[DK_accord]

Originally Posted by amahale

Follow up question:
I called my RM and he said I was eligible for Diners Club Black Metal.
I am worried about the acceptance of DC because this is the only credit card I use. So, should I go for the DC Black Metal upgrade or upgrade to Regalia Gold?

Diners club still has acceptance issues across several websites, POS machines. Since you want to use a single credit card, it's better to steer clear of diners club. I am using a diners club privilege at the moment with other credit cards so it works for me.

[HighOnSpeed]

Originally Posted by amahale

I am worried about the acceptance of DC because this is the only credit card I use. So, should I go for the DC Black Metal upgrade or upgrade to Regalia Gold?

The card works in all terminals accepting Rupay in India. I was using the DCB for few years and I had rarely faced any issue, so you can go ahead and take the card. Outside India, Diners/Discover network is poor.

[turbospooler]

Originally Posted by amahale

Follow up question:
I called my RM and he said I was eligible for Diners Club Black Metal.
I am worried about the acceptance of DC because this is the only credit card I use. So, should I go for the DC Black Metal upgrade or upgrade to Regalia Gold?

Wow. I would say that DCB Metal is a much better upgrade than Regalia Gold for 2 main reasons:
1) Reward rate is 3.3% + option to earn another 2.5% on completing 4L spends per quarter.
2) Lounge access is phenomenal.

Any doubts regarding acceptance are valid, but I think 20% of swipe machines issued are by HDFC, so it should accept the card.
Nevertheless, there are some places like schools, remote hotels which may not accept this card.
I was using this card from 2020 to 2022 and I faced very few instances of non-acceptance (this was primarily in Maharashtra).

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by amahale

Follow up question:
I called my RM and he said I was eligible for Diners Club Black Metal.
I am worried about the acceptance of DC because this is the only credit card I use. So, should I go for the DC Black Metal upgrade or upgrade to Regalia Gold?

DCB over Regalia definitely. DCB metal has a 10k annual fee though and see if you are able to recover this across your spends via rewards. Unlike Infinia HDFC isn't offering points against fee payment for DCB metal as of now.

Acceptance I find is pretty good as it also runs on the Rupay network and I have faced just one rejection at offline POS over the past 1.5 years. I have faced more issues online on smaller websites, but all small value and hence don't really matter that much.

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by turbospooler

Any doubts regarding acceptance are valid, but I think 20% of swipe machines issued are by HDFC, so it should accept the card.

I have used Diners Black for 5 years. Never faced issue with availability in India.

Abroad is a different story altogether. Don't rely on this card internationally.

[texens]

Originally Posted by amahale

Follow up question:
I called my RM and he said I was eligible for Diners Club Black Metal.
I am worried about the acceptance of DC because this is the only credit card I use.

I gave up DCB in 2 months because of acceptance issues. It probably had a success rate of 50% at POS machines. HDFC Ergo website refusing to accept Diners for my annual insurance payment was when I gave up and switched to Magnus (HDFC didn't upgrade me to Infinia, despite being a Imperia customer).

[Ithaca]

I need some advise from fellow members regarding the HDFC Bank credit cards.
I already SBI Cashback Card and the Amazon Pay ICICI Card - which I intend to surrender because the SBI Card gives me very good cash back.
The only reason I am interested in HDFC Credit cards is because of the instant discount I will get when I purchase high end electronic items - MacBook, iPhone etc.
Kindly advise me as to which HDFC Credit card I should apply for. When I check on the HDFC Site, they do not clearly mention which of their credit cards are applicable for instant discount.

Thank you in advance.

[Naetik30]

Originally Posted by Ithaca

I need some advise from fellow members regarding the HDFC Bank credit cards.
I already SBI Cashback Card and the Amazon Pay ICICI Card - which I intend to surrender because the SBI Card gives me very good cash back.
The only reason I am interested in HDFC Credit cards is because of the instant discount I will get when I purchase high end electronic items - MacBook, iPhone etc.
Kindly advise me as to which HDFC Credit card I should apply for. When I check on the HDFC Site, they do not clearly mention which of their credit cards are applicable for instant discount.

Thank you in advance.

Go for HDFC Regalia, if HDFC provides it. HDFC INfinia is the best - but may not be provided by HDFC. Regalia has the most value for money and easier to get.

[ventoAsFirstCar]

Originally Posted by Jagann13

I'm planning to opt for the AMEX MRCC and looks like the referral program is on full swing now.

Would appreciate if anyone, if okay, could refer me. Win-win for both of us. And would you guys suggest the AMEX Gold Card over the MRCC?

