Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Shifting gears (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/)

-   -   The Credit Card Thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/92603-credit-card-thread-425.html)

True, I have tried applying online, got rejected. After 3 months cooling period, tried offline at a brand store, they issued Spar card instead, I had to cancel. Even now they are not keen on issuing cashback card to me, while they are readily pushing other 'Premium' Cards. Wonder why.
I already have one card with them and credit score is also decent.

If the monthly spends are around 1 lakh, then Magnus is a no brainer (even if you spend 1 lakh 4-6 months in a year). You get 31000 points which is equivalent to 24.8 k airmiles/hotel points (Qatar/Singapore/Etihad/United/ Vistara/Turkish/Mariott/ITC/Ethopian/Others). You can use the points to book tickets and/or hotels depending on where you transfer points.


To top it off, the card fees is 12k. You get 10k Tata Cliq vouchers, unlimited international priority pass (with 8 guests), and 8 Meet and Greet at Indian airports.

Now utilities spend (what exactly they are for you) is something that you need to check if it is excluded. Cause rent and wallet loads are excluded from these milestone spends.

Looks like devaluation of SBI cashback card started. Got the following message.

Probably the only credit card that continues to offer good returns against these MCC's is the SC Ultimate. It's stood its ground for some time now and 3.3% no matter what you throw at it.

Not to the scale of others but StanC Ultimate revised the benefits from 2 April

1) Transactions on Utilities, Supermarkets, Insurance, Property Management, Schools & Government payments will now earn 3 reward points on every INR 150 spent.​

2)​ No reward points will be earned on Fuel transactions. However, you will now enjoy a surcharge waiver of 1% on fuel spends. Fuel surcharge waiver amount will be capped at INR 1000 per month.​

3) 1% processing fee (plus applicable taxes) for rental payments made using Standard Chartered credit cards

I have a school fee of about 3.5 L to be paid in next few days. Not ready with cash at the moment due to the FY end tax planning. I have HDFC infinia, Axis Magnus and Amex MRCC. Convenience charges are about 4-5 k and payment gateway is paytm. I might cross the Annual fee waiver milestone in Infinia comfortably, but magnus seem to be farther(at 15 L).

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

Can you split the payment into two? If so, pay 1L+ by Magnus to get the monthly bonus points and put the remaining in Infinia. Hope 2.5L is sufficient for yearly waiver on your Infinia.

While we all know about the cashback we get from each credit card, we now have ways to get cashback for repaying the credit card bills as well.

IMO, there are three main apps for this

• CRED
• CheQ
• PostPe

CRED used to be the most popular app for credit card bill payments. Its rewards have however been severely devaluated now. When you pay a credit card bill over ₹1000, you get to avail cashback once a day over three days. In my experience, you can get around ₹15-20 as cashback after you avail cashback everyday for three days. The catch here is that not all of us will remember to open the app everyday for three days and avail the cashback. Another catch is that the cashback can only be used through the CRED app to make bill payments.

Pros of CRED:

• Credit card repayments are done almost instantaneously.
• The app serves as a great way to keep track of your credit card bills and their due dates.

Cons of CRED:

• CRED coins are almost useless and can only be used to avail cashback.
• The cashback received is very less as compared to what it used to be.
• UI has become very confusing.

CheQ is the new player in the market. They offer 1% of the credit card bill amount paid as CheQ chips, which can be redeemed for vouchers or credited to your bank account as cash. The catch here is that one CheQ chip is equivalent to ₹1 or ₹0.5 for voucher redemption depending on the brand of the voucher you choose to redeem. If you choose to redeem the CheQ chips as cash to your bank account, one CheQ chip is equivalent to ₹0.25.

Pros of CheQ:

• Cashback is very good. If you pay a credit card bill of ₹1 lakh, you get 1000 CheQ chips. This can be used to buy a ₹500 Amazon voucher or a ₹1000 Myntra voucher among various other brands.
• Credit card repayments are almost as fast as CRED.

Cons of CheQ:

• There is a possibility of the cashback being devaluated soon. Vouchers of Big Basket have already been removed from the app, since it was probably being redeemed the most.
• Credit card repayments can sometimes be slower than CRED. Speed varies from instantaneous to one business day.

PostPe has been around for the last year or so and gives 0.4% of the credit card bill paid as cashback. You can use this cashback to pay bills through the PostPe app.

Pros of PostPe:

• Cashback is decent. You can get ₹400 as cashback for paying a bill of ₹1 lakh.

Cons of PostPe:

• UI isn't very user friendly
• Credit card repayment speed varies from instantaneous to four business days

Disclaimer: This is purely based on my personal experience with these apps and isn't indicative of a general experience. Use your own discretion to pay credit card bills through any of these apps.

Thanks for the writeup.
Can you please also (if you have considered them) share the extent of information to be hared with these apps? This would be helpful.
Ex: Do we have to share the credit card statement with these Apps?

You'll have to log in to these apps with the email address and phone number associated with your credit card. They retrieve your credit score and I believe only allow you to proceed with using the app if you have a decent credit score.

For keeping track of your cards, these apps take your bill details from your email and SMS, and also give you an option to tokenise your cards once you make a repayment.

If you have HDFC Bank account and platinum Debit card, you can register and pay the other credit card bills and get cashback upto Rs.750 each month for HDFC debit card. This will not work with HDFC credit cards though.

No need to share anything like the above third party apps.

The cashback of ₹750 is the monthly cap for all spends made through the HDFC Platinum debit card. For the AutoPay facility, the cashback is capped at ₹1800 per year, which is extremely low.

Also note that 1 cashback point is only equivalent to ₹0.1.

Using the same debit card with the above apps gets you a much higher cashback.

I use my credit cards for most spends and UPI for small transactions. So not using the debit card and using it to settle the credit card bills. I was not comfortable with the apps like Cred, cheq, Post pe or even mobikwik. I can't run around for my money if transaction fails or struck. In case of HDFC Bank, I can resolve it easily with RM or BM.

Credit card bills cannot be set to Auto pay and it doesn't come under 150 per month limit. So I am okay with 750 capping.

To each his own and I am not disputing your post. I just provided an alternate option in case folks don't want to use third party apps.

One cashback point is one rupee and it can be redeemed in multiples of 250/- at a time as credit into savings account. Iam using for the last several months and getting the cashback.

With 750 per month capping one can pay CC bills upto 75000 in a month. That's a pretty good limit

As mentioned by others, credit card payments can not be set to auto-pay.

Could you please point me to any link that states this? I couldn't find this information anywhere.