Overnight, HDFC Bank has added a new card to their Diners Club card portfolio, which sits below its Diners Club Black credit card, but above the Rewardz and Premium Credit cards issued by them.
HDFC Bank Diners Club ClubMiles Card
HDFC Bank Diners Club ClubMiles
The new credit card seems identical to the Premium Credit Card but differentiates with Gold embossing as compared to the silver one on the Premium CC. HDFC Bank has developed this one as some sort of a hybrid in between for those who would rather transfer miles and not use them on their own portal.
Think of it as HDFC Bank Diners Club Premium on Turbocharge. And the hint about the focus on Mileage partners shows in the name ClubMiles.The Premium also earns you 4 Reward Points per INR 150 spent and so does the ClubMiles Card.
All other features such as 10X earning on various partners and international spends are available on this card as well.
HDFC Bank Diners Club ClubMiles Redemptions
The differences to Premium start coming in once redemptions come into play.The Premium Card only allows you to transfer to Jet Airways and Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer, that too on a 0.5Miles:1 RP ratio. However, this new card allows you to transfer to 5 transfer partners, including the newly added ones, all at a 1:1 ratio.
ClubMiles Transfer Partners
But, if you wanted to redeem your miles for tickets on the HDFC Bank Diners Club portal, you still get an INR 0.5 Value per reward point out of it.
HDFC Bank Diners Club ClubMiles Lounge Access
In terms of lounge access, you get 6 free trips per annum to any of the Diners Club lounges in India or abroad, which is similar to the new policy on HDFC Premium Card as well.
In terms of eligibility, this card actually requires you to be only earning INR 6 Lakh per annum, which is slightly lower than the Premium version which asks of INR 7.2 Lakhs from you. Also, it is cheaper at INR 1000 per annum fees as compared to the Premium Card.
Bottomline
This card comes as a huge sigh of relief to me. I read that HDFC Bank is very much interested in growing their Diners Club card portfolio at this moment. They are launching new transfer partners and new products, so this indicates to me that the cycle of devaluations has finally come to an end for them, and it is upwards from here.
Having said that, I expect this card to take over the Premium Card portfolio over a period of time, at least for those who like to use their miles for transfers rather than redeeming on the portal.
What do you think of the new HDFC Bank Diners Club ClubMiles Card? Are you going to apply for it or switch from your existing portfolio?
HDFC customer care via telephone is probably the dumbest. The lady was willing me to offer the Diners Club “Premium” card but not the ClubMiles. The reason was they stopped offering the card and also I am not eligible as per the salary. I find it weird because I am in the 30% tax bracket and I already told her in the call.
Latest Update on their portal..
“Redeem Reward Point for AirMiles across 15 international airlines or against JetPrivilege, KrisFlyer”
I could not find the list of those 15 international airlines though..
@Krishnakumar that means redeem your miles as cash on the travel portal
Oh.. i thought they are getting 15 International transfer partners,. But if its for redeeming miles as cash on the travel portal, it must be far more than just 15 international airlines. I have redeemed my Diners miles over and above our Indian carriers on many relatively unknown airlines line Malindo, Bulgarian Air, Norwegian,Iberia, Vueling to name a few..
I have HDFC Infinia and Smartpay activated as well, can I get the annual fees removed in this case?
Hi Ajay,
Have a prestige already and am an imperia customer with HDFC.
Dont hold any diners club card at the moment. Just a HDFC corporate card and a hdfc jet Airways card.
Makes sense to get this card or the DC Black? Just wanted a suggestion. 70% of my spend is international and on travel expenses.
@Kapil, you’d get the DCB for free so don’t go for this but the black
HI Ajay,
what do u think is the logic of a new card, when they could have enhanced the conversion partners in premium variant
Looks like an attempt to placate relatively higher end of Premium Card customers with the card having been significantly devalued. On the positive side, if the Indian Diners Cards could introduce Diners/Discover US’s international transfer partners (Hyatt and a few international airlines partners) it could become an even more awesome card.
Regards
@Majumdar Hyatt has left the Diners ecosystem worldwide. They had many more transfer partners but I don’t think you should expect a big portfolio in the next few weeks. It takes years to build that sort of a portfolio.
Thanks AJ.
Regards
AJ,
Don’t know why you said “This card comes as a huge sigh of relief to me”. You already have Diners Black ..right?
I think he means that he is relieved that HDFC is bullish on Diners Cards. Less chance of devaluations in coming days, which has been the theme of HDFC for past couple of years.
@Krishnakumar, the focus is now on growing the portfolio, not chopping it off again. That is what I meant.
Yeah!! But the bank has been reducing the avenues to use the points as well as removed several 10X partners including Amazon. They have been devaluing the points as well. I could book movie tickets with my points, which is also not possible now..
Ajay – I currently have the Diners Premium lifetime free version. Can it hurt to ask the bank to convert it to this card with the same no annual fee basis?
I am an HDFC Preferred customer, with an RM; so ideally should do this through him. But my RM is very lazy and doesn’t do his job that well. In fact, he may not have heard of this card till now.
@Deo it won’t hurt to ask. I think it should be possible to get you this new card. Won’t blame him if he does not know. it was only revealed last evening.
Ajay,
The Citi Prestige remains my primary card, while I currently have the Regalia from HDFC’s portfolio – given the overall devaluations, I’ve been considering switching out of that, to another HDFC card – and was wondering whether this one makes sense.
If you have Prestige, I’m sure you qualify for DCB. Get the DCB. You can have it LTF if you just put a standing instruction for bill payment on it.
I have the same combination and loving it.
Sorry how does this work?
I have a ton of bills on which I have standing instructions for bill payment, but no mention on how to make it LTF.
HDFC’s auto debit bill payment thing is called SmartPay. As long as you have at least one SmartPay billing active, they don’t charge Joining/Annual fee. Talk to customer care. I’ve never paid a dime for my DCB.
They have another billing system (called InstaPay I think). Make sure you’re using SmartPay.
It’s not a targeted offer as it is even on their CC application forms.
So for Lifetime free DCB all you need to do is ensure smartpay billing is active? or in addition you also need to have the Citi prestige card as mentioned above?
thanks,
@NCG sure it does make a lot of sense in your situation!