[audioholic]

Originally Posted by srikanthmadhava

HDFC was pushing me too for upgrading from regalia to its gold version, but it has annual charges of 2500 while my current regalia is lifetime free.

Any chance they will waive off the yearly charges?

There is a spend based redemption of the yearly charges. Even otherwise I would have a word with the RM and get it waived off. I feel its quite worth it considering the various perks offered.

[jomyboy]

In Debit card news, it seems Rupay Platinum Debit card Amazon Friday 20% Offer has ceased from today. The party is surely coming to an end with all cards :(

[bharanidharang]

I need to make a few insurance payments. Is insurance payment via payzapp beneficial? I have Amex, HDFC infinia, Neu card and HDFC swiggy. A little confused on which would be the better option. I am awaer of the amazon gift vouchers via gyftr. Any other option ?

[raviemailid]

Originally Posted by bharanidharang

I need to make a few insurance payments. Is insurance payment via payzapp beneficial? I have Amex, HDFC infinia, Neu card and HDFC swiggy.

Infinia is preferred Insurance and tax payment card for me. This 3.3% are the most useful return than any other card in matket IMO.

Many cards don't even give any points and thats where Infinia totally works. You don't need to use Payzapp, you can just directly pay using Infinia card on insurance portals and get RP.

[VaibhaoT]

Hello,

Currently I have total 4 cards. HDFC Infinia, Amex MRCC, Axis/Citi Indian Oil & ICICI Sapphiro. Except Infinia, all are LTF. I prefer to have as fewer number of cards as possible for personal reasons.

My >95% of expenses are currently on Infinia. I managed to get decent returns out of it in last couple of years. All my domestic flights for my family are largely covered by Infinia reward points. I am happy with the card overall.

But in last couple of cycles, I maxed out 15K limit of accelerated rewards points. I lost at least 10K point because of this limit.

I am contemplating to get a new card, which helps to get rewards that can be utilized towards travel. IMHO, all ICICI offerings are useless. In Axis, Atlas & Magnus are decent, despite devaluations. I am not inclined towards Magnus as I feel, I will not be able to get good benefit as secondary card considering higher fees. I am more inclined towards Atlas as of now.

Can expert member give their suggestion on what would be good secondary card to maximize rewards towards travel benefit?

Thanks in advance.

[raviemailid]

Originally Posted by VaibhaoT

I am contemplating to get a new card, which helps to get rewards that can be utilized towards travel. IMHO, all ICICI offerings are useless. In Axis, Atlas & Magnus are decent, despite devaluations. I am not inclined towards Magnus as I feel, I will not be able to get good benefit as secondary card considering higher fees. I am more inclined towards Atlas as of now.

While Atlas is an easy recommendation card, it is useful only if you have hotel and flight expenses.

Atlas 4% reward isn't good compared to 3.3% of INFINIA. If you have direct hotel and flight, Atlas gives you 10% and it gets somewhat useful at that proposition. So if you are able to move your INFINIA expenses to 10% category of Atlas, its a win.

Second challenge of Atlas is limited reward redemption. All the hotel and flight transfer partners aren't as good as transfer to Accor. ITC/Marriott might provide some value, but not as much as Accor. I haven't been able to find any value in any airline transfer, including business class, so haven't done that. I have to fly Blr-Nyc on 10 Feb, if anyone knows a good reward redemption for business class, please help me, I tried checking Qatar, Emirates, Etihad and Air India, nothing good came up.

Since Accor transfer is limited to 30K points in one year, I just spend enough to accumulate 30K points to transfer to Accor in Atlas.

[neerajku]

I had an Axis Magnus but my primary cards are SBI signature, Indus vistara and Amex travel. Though I have renewed as I forgot to cancel the Magnus subscription. What is the advice of experts? Shall I cancel the Magnus credit card? Will they refund the 11 month fee pro rata? Is there still some benefit left in it? Personally I prefer air miles now with air fares shooting through the roof.

[mukeshgoel]

Originally Posted by jomyboy

In Debit card news, it seems Rupay Platinum Debit card Amazon Friday 20% Offer has ceased from today. The party is surely coming to an end with all cards :(

It was not working but It's working now.

[nagr22]

Has anyone accessed lounges located in internationals in Indian Airports? I normally use digital QR from dreamfolks website using my Burgundy Magnus card but since yesterday I am unable to find any international lounges listed under Magnus card. So I registered for priority pass through Diners and even there I was shocked to see none of the Indian Airport lounges listed! Is this a temporary glitch or silent devaluation? I could very well see lounges from other countries like Singapore, China etc. Only Indian airports are missing (I tried searching for BLR, Delhi and Kolkata).

