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Any point based card is only good until their points are not devalued. Whole purpose of giving points in place of cash is to make the process of devaluation opaque. Every single point based reward card I have owned did that. Branded Gift Vouchers(in general like lifestyle, shoppers stop GVs) come with lots of restrictions skewed against the GV holder and also has an expiry. Over the years more points are needed to get the same voucher.
Best cards are those which directly credit cash. I find Citibank and Amazon pay card best in this. They are totally transparent about the cashback. Citibank tells it upfront about the monetary value of the points. One has the option of getting them credited back as cash.

Maybe you already know but these 2500 points are equivalent to INR 2500 in value while making travel related bookings on Smartbuy.

Great that you finally saw the difference by your own eyes. I have seen many people compare Amazon Pay to Infinia and mention that Amazon Pay is much better card than Infinia :Frustrati

HDFC Cards are way above than the rest in terms of rewards. Sure the service of HDFC sucks big time, but I have learned to live with it. The amount of knowledge of the HDFC System I have means that I havent had to call customer service since April-2021.

Due to the Pandemic, I ended up accumulating huge chunk of points between DCB and Infinia (DCB upgraded to Infinia) since May-2019. And not with these points, looking forward to booking Business Class Flight Tickets to Australia some time next year with Singapore Airlines.

Any card that gives Amazon Pay Gift Voucher is essentially giving you cash itself. Amazon Pay Gift Vouchers have no T&Cs and get loaded to the Amazon Pay Wallet. HDFC Cards provide that. The reward rate of DCB / Infinia is way above Citibank or Amazon Pay card even if converted to Amazon Pay Vouchers. The reward rate doubles, if the same reward point are used for Flights / Hotels bookings. It can even quadruple, if you know the Airmiles game to book Business Class International Tickets.

Below is the value one can get from 1 DCB / Infinia Reward Point across various redemption:

Statement Credit - 0.3 Re
Amazon Vouchers - 0.5 Re
Flights / Hotels Bookings Via Smartbuy - 1 Re
Conversion to Airmiles - Can go upto 3-4 Re or even higher depending on redemptions

The only advantage of Amazon Pay over Infinia is that it is a Life-time free card. But then Infinia has way more additional features that ICICI Amazon Pay wont get.

Hey thanks to you & your posts that made me have a look at HDFC SmartBuy cos I was of a opinion that smartbuy is some EMI thing till I went thru your posts. Wish HDFC had those 10x reward points still runnning instead of making it 5x.

Guys, Need some suggestions on my credit card decision.

Currently I hold two credit cards (1) CITI bank Rewards Platinum (Being used for about 7 years now) & (2) HDFC Diners Club Rewards with a 7 digit credit limit (Being used for about 5 years)

I usually swipe my credit card wherever possible (Mainly Amazon, Utility bill payments, Supermarket shopping, Fuel etc.,). However, with Work from Home being the norm, my fuel bills are minimal now.

I've three issues with my HDFC Credit card :

1. Wanting to get the 5% discount, I usually add things to my Amazon cart and then religiously go to smartbuy website and get redirected to Amazon and complete the purchase. Even then, I keep getting a SMS from HDFC that I've missed out on 5% cashback. I don't know what am I doing wrong.

2. Diners is not accepted universally. For instance, I'm not able to pay some online bills as it accepts only VISA/Mastercard

3. Don’t have any lounge access ! (I’m looking for International lounge access)

Ideally I’d have taken HDFC Infina with an Add-on card for my wife. However, I did miss the opportunity earlier this year when HDFC offered a free card upgrade. Now when I ask they are offering me a Regalia Card. However, they want me to close my existing card.

-If I close the existing card, would it result in negative markings under CIBIL ?
- How good is Regalia ? They are not offering this as a Lifetime Free card. I’m being told that if I spend 1 lakh within 90 days, this would be made lifetime free ?! Not sure about this
- Can I push them to give me a Infinia Card ? Would they budge ?

Now every time I place an order in Amazon, it is prompting me to get an ICICI-Amazon Pay CC. Should I go ahead and take this ?

What should I do with CITI Credit card ? Now that they are going to leave, I’m not sure whether should I continue with this one.

Kindly advise.

