HDFC Bank Diners Club 10X Rewards were my favourite kind of reward currency primarily due to some offbeat transfer partners they provided in India. The list went away late last year, 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.
Now, they have a significantly new program in place with the same backbone. Let’s share the details further with you.
The list of partners has been further reshuffled. Yatra was already out, so was Cleartrip. Now, MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo go away as well. For shopping, Flipkart and Myntra are is out of the list, but Lifestyle stays in as the offline retailer again. Amazon recently started accepting Diners Club cards in India, and they are now on the list of 10X partners. The other new addition is Swiggy, the food tech app.
The key addition is HDFC Bank’s own travel portal, SmartBuy. Do keep in mind to never sign into the portal and use it as a guest to get the reward points. I don’t know how it makes a difference but maybe it does.
Travel
Shopping
- Amazon
- Lifestyle
Entertainment
Groceries
Dining
Just as a recap, you earn the following points on your cards with the various variants on the merchants mentioned above:
- Rewardz: 3 points/INR 150 + 27 points/INR 150 bonus [Total 30 points/INR 150]. Monetary Value of INR 22.5 [15% cashback]
- Premium: 4 points/INR 150 + 36 points/INR 150 bonus [Total 40 points/INR 150]. Monetary Value of INR 30 [20% cashback]
- Black: 5 points/INR 150 + 45 points/INR 150 bonus [Total 50 points/INR 150]. Monetary Value of INR 50 [33% cashback]
- There is however a new lower cap installed on the number of points you can earn per statement cycle.
- Rewardz: 2,000 points (was 2,500 points till April 2017)
- Premium: 5,000 points (was 10,000 points till April 2017)
- Black: 25,000 points (was 50,000 points till April 2017)
I’d just step in here to say that the program is indeed delivering results for the Bank, which is where they are now on the path to cutting benefits. I’d like to believe this will go on forever, but it won’t. Maybe another year or so…so make the most out of it while it lasts or does not become a pittance of its earlier self!
What do you think of these changes to the HDFC Bank Diners Club 10X program?
Is 10x rewards applies to amazon now also?
@Rt yes
Is 10x points applicable on amazon now as well??
With Smartbuy available as an option for 10X one won’t miss the phasing out of OTAs like goibibo/yatra/cleartrip too much, right ? Flight bookings via smartbuy will still get us 10X. The hotel selection on smartbuy is admittedly poor though, as compared to the OTAs.
HDFC cards are becoming very bad now a days. I am very much against the changes. Even for the below graded cards they made a huge change without any notification. Earlier in one of the card there was 100 mile per 140 points. Now it is 100 mile for 1000 points. Can you think of the depreciation rate?
A query on the 2x reward points for dining – So is there a limited list of establishments where this works or does 2x reward points for dining work apply for just about any restaurant – not just fine dining but also maybe a food court or a smaller local restaurant that accepts hdfc diners club?
Only if the restaurant is registered under the ‘food/restaurants’ category with Diners. So 5 star hotels may not work. Similarly, food-courts and small shops etc will probably not count.
Ajay,
You think it makes sense to get a new Diners Black regular card now? Looking at the downgrade of rewards and the partners list… having second thoughts that will it be worh it or not?
Please help me with a best alternative if you have any.
Thanks,
Shekhar.
Yes, considering that you still have 30% off on Amazon and HDFC Smartbuy for all flights and hotesl, upto 80k/month, its still the best points card in India.
The fact that Amazon has been added just made my day!
By back calculating, the max spend on the 10x merchants would be approx Rs. 83,333nnis that correct?
Also, Does the 25k limit get renewed every month?
@Kabir: Yes to both. Its a max spend of ~80k/month on 10x partners to earn points. Renewal happens on every statement cycle, not calendar month.
@Kabir
The max spend on Diners Black would be Rs 75K for 10X ..how did you arrive at Rs 83333..??
AJ,
You need to carry out min 5 transactions to be able to get 10x reward. So it’s not s straight forward now.
@Krishna: Not that big an issue. 5 total standard transactions in every cycle, assume each is min Rs. 150. Its not 5 10X partner transactions. Relatively easy if you use your card for daily use, or even wallet reloads etc.
Can’t see anywhere that we need to do minimum of 5 transactions to be eligible for 10x rewards. Not even in terms and conditions… Did I missed anything?
Still waiting for the 2017 Credit Cards post!
Does the cap on number of points earned per statement cycle (25,000 for the Black) refer to the earning on 10x partners ONLY, or is it a cap on the TOTAL number of points one can earn in a statement cycle (including 10x partners + dining + utilities + other spends, etc.)?
The cap of 25K is only for 10X partners. For other expenses there is no cap. You will get 5 points for Rs 150 on Diners Black and here there is no upper limit.
Can you confirm this? I think 25k Points is the cap for the statement cycle.
Their detailed terms state: “Maximum total reward points that can be earned per statement cycle across all the above merchants as below”. Also says “Under this program” on the page, which is the 10X program page.
“Above Merchants” refers to 10X partners only on that page, not other spends.
Just checked hdfcdinersclub website and I see goibibo still there…Amazon definitely has been added on
Can you confirm your source of info please
Goibibo is gone. Check the current list here: http://www.hdfcbankdinersclub.com/privilege
Refresh your browser and recheck… goibibo is gone.
Yeah true…
Amazon acceptance of Diners is still in progress. I was tracking these changes and called both HDFC and Amazon. Perhaps by this weekend or next.
Smartbuy (another product from hdfc bank as always) doesn’t work. Logged in or not.
When you call them, they don’t have any idea and ask you to call the service provider of smartbuy. Smartbuy will again transfer you to hdfc bank. This will continue till you give up.
Amazon is working fine with Diners. Used with their mobile app as well.
Smartbuy 10X is only valid for flights and hotels, without logging in as user. Worked for me. Maybe try a different browser?
I want to book a flight on smartbuy..
Do i need to enter any promo code or just book it normally as a guest?
Also, what will happen if i use any other promo code, eg. flat FLYHDFC for getting 200 off…??
@Anuj, you can book normally as a guest. However, I hope there is not repercussion of using the promocode. I used it 3 times yesterday, so let’s see what comes out of it
Thanks for the quick revert Ajay..
Let me not use the code then.. The 10x points are much more valuable..
Life was so much simpler when the deal was active on GoIbibo and MakemyTrip.. *sigh*