[Flyer]

Dear Bhpians, I need your help in selecting a new credit card. I have used credit cards before but haven't utilized the reward programs.

I want to get a new credit card to accumulate rewards through my expenses. i want to use the rewards to book international flights. Also most of my spending using this credit card will be abroad. Can you experienced folks please suggest me a credit card with good rewards program that I can use to book international flight tickets. Thank you.

[anti21]

Originally Posted by casnov

How do I convert my edge points to buy Emirates miles or buy emirates tickets using my edge points?

I don't see an option in the Points/Miles Transfer.

Well it is not ideal but if you really want to, transfer Edge Rewards to Club ITC at 5:4. Then transfer from Club ITC to Marriott at 2:3. (This gives you 5:6 transfer to Marriott). However, ITC to Marriott is limited to 60k per year. Then transfer from Marriott to Emirates as 3:1. This would finally get you 5:2 from Edge Rewards to Emirates and would take realistically around 30 days in total (sum total of official time given would be around 16 weeks).

Wouldn't recommend it. Look at other ones which have partnership with Axis as you will probably get a better value in redemption. They have Etihad, Qatar and SQ.

Originally Posted by casnov

Axis CC is useless in this regards.

Well yeah, Emirates is not a transfer partner for Axis. So there is nothing an Axis customer care executive can do in this case. At most they can only take in a suggestion to add Emirates as a partner.

[anti21]

Originally Posted by Flyer

Dear Bhpians, I need your help in selecting a new credit card. I have used credit cards before but haven't utilized the reward programs.

I want to get a new credit card to accumulate rewards through my expenses. i want to use the rewards to book international flights. Also most of my spending using this credit card will be abroad. Can you experienced folks please suggest me a credit card with good rewards program that I can use to book international flight tickets. Thank you.

Can you please provide more details? What are your monthly and yearly spends are going to be like? What kind of spends are this going to be (utilities, rent, wallet loads, gold/jewellery generally don't give points for cards with flight transfer) What is the airlines you prefer (to determine which is preferred partner)? Are you willing to pay CC fees and how much (premium cards go from 10k-70k+)?

Then there would also be an income/ITR criteria for premium cards.

[casnov]

Originally Posted by anti21

Wouldn't recommend it. Look at other ones which have partnership with Axis as you will probably get a better value in redemption. They have Etihad, Qatar and SQ.

Thank you. I will look for Etihad in that case.

Originally Posted by anti21

Well yeah, Emirates is not a transfer partner for Axis. So there is nothing an Axis customer care executive can do in this case. At most they can only take in a suggestion to add Emirates as a partner.

I understand CC can't do much if Emirates is not a transfer partner but the CC rep said, I can't transfer my points to any miles but can ONLY buy vouchers at which point I disconnected the call.

[VaibhaoT]

Seems like HDFC is introducing new variant of Regalia.
Link
Overall benefits seems similar to existing Regalia except Club Vistara & MMTBLACK membership. Not sure what's the difference over existing Regalia.
In the past Regalia was issued with MasterCard as well. I am just wondering they are reintroducing MasterCard variant in new Avatar.

[Dushyanth]

Dear BHPians,

This query is on behalf of my brother in law who owns a small construction company and spends nearly 1.5-2 lakh in fuel per month, he is looking for a card which gives some benefit on fuel either in the form of cash back or discounts. Please suggest a card which fits his use case.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by Dushyanth

Dear BHPians,

This query is on behalf of my brother in law who owns a small construction company and spends nearly 1.5-2 lakh in fuel per month, he is looking for a card which gives some benefit on fuel either in the form of cash back or discounts. Please suggest a card which fits his use case.

This is quite a high consumption of fuel. Better to cut a deal with 1-2 fuel station owners and extract some discount from them instead of relying on CC. That will be better anyday.

[Dushyanth]

Originally Posted by sunilch

This is quite a high consumption of fuel. Better to cut a deal with 1-2 fuel station owners and extract some discount from them instead of relying on CC. That will be better anyday.

Hi sir, yes this very high. This is because he has a few large consumption vehicles like tippers and earth movers in his fleet which need fuel daily and also pays for his company employees fuel as they keep on moving from one site to another. Filling those commercial vehicles at one single fuel pump is highly impossible because they will be at different locations every time when they are running low on fuel.

Instead he is willing to pay through credit card and take some cash back or discount benefits if any of them are on offer because reward points are useless for him he says.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by Dushyanth

spends nearly 1.5-2 lakh in fuel per month, he is looking for a card which gives some benefit on fuel either in the form of cash back or discounts. Please suggest a card which fits his use case.

Originally Posted by Dushyanth

Filling those commercial vehicles at one single fuel pump is highly impossible because they will be at different locations every time when they are running low on fuel.

Perhaps he can consider a Fleet card: can even have one from each refiner so as to ensure flexibility of pumps. That + some arrangement with designated pumps can work out better than a credit card.

Instead he is willing to pay through credit card and take some cash back or discount benefits if any of them are on offer because reward points are useless for him he says.

While there are several ways to maximize fuel spends (petro cards / HPCL DT Plus, when you pay via Amazon Pay and so on), it works best when the value is a few thousands / tens of thousands at best. Even fuel spends-oriented credit cards will cap out way, way before 1.5 lakhs/month.

I'd suggest working out a deal with most commonly used pumps in the region.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Dushyanth

Instead he is willing to pay through credit card and take some cash back or discount benefits if any of them are on offer because reward points are useless for him he says.

This looks business expense for me. Many banks will flag this if done through personal credit card. So please check with a bank where he has business relationship for business cards and choose one.

[Flyer]

Originally Posted by anti21

Can you please provide more details? What are your monthly and yearly spends are going to be like? What kind of spends are this going to be (utilities, rent, wallet loads, gold/jewellery generally don't give points for cards with flight transfer) What is the airlines you prefer (to determine which is preferred partner)? Are you willing to pay CC fees and how much (premium cards go from 10k-70k+)?

Then there would also be an income/ITR criteria for premium cards.

Monthly spend is Rs. 90k to 1 Lakh. All this spend will be utilities. I don't know if I can use the credit card points to book tickets in foreign carriers, but if its possible my preference is Qatar Airways. I prefer free cards, but depending on the benefits i am willing to pay some fees too.

Thank you for helping and sorry for the late reply.

[vikash49]

Just got an offer from my bank to upgrade from my HDFC Diners Black to Infinia Metal on first year free basis.

Currently, my annual spend is around 10L. I do face issues with many pumps & some stores not accepting the Diners where i have to use another card.

Should I take up the upgrade?

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by vikash49

Should I take up the upgrade?

Absolutely. With 10l annual spends, your Infinia metal will have the annual fee waived off anyway.

[Samfromindia]

Originally Posted by Samfromindia

Thanks for pointing this out ! So the ideal combination will be to have a SBI Cashback card for day to day spends and a normal CC for those instant cashback deals.

I applied for this card online a week back, but no one from SBI contacted me or followed up. They seem not to be in a rush to get new customers for this program it seems

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by Samfromindia

I applied for this card online a week back, but no one from SBI contacted me or followed up. They seem not to be in a rush to get new customers for this program it seems

Strange. Same card for me was issued instantly online and a virtual card was made available on the spot.