[turbospooler]

Originally Posted by whitewing

Agree on the travel part.

Thanks, I already have an amex memberships rewards card. I've been doing the 1*1000 rather diligently.
But for Amazon purchases, what would your recommendation be - Amazon pay cc versus Membership rewards?

Check SBI SimplyClick for Amazon buying

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by whitewing

Agree on the travel part.

Thanks, I already have an amex memberships rewards card. I've been doing the 1*1000 rather diligently.
But for Amazon purchases, what would your recommendation be - Amazon pay cc versus Membership rewards?

Top-Up Amazon Pay or PayTM via 4 x 1000 transaction on Amex MRCC for utility bill payments. You earn 12960 Points for spending Rs. 48,000. If you have this card as Life-Time Free, then that is a lowest reward rate of 6.75% on this card (4 Reward Points = 1 Re). Any other option and the reward rate only increases. There is a slight issue when the card is not free. You have to spend 1.5 Lacs to ensure fee waiver. Even with that, the lowest reward rate is 2.5%.

ICICI Amazon Pay does not give 5% rewards for loading Amazon Pay. Hence, using ICICI Amazon Pay card for any kind of bill payments or recharges is 1-2%.

For me, Amex MRCC makes sense as I have it as Life-Time Free & I recently took a paid Amex Gold Charge Card (First Year Free). This is now ensuring 2200 Points monthly for a spend of 10 x 1000 Rs. transactions (Most of which are loading PayTM or Amazon Pay). Also, I look at options like Taj Vouchers (@ 18K & 24K milestones) or Reward Point Conversion to Marriott Bonvoy Points. This pushes the reward rate cumulatively on both these cards in the region of 12-14% easily. For Example - Rs. 14,000 worth Taj Vouchers at 24,000 Points which is achieved in 11 Months on a total spends of 1.1 Lac Rs.

Hope I have tried to explain every little detail over here.

Originally Posted by F150

Hi @Tejas08,

Need your advice on my current credit card holdings.

1. HDFC Regalia
- Good reward points earning rate with 10X rewards points option at that time. Now it is reduced to 5X. Life time free due to my savings account with HDFC bank.
2. Amazon Pay
- 5 % cashback on amazon is unmatched.
3. Citi Rewards
- Planning to close this card, except for the occasional 10 % cashback offers on Amazon. But I also read an advice, not to close your oldest credit card as it helps in credit history. Please advise.
4. Citi Indian Oil Credit Card
- This is exclusively used for my fuel purchases.
5. New addition - Standard Chartered Ultimate.
5K per year but I will get 5K reward points back and 1 reward point = 1 Rs. Welcome offer has 10K cashback on the first transaction on MMT. 5 reward points for every 150 rs spent.

Please advise how to plan my spends and which cards to retain and which cards to close.

Here is how I would keep the cards from the 5 that you have listed:

1. HDFC Regalia
2. ICICI Amazon Pay
3. SCB Ultimate

Citi Indian Oil is your call. Personally, despite being deep into credit cards and automobiles, I have never used any fuel card. Just dont see the benefit of trickle bonuses on certain cards. The best way to maximise credit card rewards is to maximise on only 1-2 cards. More the number of cards, more broken down the rewards are. You cannot combine the rewards in a bigger goal.

Citi Rewards - Close it down

I just closed by Citi Premier Miles credit card last week. Absolutely did not make sense in my wallet.

Now how to go about the spending on the cards that I mentioned:

ICICI Amazon Pay - Any purchases on Amazon (Not for Bill Payments, Recharges etc.) via this card - 5% unlimited reward rate

HDFC Regalia - Amazon vouchers via Smartbuy - 5% Cashback. Use Amazon Vouchers to load Amazon Pay and pay bills via Amazon Pay. So all utility bills will have 5% discount as long as total is less than 5000. If you are into Flipkart, you can buy the Flipkart Vouchers too with 5% Cashback.

SCB Ultimate is a good card with a flat reward rate of 3.3%. You can use this for physical usage, investments like NPS (Where credit cards are accepted). The card fees are effectively 900 Rs. for which the break even spending is Rs. 27,000 in a year which is not bad at all.

