In the days of Jet Airways, I was an ardent user of the HDFC Bank JetPrivilege Diners card and would use it to book all my Jet Airways flight tickets. Then with the closure of the airline and the subsequent devaluation of JetPrivilege, now InterMiles programme, the JP Diners card just became an added weight in my wallet.
Earlier on in 2019, I finally moved on from the Diners co-branded card and got me the HDFC Infinia. Here is why Infinia won over the HDFC Bank Diners Black:
- Ajay already has the Diners Black, so we already have it in the family.
- The monthly SmartBuy 10x reward points quota on the HDFC Infinia is higher at 25,000 points than the 15,000 points currently on Diners Black. By having this card, we could mint more HDFC reward points for our travels.
- Infinia supplementary cardholders get unlimited access to lounges worldwide via Priority Pass, which has a wider network of lounges compared to Diners Club network.
- Most extended validity of rewards points for 3 years.
- Easy acceptability of Visa/Mastercard over Diners Club.
The Infinia credit card is HDFC Bank’s premium lifestyle credit card. While the HDFC Bank’s website says that membership to this card is by invitation only, my bank relationship manager did tell me that HDFC Bank customers with an annual salary of 40 lakhs Indian rupees can apply for the Infinia. The annual fee for the card is INR 10,000 against which 10,000 reward points are credited to the cardholder’s account. Since the value of each reward point is INR 1, the annual fee gets set off.
The 10,000 reward points is a recurring benefit subject to annual fee payment. On a minimum spend of 8 lakh, INR cardholders can also get a fee waiver second year onwards.
Welcome Benefits
The Infinia HDFC card offers premium travel and lifestyle benefits such as complimentary Golf at courses in India and abroad, complimentary access to airport lounges, hotel memberships and dining privileges. While I don’t really care for the Golf privileges and the dining ones here are 2 that I’ve found beneficial.
- Complimentary Club Marriott membership: The Club Marriott membership is not Marriott’s hotel loyalty program but a separate paid membership program that gives access to dining, spa and other privileges at participating Marriott hotels in the region. This is similar to some of the other hotel chain’s dining programs, such as Taj Epicure and ITC Club Culinaire. The membership that comes with Infinia is a slightly slimmed down version in terms of discount certificates but still comes with some good dining and stay benefits.
- Complimentary lounge access: The card offers the Priority Pass with unlimited airport lounge access at airports worldwide. While I already have a Priority Pass with my Citi Prestige card, one of the reasons I opted for the Infinia was because all supplementary cardholders are also eligible for a Priority Pass. It is the same with the Prestige, yes, but to get the Supplementary Prestige Cards the secondary holders should also share your address, which is not the case for my parents. That means now my parents don’t have to linger around in the airport terminal and airport lounges have made their life a wee-bit more comfortable.
Reward Points
The HDFC Bank Infinia card earns five rewards points for every INR 150 spent with accelerated earnings on some expense categories, which adds to the benefits of the card for me.
- 2x points on dining at stand-alone restaurants
- 10x point on online purchases using the SmartBuy website
- Reward points for insurance with a cap of 2,000 points per transaction
I have been using the Infinia card for over two months now, and I’ve moved all my eating out expenses, insurance premiums and flight bookings to SmartBuy. The spends that I avoid on the card are fuel transactions and recharging my e-wallet. At 2%, HDFC Bank also offers one of the lowest Foreign Exchange charges.
Bottomline
While, I must admit that reconciling reward points for the Infinia is painful as I have to memorise the reward categories, bonuses, inclusions and exclusions, so far, I’ve been using the card regularly and have managed to get ~6% return on my overall spends, which I’m quite happy with.
Which is your favourite HDFC Bank credit card? How do you optimise your rewards on it?
I received my card today
I am confused about the priority pass. Can I use it within India to access domestic lounges or is it only for lounges outside India?
For Visa Lounges, number of visits for Infinia is restricted to only 4 per quarter which I found very low for the super premium card. There wasnt any limit on the Diners Black card
I have the diner black jetprivilege card which is literally useless after jet airways shutting down. I asked them to switch the card for me which they declined. Customer Care told me to surrender the current card and Apply for another card but also said that it most likely won’t be approved for a new card if I cancel this one. So how do I go about switching the diners
So say for example, HDFC Diners Black has a 10x rewards portal apart from Smartbuy on things like Myntra, Big Basket, etc. Does the same apply to Infinia as 10x? any idea on this? Thanks
No
I have Dinners black and I have few questions on Infania:
1) Could we transfer Reward points accured on Infiania to Air miles of SQ,Vista,Avios like Dinners
2) Comparing Dinners Black and Infania which has
* The best collection of Lounges
* The best network of Lounges
3) For getting SQ’s Kris Flyer Silver status there should be 25,000 Kris points, so if I transfer 26,000 Dinners reward points to Kris points will I get Silver status?
Hi Anand,
1. You can transfer the reward points 1:1 to SQ and Intermiles only.
2. PP and Diners have more or less the same lounge network. Holding both Diners and PP helps me get accompanying guest into the lounge for free. Lounges don’t accept 2 PP of the same name but are okay accepting cards on different network.
3. No
Thanks for the review. Why do you avoid using infinia for fuel spend or wallet loading? Please explain
……. because the TnC clearly state that there would be no RP accrual for fuel spends or wallet loading!
Could Primary card holder and the add-on card holder of Dinners Black caccess the same lounge at the same time? Or atleast could they acess different lounges either st same airport or at Different airports at the same time?
Is it the same for infiania?
Yes they can now,
I have tried the same. It looks like that to upgrade the card in HDFC you need to have a relationship manager or fill up a form and send it by post to Chennai office. The customer service has no dedicated team to upgrade or even adjust the fees. So much for being India’s best digital bank.
For HDFC bank, digital means you can find the forms on their website and take their print.. you need not visit the branch for same! 😛
Hi, can some one hold both dinners and infinia
Yes, I have both diners black and infinia
How ?
When did you receive the second card? Lately they have started deny apparently.
HDFC does not allow you to have multiple cards.
They do allow. You have send in a request in writing to use part of the credit limit of the first card for the second card. Talk to your personal banker. they can help you with the same.
Can you tell how long back did you get this done? They say two super-premium cards are not allowed now post August 2019.
I am having both the cards since 2017
What would the HDFC rewards be used for?
@sachin , At a 1 rupee fixed value, you can use the HDFC Infinia reward points to book any flight through the SmartBuy portal. We booked flights to Phuket on GoAir earlier this year using HDFC points.
You get Re.1 worth of value if you book hotels/flights with the RP and 0.5 paise per reward point in case you want to redeem them as statement credit.