CardSavvy

Loyalty membership programs are becoming more popular in India. I believe this is because Indians are comfortable with a debit card than the credit cards. Usually, credit cards have loyalty programs well established when the volume is high. India had 36.2M credit cards, 846.7M debit cards in January 2018. This clearly shows that Indians love debit cards over credit cards. About TimesPrime TimePrime is a comprehensive membership program from Times Internet Limited (TIL). Times Internet is also India’s largest digital products company. Times Internet Limited Digital Products in India Background: Times also has TimePoints another loyalty program that has a co-branded credit card with HDFC, though I’m not sure how successful it is. Membership fee The membership fee is 999 INR per year and the membership is available only to Indians. There is also a 30 day free trial for everyone. All you need is an active Indian mobile number and email address. Bonus offers If you are an active ET Money m...

HDFC Bank Diners Club Black is one of the best super premium credit card available in India. I’m using this credit card for more than a year now. This article is my hands-on experience in milking the credit card for getting maximum reward points. 10X Rewards The best thing about the Diners Club is the 10X reward points. I personally think the team behind the Diners Club does an awesome job of shortlisting the partners from day-to-day needs and offer 10X rewards. I live in Bangalore, I have now started using Zoomcar for weekend getaways, order food on Swiggy , book tickets on BookMyShow , do e-commerce shopping on Myntra, Flipkart or Amazon and make my bill payments using PayZapp Wallet . With these partners, I’m able to cover almost 80% of my monthly needs. These 10X reward partners are updated on quaterly basis.

HDFC Diners Club Black is one of the best super premium international credit cards in India. I have huge respect for their strategy and reward points. The team who manages and promotes the card really understands what the customer needs and introduced the 10x partners on travel, food and shopping category. I think I’m personally very loyal to this credit card and proud to make use of it too. VISA and MasterCard may be the top market share holders for credit cards, but there are other players such as Diners Club International (DCI) and RuPay. Diners Club has an exclusive tie-up with HDFC Bank as issuer in India. DCI has a history from 1950 and was the first charge card. They were acquired by CitiBank in 1981 and later by Discover Financial Services in April 2008. Look & Feel The card looks elegant black and has a world map in the background The card comes with EMV chip but does not have NFC enabled the contactless option Reward rate The card comes with one of the best in class rewar...

There are many innovative ways to make use of the reward points from credit cards. I know a lot of savvy users make use the credit card reward points to redeem them for flight tickets, hotel stays, gift vouchers and electronics. March is always a dry month for most of the salaried individuals. I was always wounding when will India allow us to make tax-saving investments using a credit card. To my surprise the National Pension Scheme (NPS) allows us to make the investment using a credit card. Contributions made to the National Pension Scheme (NPS) comes under 80CCD deductions.

The best way to use the credit card is to take advantage of interest-free credit days, accumulate reward points, review your spending from the statement, pay on time and full outstanding. Using a credit card is discipline, loyalty, and power. Spending money is always the fun part and paying it back is the most boring. What if the bill paying is also fun and rewarding. Yes, you can get reward points even for paying your credit card bills. What is CRED app? CRED is a members-only app which rewards you with exclusive rewards for paying your credit card bill. The most rewarding credit card payment app ever in India. You can download the app and apply to be a member. https://www.cred.club/ CRED background It’s founded by Kunal Shah, founder of freecharge which was also a loyalty reward platform for bill payments. CRED had secured $30M in funding and has a 50+ strong team.

One more reason to board flights from Coimbatore, TN has come to reality. Coimbatore Airport has been gaining traction in recent days. Coimbatore Airport has a hidden gem for credit card users. After the Christmas holidays, I boarded from Coimbatore Airport to Bangalore for a late evening flight. I had enough time to be spent in the airport so I decided to explore the dinner options. Location: After the security check, take left towards the end and take the staircase, on the first floor there will be a fine dining restaurant named “Avaachii”. To my surprise when I asked Coimbatore Airport staff if there is any lounge they had no clue about its existence of it. Avaachii Lounge in Coimbatore Airport