While HDFC Bank has already been running a targetted offer for many of its customers offering them 5X points on International spends, there is another promotion they have launched today, on the occasion of Black Friday.
Much on the lines of the HDFC Bank 5X Rewards points Fivetastic promotion, now, there is another set of promotions valid on all HDFC Bank Credit Cards for International Spends. It is valid on all personal HDFC Bank Credit Cards which issue Reward Points.
The new HDFC Bank Black Friday and Cyber Monday Offer encourages people to buy online and offline from the US-based stores such as Amazon.com. The Black Friday/Cyber Monday offer is valid between November 29 and December 6, 2019. HDFC Bank is offering 5X rewards on International Spends, on POS spends as well as online spends, between this period, with a maximum cap of 5,000 points per cardmember, only when you shop in the USA.
The bonus points earned here are over and above any spends made on other promotions such as the regular 10X promotion. The points come in within 90 days after the spend is done, and you need to pay in a foreign currency to be able to get your points.
Value of the International Spends Promotion
- HDFC Bank Diners Rewardz/Regalia First: You earn 3 Reward Points/ INR 150 spent, which value at INR 0.90. With this promotion, you get another 12 Reward Points/INR 150 spent, so you get a total value of INR 4.5/INR 150 spent, which makes it 3% cashback in total.
- HDFC Bank Diners Premium/Club Miles/Regalia: You earn 4 Reward Points/ INR 150 spent, which value at INR 2. With this promotion, you would get another 16 Reward Points/INR 150 spent, so you get a total value of INR 10/INR 150 spent, which makes it a 6.66% cashback in total.
- HDFC Bank Diners Black/Infinia: You earn 5 Reward Points/ INR 150 spent, which value at INR 5. With this promotion, you would get another 20 Reward Points/INR 150 spent, so you get a total value of INR 25/INR 150 spent, which makes it a 16.66% cashback in total.
Of course, HDFC Bank has a lot many more credit cards as well, which have this feature and you will have to compute the value of your RoI as well.
Again, these are promotions for points earning cards and not valid for miles earning cards such as those with InterMiles. You need to make transactions over INR 150 to be eligible for the points in the first place.
Revisiting HDFC Global Value: 1% Cashback
HDFC Bank also has a Global Value program. You pay INR 199 towards your welcome or renewal benefit from this promotion. In return, you get 500 Reward Points on activation by doing the first international transaction. Subsequently, you get 1% cashback up to INR 1000 per billing cycle. If you spend more than INR 150,000 per annum, you get an additional INR 2000 Yatra Voucher. You need to call HDFC Bank to enrol in this program, and you get it activated within five working days.
Why does this make sense? Well, you pay 2% markup fees +GST on your cards and with this, you get back much more (1% cashback, 5X points and more).
Bottomline
I’m glad that HDFC Bank continues to keep its customers happy. So, if you are on an international trip to the USA, or just getting trigger happy from home, here is the place to direct some of your spends on. Although do check if you were targetted for the promotion or not via email.
What are your thoughts on the promotion?
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I love the card. It is a great product with great service and the best points earning possibilities in India. But it’s also the most opaque system when it comes to how many points are credited for which transaction and how many bonus points are credited for which promo every month. I’ve repeatedly asked senior people in HDFC Cards to start sending statements on reward points, but each time the answer is the same — it’s work in progress.
The most dodgy are the bonus points for using Amazon as these show up anytime between the month you made the transaction up to 90 days in the future.
The August bonus points for Amazon were posted in the third week of November.
After finding some 16,000 points missing for my Amazon transactions in June (which were credited after I was asked to send order numbers for each Amazon transaction in June), I’ve opened up all my statements for this financial year and found another 17,000 bonus points for Amazon transactions missing.
You can’t go through FY 19 statements as the call centre doesn’t have access to those. It needs an an email and then a call back to go through these!
The effort to examine what’s been credited for Amazon transactions and what’s missing is worth it as the bank is rather prompt in crediting missing points once the case is proven.
Can you please provide a source for this? I checked with the customer care and they don’t know of any such offer.
I guess HDFC’s customer service is legendary in pathetic-ness. Recently I applied for a Diners black card which they offer to some college alumni free of cost and it took me 2.5 months and multiple escalations to get the card. The sales guys and backoffice teams were completely clueless. And contrast it to ICICI Amazon card which I got in 5 days flat. Amazon is going to eat these bank-dinosaurs alive.
they know no other CC in India comes close to offering 10x points for such a long time with best reward to value ratio. Once this is done away with, they will start losing customers at same 10x rate as their rewards points :)))
So far the best customer service exp has been with Amex, its a pity their rewards are valued best at peanuts.
Surprising.. I actually heard same, sent my form along with degree and ITr/Form and got in 7 days including transit time
Ajay, how about LifeMiles purchase in USD, will that qualify for 5X?
I had tried to use a 5X offer on international spends in 2018. But after the 90 days, when they should have credited the banlance 4X, I had to start by first sending them a copy of the offer email which I had received (they asked for it) . Then they credited some arbitrary small number of points, and ignored my requests to show how they calculated it. Then I had to fight my way to the top most level of escalation before I got the balance 4X points. So I am not so thrilled by this offer.
Totally Agree, How HDFC calculates and credits points is totally arbitrary & not transparent and are very very arrogant when you ask for breakups or statements of reward points. WORST customer service even for premium cards.
I once (rather many times) called HDFC customer care to complain about non-credit of 9X points for diners 10X partner transactions! I was asked to share the offer email that I would have received! That’s their premium service for their premium card members! I never receive any offer emails from HDFC for any promotions, and they are totally clueless on this and just refresh my email in their system saying I should now receive them, which I obviously don’t. And they conveniently say that since I did not receive any email, I was not targeted for the offer, as all their poorly written tnc mention!
The day 10X rewards is stopped, I’d be the first to cut my HDFC card into four and flush it down the drain!
Hi Anshul, How do you contest such cases with customer care? You think if i sent all transactions for this year along with calculations and ask them to credit points as per my calculation it would work?
I am planning to do that. I think we all should do that and send them our workings of rewards due for credit.