On this topic, has anyone used their physical Magnus or Diners Black card at Bangalore T2 international recently and was it accepted? I used in Sep 2024 through QR and it was accepted back then. I have a travel coming up so curious to know.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by raviemailid

Infinia is preferred Insurance and tax payment card for me. ...

Can you please confirm if income tax payments have reward points? I thought HDFC removed all govt portals from reward points.

[raviemailid]

Originally Posted by whitewing

Can you please confirm if income tax payments have reward points? I thought HDFC removed all govt portals from reward points.

Last income tax payment I made was in July and I got the points. I am not sure if anything has changed after that.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by nagr22

Has anyone accessed lounges located in internationals in Indian Airports?

On this topic, has anyone used their physical Magnus or Diners Black card at Bangalore T2 international recently and was it accepted? I used in Sep 2024 through QR and it was accepted back then. I have a travel coming up so curious to know.

Priority pass is generally not allowed in International Lounges inside Indian Airport. Hence you might not be seeing it. Off late, the lounges on the international side have filtered out on the cards that they offer complimentary access and is not comparable to how easily domestic lounges are accessible.

Recently I had this annoying experience in 080 where groups of people start laying down all their cards and asking the lounge staff to see what all cards will work thus holding up the queue. Speaking in specific to 080 BLR International side, they allowed my HDFC Corporate card as well as Regalia(but with a lounge access voucher generated)

Originally Posted by s4ch

This link should work for transferring points. If you scroll down there is a banner you can click on for points transfer: https://offers.reward360.in/v1/regaliagold

Please double check all the terms and conditions to make sure they match and meet your expectations.

Thanks again. This was a wonderful idea. I got my Regalia Gold, transferred 38000 points to Accor ALL which resulted in a balance of 19000 points. I was able to book Grand Mercure in Pattaya with these points which was around 10k points for a discount of 19k rupees.

Thus, I ended up having to pay 2k roughly after redemption of points. I still have 9000 points left which I will use later for another accomodation. I think this is the most VFM usage of the accumulated points.

[agambhandari]

Originally Posted by neerajku

I had an Axis Magnus but my primary cards are SBI signature, Indus vistara and Amex travel. Though I have renewed as I forgot to cancel the Magnus subscription. What is the advice of experts? Shall I cancel the Magnus credit card? Will they refund the 11 month fee pro rata? Is there still some benefit left in it? Personally I prefer air miles now with air fares shooting through the roof.

If you have used the card after the fee was charged, you cannot do much. But if you have not used the card since the fee was charged, you can request a cancellation and they may waive off the fee completely.

Originally Posted by VaibhaoT

Hello,

Currently I have total 4 cards. HDFC Infinia, Amex MRCC, Axis/Citi Indian Oil & ICICI Sapphiro. Except Infinia, all are LTF. I prefer to have as fewer number of cards as possible for personal reasons.

My >95% of expenses are currently on Infinia. I managed to get decent returns out of it in last couple of years. All my domestic flights for my family are largely covered by Infinia reward points. I am happy with the card overall.

But in last couple of cycles, I maxed out 15K limit of accelerated rewards points. I lost at least 10K point because of this limit.


Can expert member give their suggestion on what would be good secondary card to maximize rewards towards travel benefit?

Thanks in advance.

If its specifically going to be used for travel (Airlines + Hotels), Atlas is a no brainer. If you plan to use the card for other expenses as well, you can get Amex Plat travel (very good reward rate if you complete 4 Lakh spend in a year)

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by VaibhaoT

IMHO, all ICICI offerings are useless.

Why is this so?

As I have a banking relationship with them, both my cards are from ICICI.
I couldn't understand, they being behemoths of private banking along with HDFC, why they are not keen on competing with HDFC in Credit cards business..

[tejas08]

Originally Posted by bharanidharang

I need to make a few insurance payments. Is insurance payment via payzapp beneficial? I have Amex, HDFC infinia, Neu card and HDFC swiggy. A little confused on which would be the better option. I am awaer of the amazon gift vouchers via gyftr. Any other option ?

Amex Platinum Travel is one of the best for Insurance Payments.

Originally Posted by whitewing

Can you please confirm if income tax payments have reward points? I thought HDFC removed all govt portals from reward points.

No Reward Points on any kind of Government Payments on Infinia now.

Originally Posted by raviemailid

Last income tax payment I made was in July and I got the points. I am not sure if anything has changed after that.

That was the last. Its no longer the case.