Personal impressions - HDFC Infinia Credit Card
I have received the HDFC Infinia Credit Card, which was the upgrade from Diners Club Black (DCB), A post based on personal experience after usage for couple of months.
Note: Not a promotional thread, it's all based on my personal experience
Eligibility:
Very high eligibility criteria
As per HDFC - "HDFC Bank Infinia Credit Card is By Invite Only", but on the high level ITR of 45L or 10L FD with bank might fetch you this card, you may contact your RM and ask for it.
Note: HDFC Bank is not allowed to issue new cards because of RBI ban (for not having proper digital infra and recent outages), but they can very well upgrade it from lower card
Card Type and Fees:
The Infinia credit card is premium lifestyle credit card, the card comes with annual fee of 10K, but it's waived off on minimum spend of 8 lakh INR.
Welcome benefits:
Complimentary Club Marriott membership for a year that offers up to 20% discounts for Dining and Stay across Asia – Pacific region, you can read more details about it here.
Rewards points:
The HDFC Infinia card earns 5 rewards points for every INR 150 spent with accelerated earnings on some expense categories, some of the categories which is not included by other premium cards also get's reward like( Insurance, Utilities, Education and Rent Pay)
Spending via HDFC Smartbuy portal on shopping, travel, you get 10x points.
2x Reward Points on your Dining spends at stand-alone restaurants, list you can find in HDFC website.
Note: Rewards are valid for 3 years from the data of issue.
Practical usage (day to day):
Above all information's you can find over internet, but lets see the practical usage:
Instant Vouchers: HDFC Bank SmartBuy Instant Vouchers is a platform for HDFC Bank customers to buy Instant Gift Vouchers of 160+ Brands across categories like Fashion, Accessories, Restaurants, Electronics, Travel, Online, Beauty, Groceries and more, almost all top brand are listed over on the website.
When you purchase the instant voucher you get10x reward points
Free subscriptions of services (like Gaana, healthkart etc)
Exclusive Discounts
Just an example with Amazon, if you buy 5k instant amazon pay voucher, effectively net price would be 3350, for details see the screenshot.
2. Travel Bookings: When you book flights/hotel via smartbuy portal, you get following benefits
70% of the fare amount you can pay via your reward points, where value of 1 RP = Rs 1
You can transfer the RP to airmiles and book it via their airlines portal, where value of 1 RP = Rs 1
For general booking(with out RP) you get 10x rewards points on your spend.
3. Insurance/Comprehensive protection: When you book tickets via Infinia card, you would get
Accidental Air Death cover worth Rs. 3 Crore
Emergency overseas hospitalization up to Rs. 50 lakhs in case of emergency.
Remember: Always remember to update the nominee details with the bank and book the ticket via card
4. Online shopping (Amazon, Flipkart): For Amazon and Flipkart the smartbuy is having exclusive tab on the website and you can 5x and 3x rewards points if you shop via Smartbuy portal.
5. Insurance Policies Payment: You get earns rewards points on even insurance payments, there is a cap of 2000 points that can be earned as bonus points per days, this offer changes over time from the bank, so please have a check before making payment.
6. Foreign Currency Markup: Lowest markup fee of 2% on all foreign currency transactions.
If you spend in currency other than Indian Rupees, banks charge you a foreign currency mark up fee. This fee is as high as 3.5% + GST (~4.13%) for some credit cards, but with infinia it's capped to 2%.
7. Supplementary Cards: You can order the addon card for your family member even they don’t need to eligible for it, but get it via you, I have ordered 1 for my wife and we both enjoy the same privileges, Infinia supplementary cardholders get unlimited access to lounges worldwide via Priority Pass.
8. Unlimited Lounge Access: Primary and Addon card holders get's unlimited complimentary lounge access at airports within and outside India at 1,000+ airport lounges using Priority Pass, Visa has larger coverage as compared to Diners in this case.
9. Other benefits: Which I yet to explore, waiting for COVID to get over:-)
Golf Privileges: Unlimited Complimentary golf games(including coaching) at leading courses across India and select courses across the world.
Airport VIP service (meet-and-greet): You might have noticed when any celebrity travel, they have one person, nicely dressed up escorting and helping them with everything, this would be very helpful when you do international travel, how ever it's a chargeable service and charges varies from airport to airport.
Hope you find this post useful, I will be writing many more such unbiased product reviews in future, do let me know any feedback or comments.