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Yes, I am still holding this card and it is LTF. But you never know when they are going to change their policies!

Right! HDFC is one devious bank! Their policy is to always keep their promises to invidual customers verbal, -- nothing in writing, so they can escape anytime they want! I bet you don't have anything in writing to prove that your card is 'Life time Free'. I don't either. Their MITC lists all categories of their zillion cards with their non-zero annual fees, with minimum annual spend limits to avoid the fee. The only mention of the phrase 'Life time Free' is with regard to additional cards!
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I may be an exception - I got the LTF confirmation in the form of a mail. I had refused to accept the card unless they confirmed on this in writing.

HDFC 2021 surprise - got a free upgrade from Regalia to Infinia CC. Its mentioned LTF (LifeTime Free) but in T & C s its mentioned 1st year free. Will check with RM today. I have questions on this though:

1. I have an EMI running on my Regalia CC. Will it be transferred to Infinia CC?
2. I am eligible for cashback for merchant transaction. Will i get it ?

Note: Looks like HDFC is aggressive on CC. I got my limits increased twice last year. It seems many LTF offers for Infinia and Dinner black. Please check in netbanking -> Cards -> Request - > Credit Card Upgrade/ limit enhancement.

Edit: I have applied for the upgrade. Forgot to mention. Looks like its pre-approved. Will update once the card is received.

Obviously they want to retain their existing customers since they are unable to onboard any new customers, that's the reason for this new found affection :).

I got the same upgrade offer for my Regalia too. Couple of years back I would have taken this without any second thought, but now I am not sure if it's really worth the asking price of 10k for second year onwards. No doubt this is a better card on all counts than Regalia, but my annual spends are unlikely to reach 8L/year on this one card alone. I had almost stopped using Regalia completely in last 12-18 months.

Is the reward rate conversion still at 1:1 for this card for flights etc?

For statement credit, value stands at 0.3/point which is slightly better than Regalia's 0.2/point, effectively puts statement credit value at 1.875 times that of Regalia.

Hi sairamboko,

I got two upgrades on my cards,

1. HDFC Regalia Business First to HDFC Regalia Business + Limit enhancement. (Mine)
2. HDFC Regalia to HDFC Infinia + Limit Enhancement. (Dad's)

I have the same query as you have. Both our current existing Regalia's are Free for lifetime. If we upgrade to newer and better cards, will the Free for Lifetime policy hold true? This is a big concern we have before clicking on the SUBMIT button, especially in the case of INFINIA as the annual charges are approx 12k INR.

~NA.

I need to check on the reward rate conversion.

I spoke to my RM and they said right now all upgrade offers are lifetime free. She double checked and told me its free and also my upgrade is processed it seems.

Also she answered my 2 queries which I asked earlier. Since this is an upgrade, my EMIs will be carried over. I will still be eligible to get the cashbacks.

P.S - I read the article mentioned below and then only found about the offer.

https://www.cardexpert.in/hdfc-lifet...lack-upgrades/

The company that processes payments for Amazon and Swiggy has reported a data leak of over 100 million debit and credit cardholders

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/...w/80096472.cms

As much as I admit mistakes do happen and data breaches are sometimes not in our control, but what has the government done to take action? The fact that incident occured on 18th Aug and it is coming to light only now, makes me cringe.

On another note, if we don't select the option to save the credit/debit cards as payment option for future purchases, does it help against these breaches?

I have been paying my credit card bill through Cred since a few months. Last month even after the payment, the amount was not paid to the bank and it got reversed in my account. It took a total of 5 days for the amount to get refunded in my savings account. No reason was given to me for this mishap. Just informed that the payment failed.

If you pay using Cred, make sure that you pay well before the due date or else your credit score could be screwed and you would have to pay huge penalties for late payment.

Just checked and have been given an option to upgrade to diner black international card from my current regalia first, in double mind, as my regalia first is LTF, this though says 0 annual charges, can never be sure in future.

Also how well is this card accepted, is this also a master/visa card?

I used cred for about two weeks, got spooked and deleted my account. I made a card payment outside of cred and they sent me a message asking me if i had made that payment. I don't think we should put all our financial information through a third party app like cred and allow them to monitor all our spends like big brother government. What was irritating was to delete my account i had to have an unpleasant conversation with their support because they dont have an option to erase our information and she needed to be convinced to let me go.

Diners Club is a seperate network from visa and master card. HDFC is the only bank offering Diners Club cards in India. They are part of Discover Financial Services. In my experience, acceptance has greatly improved recently, majorly because of Discover's tie up with rupay network for global interoperability.

Ocassionally you may still find an odd merchant with very old POS machine that will not accept these cards. But the chances of finding a merchant with just old POS without any backup are low now a days. Most merchants just take out their backup machine (swanky new touchscreen POS machine) when they see an amex or diners club etc.

Thanks and I presume all cashback offers on FK, Amazon will work as on Regalia card. I still have a 4000 cashback pending for the purchase of my ipad air. The main reason i got the hdfc card was the cashback they have in market, it's one of the best.

+1 for this question.

Please can someone shed light on this aspect. If not saving a CC helps, it would be a great way to save ourselves in such circumstances.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers