in front of that. HDFC DCB credit card gives 33.3% returns on almost everything. Even considering conversion to statement credit, it still gives 16.67% reward rate.

To cover for any kind of acceptability issues of a Diners Card, I have an SCB Ultimate and the Yes First Exclusive Credit Card.

I have two questions regarding credit cards.

Indian card on Indian website need OTP. Indian card on foreign website do not need OTP. What about foreign card on Indian website?

In my cards I deface the CVV numbers. If lost or stolen, can finder clone the card and derive the CVV number? In other words is CVV stored in the card chip / magnetic strip?

In terms of ease of redeeming reward points, Citi and Amex are easily the best I have used.

Citi allows to redeem points directly from some of the partner sites/apps such as MakeMyTrip. Redemption can even be done by a add-on card holder!

Amex (Gold/MRCC) has a simple process for statement credit and other redemptions.

I used to use HDFC Regalia as my primary card till last year, but the redemption process is horrible. Recently I tried redeeming for flight tickets but the portal just didn't work. I use it very sparingly now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentEngine (Post 4721643)

I used to use HDFC Regalia as my primary card till last year, but the redemption process is horrible.

I use hdfc regalia for merchandise from their redemption site and for gold/diamond jewellery vouchers from Tanishq. I find this to be a good deal.