The only downside currently is
1. The Rs. 10,000 Cashback on MMT could be tricky to use right now
2. Reward Points redemption options have been very very bad for the past 6-8 months. However, just 3-4 days back a message of Rewards Page being rewamped has popped up, so hopefully, they should bring in some exciting new rewards.

Originally Posted by Aroy

As Amazon Pay card gives 5% unconditionally, it is a good card for Amazon purchases. At times Amazon has 10% and 15% schemes for ICICI or HDFC cards, so if you have them it is a bonus. My Amazon card is ICICI so I hope to reap discounts on both occations.

Unconditionally only on purchases and not on loading Amazon Pay for bill payments, recharges etc. Personally, I feel we wont be ordering major items every month from Amazon, however, we will surely need to pay all kinds of bills every month. So better to keep a card which will provide a good reward rate in Bill Payments too.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by tejas08

.........................
Unconditionally only on purchases and not on loading Amazon Pay for bill payments, recharges etc. Personally, I feel we wont be ordering major items every month from Amazon, however, we will surely need to pay all kinds of bills every month. So better to keep a card which will provide a good reward rate in Bill Payments too.

I pay bills on Amazon using this card and that I think qualifies for 5%. With bills of over Rs.1,50,000/ every year it is not a bad deal.

Of course I would not mind getting a card that gives more than that for bills. It is just that I do not travel or stay in hotels so my rewards are more relevant in straight cashback.

[kavensri]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I pay bills on Amazon using this card and that I think qualifies for 5%. With bills of over Rs.1,50,000/ every year it is not a bad deal.

As far as i know, it is 2% for bill payments.

Originally Posted by Aroy

It is just that I do not travel or stay in hotels so my rewards are more relevant in straight cashback.

Same with me. Even though i travel a lot, i don't go by flight or stay in expensive hotels, for me to use the reward points. So, i always look for caskback options.

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I pay bills on Amazon using this card and that I think qualifies for 5%. With bills of over Rs.1,50,000/ every year it is not a bad deal.

Of course I would not mind getting a card that gives more than that for bills. It is just that I do not travel or stay in hotels so my rewards are more relevant in straight cashback.

No. On ICICI Amazon Pay Card, Utility bills get do not qualify for 5% Cashback. Via Amazon 2%. And if not via Amazon, 1%.

[Oxy]

Wanted to share a weird experience I had just now with SCB.

I have a Super Value Titanium card since 4 years, with no default history. It was smooth sailing all this while till I decided to encash my accumulated cashback amount towards the card outstanding last month.

So today my new statement arrives and I see a late fee of Rs.500 plus GST of Rs.90 charged against my account. I called them up and on asking the reason for this late payment fee, I am told cashback redemption is not considered a payment, and it is adjusted only against your subsequent month's bill, not against your current outstanding. So this will be adjusted against my July statement.

I said I didn't know this and should have been informed earlier and requested a reversal, to which I am told the late payment levied is valid, and the best the executive can do is to inform this to some higher team, who will review it and decide whether to reverse the charge or not.

Anyone else faced this nonsense yet? How do I deal with this if they tell me they won't reverse it?

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Oxy

Anyone else faced this nonsense yet? How do I deal with this if they tell me they won't reverse it?

Yes, I went through the same a couple of months back. Inspite of multiple follow ups they did not budge. I finally made a formal request ti close the account through the netbanking email section.

After close to 20 back and forth emails, they finally reversed it.

I am seriously considering switching to ICICI, as I have a long relationship with them, and try to get a card with better rewards than SCB. As of late I have noticed the cashbacks don't accumulate as much as it used to.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by Oxy

Wanted to share a weird experience I had just now with SCB.

Is this the sequence:
You receive a monthly Bill. Say Rs. 100
You do a cash redemption. Say Rs. 100 or more
You don't pay anything

If so, what SCB has done is completely routine and normal. You have to pay the outstanding as per the last bill, deposits made post date of statement generation don't count as payment. It's the same with refunds.