Let me answer this query.
Even I used to do the same mistake and I have missed so many the 10x/5x reward points so many times.
This is the process that you need to follow.
1) Do not add any items to the cart/wishlist before visiting smartbuy portal.
2) Visit amazon.in through https://offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com/
3) Search for the item that you want to buy
4) Add the item to the cart from the search results.
5) Go ahead and checkout the item.

Oops, I'm afraid you've been doing it wrong. The purchase isn't getting tracked because you're adding the product to the Amazon cart and then proceeding to the Smartbuy website. The cashback will be tracked and awarded only if you add the product through the Smartbuy website.

One thing you could do is, instead of adding it to your cart directly from Amazon, add it to your wish list first. This helps you locate the product easily after going to the Smartbuy website and then click on the product you wish to buy (do not add directly from wishlist as I have a feeling that it doesn't get tracked). Then add it to your cart from the product view. This should get you the cashback!

Doesn't hurt to add but you're getting basically the same offer through HDFC Smartbuy unless they plan to change it in future. The only con with HDFC being it takes longer time to get tracked.

Guys one more diff I noticed is when you visit Amazon from SmartBuy, add the product you need & then checkout sms from bank is like this
ALERT: You've spent Rs.11338.00 on CREDIT Card xx1634 at SMARTBUY on 2021-09-14:19:57:00.Avl bal - Rs.104587.00, curr o/s - Rs.35413.00.Not you? Call 18002586161

When the transaction is not tracked even if Hdfc credit card is used we get sms as Rs.xxxxx was spent at Amazon.

Hope this helps someone.

Can address your queries specific to the HDFC cards:
- No issues in closing any card leaving no dues.
- In terms of points, you get ₹2 for spend of ₹150 (4 points with each point with ₹0.5) for Fights/ Hotels via smartbuy as compared to ₹5 in Infinia. So there are differences but in itself, it is a pretty decent card.
- Not sure about the Lifetime free aspect. There used to be a minimum spend of ₹3Lakhs in previous year which made it free in subsequent year. HDFC was banned from selling cards for many months, so don't know if this is a way to get Sales numbers up by HDFC to compensate for lost sales. Are they giving 1 lakh-90 days and then lifetime free in writing from an official email Id with their boss in cc ?
- Infinia depends on your bank account/ relationship size with them. Don't remember the exact amount but have a go- to make it free from second year though, needs ₹8 lakhs of annual spend.
- On ICICI-Amazon vs Smart Buy, tracking the purchase via Smart Buy takes time sometimes and I have once not got credits for a large ticket item. They just didn't have the reference. Largely though, this is a matter of convenience vs some oversight.

If you know how to generate the pin for an HDFC add-on card, please let me know. I don't understand why they have made the process of enabling the add-on card so cumbersome. First, you need to call customer care and generate an OTP. Then visit the ATM and use this OTP to generate a pin. While confirming the pin on the ATM, I made a mistake and now I am back to square one. The OTP is not valid anymore. Why can't they simply give an option to generate a pin through the website like they do for the primary card?

Same thing happened with me. What I did was just called them again when at the ATM to generate a new PIN. One time trek to the ATM I don't think can be avoided for the add-on

I have tried this before and it does not work. So, the only way to claim the smartbuy points from Amazon is to search for the product and then add it to the cart.
But in case of flipkart, one can add the items to the cart before and then visit the FK page through smartbuy to make the payment.

Simple reason why its this way is 'Cost Cutting' :Frustrati

HDFC issues addon with the same card number, expiry and cvv. Only the name on the card changes. Hence, the PIN has to be set in ATM only. No other option.

The addon cardholder cannot even have his / her mobile number registered for OTP for online transactions.

Same with Std Chartered. I guess the bank wants the primary card holder to control/own the liability.

HDFC promised to return with a bang. Their website does not reflect that. Would you know anything about their new line up ?

No other bank as far as I know has this kind of a system.

Standard Chartered has proper system in place with different card numbers, CVV for each primary and Addon card. Mobile Numbers can be set seperately for each addon card for OTPs for online transactions as well as PIN can be set online for POS transactions.

Dont expect any new card as of yet. Most likely all new cards will come in 2022 after having distributed the current line up of cards till then.