We have written extensively about the HDFC Bank 10X Reward Points program. HDFC Bank Diners Club 10X Rewards were my favorite kind of reward currency primarily due to some offbeat transfer partners they provided in India. The list went away, but still, I look at it as a 33% cashback card.
The list of 10X partners frequently gets updated, but no major shakeups, until now that is. The focus is on travel & e-commerce. They initially put out a year-long list of partners, but then recalled it, and started to extend the date of the promotion by the months. Here are the announcements for April, May, June & July 2016. Then, it got extended through March 2017 but applied caps on reward earning per month, and a one-month extension through April 2017. In May, they put a new list valid through July 2017.
However, there was a go-around to still get 10X points on the travel category in spite of the fact that the bank does not have any travel partners in the current 10X program. We wrote about how HDFC Bank was offering a 10X on ALL personal credit cards when using SmartBuy through the month of August 2017. The promotion got extended through December 2017 and then through March 2018. Now, the promotion has been extended through September 2018. Here is the link to the new promotion.
10X Reward Points using Smartbuy promotion
That means you could earn 10X points for the following activities with HDFC SmartBuy here on:
- Flight Booking
- Hotel Booking
- Shopping via Flipkart
- Comparison shopping via the SmartBuy website.
The maximum number of reward points you can earn per cycle is 25000 Reward Points, and the promotion does not apply to EMI transactions. These are over and above the reward points towards the usual 10X cycle every month, which is also due for renewal now.
For Debit Card holders and co-brand cardholders, such as those holding the JetPrivilege co-branded credit cards, you get a 5% cashback, but I will take the points any day!
The new 10X offer runs through September 2018, which is great news since the new travel & shopping season is right here upon us! Your cash backs and points would post within 90 days!
Bottomline
For HDFC Bank, they are now engaging with the market again and are being pretty aggressive on their offerings. 25K points for everyone is not a small amount, especially on the top end of the segment where you get a tremendous number of high rollers to sign up for your card.
How do you feel about the new promotion? This is clearly one of the best ways to get 33% of your money back every month.
I am completely new to the Indian Credit Card schemes (NRI living in US) but have recently become interested in acquiring an Indian credit card. Based on all the blog posts I have read so far HDFC Diners Black card seems to be a dynamite card almost too good to be true unless I missing something. Is it true that if I get the Diners Black card i get the following:
3.3% cashback on all purchases
33.3% cashback upto Rs25000 / month on 10x partners + 33.3% cashback on SmartBuy merchants upto Rs25000 + 33.3% cashback on intl spend (e.g.Amazon.com) upto Rs10000
Lounge access for both the primary and secondary card holders
Not yet clear on the transfer partners for points and ratios as yet but seems like SQ Krisflyer is one of them.
Is the above true you can get upto Rs60000 cash back every month on Rs180000 spend or I am not reading it correctly. Would like to know more about transfer partners.
I think they are ending this in June 2018. See this: https://offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com/offer_details/409
Are you sure its not a typo?
@yashraj the date was updated after we posted. We have a screenshot of Sep 2018. Either ways we will update after getting more information from HDFC Bank
Hi Ajay, I have applied for quite a few times for HDFC club miles card and got call twice from HDFC but they never turned back after that. And its first time I am experiencing that a person would like to opt for a credit card and bank is not responding. I have a good cibil score of >800. Whom to contact or how to approach or if you can suggest any other card.
@Sanjay maybe walk into a branch?
I just spent upwards of 2.5L on my JetPrivilege Diners Card in a day this month. How many miles do you think I should get? And hopefully I would be lucky to win the 15000 JPmiles they were promoting a while back for the highest spender in a day….
@Tanmay, you know the formula of no. of miles per INR 150, this is easy maths
1 month of chasing HDFC customer care for my 11K points for shopping on Flipkart via Smartbuy till now no resolutions & i feel i will never get these points. Has anyone got these points actually ?
I am falling short by around 33000 points over last 3 months spent over flipkart and smartbuy, havent had the time to call and get clarity, I hope it works the way its supposed to!