This is very common, not sure why you're surprised. Talk to the customer care agent's manager nicely and push for a reversal as a goodwill gesture.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Is this the sequence:
You receive a monthly Bill. Say Rs. 100
You do a cash redemption. Say Rs. 100 or more
You don't pay anything

If so, what SCB has done is completely routine and normal. You have to pay the outstanding as per the last bill, deposits made post date of statement generation don't count as payment. It's the same with refunds.

This is very common, not sure why you're surprised. Talk to the customer care agent's manager nicely and push for a reversal as a goodwill gesture.

Well it doesn't happen with my Citibank Cashback card atleast. Once the cashback amount reaches 500, it gets automatically adjusted against the statement outstanding irrespective of when my bill is generated.

[Saanil]

Originally Posted by tejas08

No. On ICICI Amazon Pay Card, Utility bills get do not qualify for 5% Cashback. Via Amazon 2%. And if not via Amazon, 1%.

Hi,

Is it possible to redeem points accumulated on HDFC Infinia credit card for buying something on Amazon/Flipkart? Or their redemption is restricted to flights and hotels only? I do not see expect travel activities to resume anytime soon so wanted to know how else can we redeem the points.

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by Saanil

Hi,

Is it possible to redeem points accumulated on HDFC Infinia credit card for buying something on Amazon/Flipkart? Or their redemption is restricted to flights and hotels only? I do not see expect travel activities to resume anytime soon so wanted to know how else can we redeem the points.

There are lot of other reward redemption options. Check the link over here:

https://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/pa...ewards-program

Amazon Vouchers are available for redemption against reward points. Flipkart too should be available. There is also an option of statement credit, however, I would suggest to use this as a the last option as this gives the lowest conversion rate (1 RP = 30 Paise)

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by Oxy

of Rs.90 charged against my account. I called them up and on asking the reason for this late payment fee, I am told cashback redemption is not considered a payment, and it is adjusted only against your subsequent month's bill, not against your current outstanding. So this will be adjusted against my July statement.

This is standard procedure for most credit cards and most banks mention this very clearly in their statements / SMS / emails.

Cashback and reward points redemption will be adjusted against your outstanding balance, but you still need to pay the minimum amount due. Otherwise it is considered as non-payment/late-payment.

Rohan

[Funny]

Originally Posted by Oxy

So today my new statement arrives and I see a late fee of Rs.500 plus GST of Rs.90 charged against my account. I called them up and on asking the reason for this late payment fee, I am told cashback redemption is not considered a payment, and it is adjusted only against your subsequent month's bill, not against your current outstanding. So this will be adjusted against my July statement.

This is the norm usually. You had to redeem the cashback few days before the bill statement was generated for it to get adjusted. If you have redeemed it after the bill was generated then it will be adjust with the next bill only.

You can request them for reversal saying that you were unaware of the scenario. They should be able to do a reversal after taking required permission from their superiors.

Once I had withdrawn amount from my CITI Ready Credit (Overdraft) account by mistake. At the ATM kiosk, instead of selecting Savings I had selected Ready Credit unknowingly and got to know only after I got a SMS from CITI saying that I have been charged with a Rs.500 (+GST) activation charge for withdrawing amount from Overdraft account. I immediately called up CITI and explained by mistake and asked for an reversal, the operator was more than happy to oblige, he asked me to deposit/transfer the withdrawn amount back into the overdraft account so that he could process a cancel request and I got the total amount reversed within 7 days.

[vinu_h]

Guys, I had applied for a HDFC credit card in March, few days before lock down was imposed. The bank issued an INR 500 Amazon voucher to applicants whose applications went thru, which is how I know my application went thru.

3 months have passed and I am yet to receive the card. HDFC site says "no records found" when I look up the status. I am eager to know the status and also worried that it may fall into the wrong hands.

I cannot get to a customer care rep without a card or account number. How do I get around this ?

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by vinu_h

I cannot get to a customer care rep without a card or account number. How do I get around this ?

Surely you must be having an application number. You can visit the HDFC bank website and check the credit card status through the application number.