Here's a summary of the affordable AMEX cards and their benefits vs usage requirements for max rewards:

MRCC
4 x Rs. 1500 - 1000 Bonus Points
Rs. 20,000 Total Spends in a Month - 1000 Bonus Points (Need to chat with their customer care and request them to enable this reward as it is opt-in)

So, for spending Rs. 20,000 a month spaced in minimum 4 Transaction of Rs. 1000 minimum, you get 2400 MR Points (Including regular points). The best way is to use the gyftr amex reward multiplier for these transactions. The simplest is to buy 4 Amazon pay gift cards worth 5k each https://www.gyftr.com/amexrewardmult...-gift-vouchers every month

Gold Charge Card
6 x Rs. 1000 - 1000 Bonus Points
Gold card has a higher reward multiplier, so definitely worth it to make the 6 transactions on gyftr-amex as you get (6000*2*5/100 = 600) points in addition to the 1000 bonus. (Gold charge card has 5x reward multiplier)

Platinum Travel
Spend 4 Lacs & get 48,000 (40,000 Milestone Bonuses, (400000*2/100 = 8000) Regular Points & Any additional Reward Multiplier Points not added). Note that at 1.9 L spend and 4L spend, they will add half the bonus points automatically. But have to explicitly ask them in chat to get the remaining half credited.

So, based on the total amount of AMEX spends you can make in a year, you can select one(two or all three) of the above cards.

By AMEX spends, I mean the ones you can make online mostly and in high-end places offline. Most Fuel stations, hotels, and grocery shops offline will have their PoS machines set to deny AMEX cards

You can pick MRCC if you can do the 4x1500 transactions per month and your annual AMEX spends can reach 1.5L . As that is the threshold where AMEX waives off the 1.5K annual fees from the second year

You can pick the Gold charge card if you can do the 6x1000 transactions per month on the reward multiplier. It will be worth it even from the second year with 4.5K annual charges. If we value the points at 0.5 rupee(there are better valued redemption options), the profit will be (1600*12*0.5 - 4500 = 5100) per year. But, the Gold charge card is really good for any other purchase on the reward multiplier as it will give 10 points per 100inr spent

You can pick the Platinum Travel card if you can make 4L AMEX spends annually. Considering the annual fees from the second year, the profit per year comes to (48000*12*0.5 - 5000 = 19000inr)

If you can make a minimum of 5.5L amex spends annually, you can get both the Platinum travel and MRCC. Please note that if you want to spend more than the amounts (per card, per month/year) I said in this post, AMEX's rewards drop to the minimum and won't be worth it

Even with all these restrictions, with the referral program, just applying for the cards and getting them will be worth it because of the bonus points for applying through referral and nil to minimum first-year fees (1000inr for the Gold charge card and lots of welcome points and benefits in return).

Feel free to post any additional questions on this as I have already spent (wasted??) a lot of time researching in December before I applied

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

For rent, if you have valid rental agreement, please register in Red Giraffe and add as biller in HDFC bill pay. Not only first rent transaction is free, it still was giving RP till few months ago. Only RG fee of 0.46% will be applicable.

Its confirmed that Infinia gives no RPs for rent payment through HDFC bill pay and Red giraffe, pls see below. In addition the first rent payment is free and second one is charged 1% for payment using Infinia.

I confirm that the education expenses do earn RPs on Infinia.

I have shortlisted SBI Club Vistara Prime credit card as the alternate card to Infinia which satisfies most of the spend requirements

[absingh911]

Originally Posted by Jagann13

I'm planning to opt for the AMEX MRCC and looks like the referral program is on full swing now.

Would appreciate if anyone, if okay, could refer me. Win-win for both of us. And would you guys suggest the AMEX Gold Card over the MRCC?

My personal suggestion - MRCC is better as it offers almost everything the Gold offers along with the fee waiver option in case of meeting spend thresholds. If you can get the bonus point thing working with enough number of transactions, you can extract a lot of value from it.

[heysac]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

I have shortlisted SBI Club Vistara Prime credit card as the alternate card to Infinia which satisfies most of the spend requirements

Me too, however it is very difficult to get! SBI refused to upgrade my SimplyClick with high limit and in anger I asked them to close it.

[haridsv]

Originally Posted by ventoAsFirstCar

The best way is to use the gyftr amex reward multiplier for these transactions. The simplest is to buy 4 Amazon pay gift cards worth 5k each https://www.gyftr.com/amexrewardmult...-gift-vouchers every month

Aren't these Amazon Shopping Vouchers? I once bought through Gyftr to meet spend target and realized that this balance doesn't appear as regular gift card balance and so can only be strictly used for shopping on Amazon itself. Transactions on Amazon Pay and payments on 3rd party gateways won't allow this balance to be used.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by Ithaca

Kindly advise me as to which HDFC Credit card I should apply for. When I check on the HDFC Site, they do not clearly mention which of their credit cards are applicable for instant discount..

All HDFC core cards (not cobranded ones) are eligible for these discounts. You can get Moneyback, Milennia, Regalia, DCB or Infinia. Moneyback is the worst and Milennia and the Infinia are the best. Personally, I love the Infnia.

[rajesh1868]

Originally Posted by heysac

Me too, however it is very difficult to get! SBI refused to upgrade my SimplyClick with high limit and in anger I asked them to close it.

They rejected my online application for Vistara Prime citing my PIN was not serviceable. Earlier, I applied for and received the Cashback card at the same address. So next time when I was in my hometown and visiting a mall, saw the SBI card kiosk. I approached them and told them that I needed this card but the address in my address proof seemed to be not serviceable. They took it up and got my card approved in a couple of days.