The HDFC Bank 10X Reward Points for the Smartbuy programme was extended through May 2020 but turns out it is now going to be headed into a major remodelling in June 2020.
10X Smartbuy will be limited to only the Super Premium Cards
When you click through to the new promotion, you would see, the HDFC 10X Smartbuy promotion has the date of June 2020 now. The 10X promotion is only limited to Infinia and Diners Club Black card now. Everyone else gets a cashback.
Many Categories lose the 10X Points Multiplier
The other change is to the number of points you earn on paying with your Infinia and Diners Black cards. You could still earn 10X points for the following activities with HDFC SmartBuy here on:
- Flight Booking
- Hotel Booking
- Bus Booking
- Instant Vouchers
For train bookings and Amazon.in shopping, you will now get 5X Reward Points only, and for Flipkart shopping and Comparison shopping via the SmartBuy website, you will only get 3X Reward Points going forward.
To lay it out for you in simple terms, here is the cashback you will get on various categories going forward from June 2020 onwards:
- Flight Booking: 50 Reward Points (equal to INR 50)/INR 150 spent (33%)
- Hotel Booking: 50 Reward Points (equal to INR 50)/INR 150 spent (33%)
- Bus Booking: 50 Reward Points (equal to INR 50)/INR 150 spent (33%)
- Instant Vouchers: 50 Reward Points (equal to INR 50)/INR 150 spent (33%)
- Rail Bookings: 25 Reward Points (equal to INR 25)/INR 150 spent (16.6%)
- Amazon.in: 25 Reward Points (equal to INR 25)/INR 150 spent (16.6%)
- Flipkart: 15 Reward Points (equal to INR 15)/INR 150 spent (10%)
- Compare and Shop: 15 Reward Points (equal to INR 15)/INR 150 spent (10%)
Reduced limits on Infinia and Diners Club Black
Different credit cards have a different ceiling on the number of points you can earn, and there is a massive reduction in the number of points you can earn as well from June 2020 onwards.
- Infinia will have a ceiling of earning 15,000 HDFC Reward Points per month against the earlier 25,000 limit, which is a 40% reduction.
- Diners Club Black will have a ceiling of earning 7,500 HDFC Reward Points per month against the earlier 15,000 limit, which is a 50% reduction, already having seen a massive reduction after the 10X feature on the card went inactive.
- Diners or Regalia Credit cards (Variants including Regalia, Regalia First, Diners Premium, Diners Privilege, Diners ClubMiles, Diners Rewardz only) are eligible for a cashback of maximum of INR 2000 per calendar month on the Credit Card account.
- Maximum cashback that could be earned on using other HDFC Bank Credit Cards or Debit Cards is of INR 1000 per calendar month.
You might wonder what use is this promotion in June 2020 with everything at a standstill for now, but there is some use out there. Look at the instant vouchers section and use the relevant vouchers for your purchases to get 33% on your groceries and other purchases.
Bottomline
Clearly, finances are running thin to run a promotion as lucrative as the HDFC Bank 10X Smartbuy promotion which has been successful over many years. But if I know anything about the HDFC team, that is that they do pull a rabbit out of the hat. I would hope that the rabbit would be that this devaluation is only temporary. This move again seals the fate that the Infinia is now right up on top of the ladder for HDFC Bank amongst their credit cards, even higher than Diners Club Black.
What do you think of the devaluation of the 10X promotion?
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Hi…does the 15k rp limit apply only to 10x ? Or does it apply to 3x and 5x as well? I know there is no limit for 1x. Say I spent 1.5lakh and got 5x rp, will I get 25000rp or 15000?
I am trying to buy flipkart instant vouchers but it seems it is not available. Do anyone have an idea??? Or any other means of getting the voucher while availing 10X points.
Where do these incremental 9x points reflect? How to spot in statements if the payment made is eligible for 10x(I made an amazon purchase around 4 months back and I havent received the incremental 9x rewards)?
If we opt for HDFC credit card cashback using a promotion on Amazon (Apple products offer Rs 5000 cashback) – is this spend still eligible for 5X reward points? Would this make the total savings = Rs 5000 CB + 5X reward points?
question: what was the cashback for flipkart for May 2020? was it 3x or 10x
purchased laptop without paying attention..
thanks
If you paid for it in May, its 10x.
yes you will get all, whatever already in your account or about to be credited, will be considered in new card automatically
I had upgraded DCB to Infinia last year once they had cut down DCB limit to 15k.
How the hell is this beneficial to them, I have spent quite a lot each month on Amazon & Flipkart, sometimes even buying things in advance since I had a 15k point limit on DCB. Customers will be spending less now on these websites since the vouchers too are capped at 5k per card. This is just sad! I rated DCB higher than Infinia. I guess I will wait a couple months and let go of this card. 10k annual fees is just a bit too much now that these perks have been downgraded HEAVILY!
Very aptly said. Hope hdfc takes this feedback into consideration.
Ouch ..been contemplating to get an infinia secured card for a while.looks like that’s a compulsion now
any super premium card in category of Infinia from any other bank with similar offers like Infinia? Basically any better alternatives now?
None
They had a complete devaluation across all categories in the month of April, 2019. That lasted a day. Let’s hope that this ends up being along the same lines.
Sad to see Flipkart fall under the 3x category. They used to credit the points before Amazon did.
Trust HDFC Bank to change the value proposition for so many cards with a few days notice.
If I were to upgrade my DCB to Infinia, what happens to all the reward points? Any idea if they can be carried forward to the Infinia program?
Yes they get carry forward to 1:1 transfer from DCB to Infinia
What about the 9x points on dcb that are to be accrued in 90 days ? During this time period if we upgrade dcb to Infinia, will we get those points credited to Infinia ?
All the points will be carried forward with 1:1 ratio. So you don’t loose a single point
The link to the new promotion shows expired now and does not click through??
@Carpe, just checked, it works.
The devaluations for DCB is horrendous !! I am seriously considering whether to continue with the same given fees of Rs 10k( can be waived on spending 5 L ) and such paltry earning opportunities .. DCB was my goto card for Flipkart and Amazon as the returns were good. Whole point of maintaining the card was its returns. Will see for 3 months if returns restored (chances are low) else will downgrade to any LTF.
I guess HDFC Wants to reduce DCBs in circulation as many will actually quit post this …
You won’t get any LTF card if you downgrade DCB. You need to close DCB and then apply for a fresh one to get LTF. But still trust me. DCB is a wise option only if you are capable to spend Rs 5 lakh pa
Cant see the new promotion. Has it been removed?
@Jay maybe it was, but back now.
Gone again.
From now on I think it’s better to buy an instant voucher of Amazon redeem it and then pay the rest of the amount through DC BLACK or buy voucher for the entire amount
So essentially you can buy Amazon vouchers from the Instant Vouchers section at 10x and then redeem those for the products you need, instead of 5x directly on Amazon? That seems weird?!
@Rohan, the Vouchers company is just paying HDFC more than Amazon as marketing money right now, perhaps.
There is a monthly cap of 5K on Amazon vouchers, so till that amount you can get 10X on Amazon and post that it would be 5X.
Capped for Amazon and Flipkart to 5k each per month only.
Thanks Ajay, Amit & Jg – Confirmed what you’ll have said thru customer service. Cheers!
is the voucher cap per card or per customer?
also, is the limit per calendar month?
thanks!