There, I said it! I’ve covered all the 3 co-branded partnerships between Jet Airways and different banks on this blog whenever they were introduced. I’ve also gone through the process of acquiring all these cards over a period of time, proof enough of how much I love collecting JP Miles.
There has been a certain amount of enthusiasm and confusion wrapped around all the three products launched by the various banks, but ICICI takes the cake. Let me share my experience with acquiring all the 3 cards and the story so far.
- HDFC Bank: HDFC Bank was the first off the block in August 2012, announcing their credit card partnership with Jet Airways. Since I already had a HDFC Bank World MasterCard, I was supposed to just flip my card to the new one. However, it looked like there was a special process for that as well. I had to tweet to @HDFC_Bank and ask someone to call me. Once I got the call, I explained to them the situation. They required me to fill up a paper form for ‘upgrade’ of my credit card, while all I was doing was switching from a World MasterCard to another one. All my papers collected, including a copy of my last Citibank PremierMiles statement, and they offered the card free for the first year along with the bonuses and the free ticket. The card arrived in 2 weeks or so, and since then, every transaction I’ve made on the card, gets a separate entry posted on my JetPrivilege account. Kind of irritating but I could live with that.
- ICICI Bank: ICICI Bank followed up on a half-baked mission to be the next one to launch their credit card product with Jet Airways. They announced the card before it was ready for launch and went around collecting applications. The bait was an extra bonus miles, 50% of the sign-up bonus eligible for your card variant. But you could forget hearing from ICICI Bank for a month or two or three. Sometimes they would tell you they never received your application, sometimes they wouldn’t turn up to collect your application or make a verification, and sometimes you just wouldn’t hear from them for months at a stretch. In my case, yet again, I already had an ICICI Bank credit card and I wanted to switch to the Jet Airways American Express + Visa combination. I applied in November, and never heard from ICICI Bank till late December, when I had to make an escalation. Then, I got a call to confirm some details and in early January, I received my American Express version of the ICICI Bank Sapphiro with Jet Airways. Since I was a Jet Airways Platinum member, the card was given to me complimentary. Next, the Visa version came about 10-12 days later. It was interesting how ICICI Bank, which really intends to reward you to use their card over the others, wants you to really make an effort to use the card. First and foremost, I could not use the card online to make payments because their joint server with American Express was blocking me out (and many others). That only got recently sorted. Next, both the Visa and American Express versions would get declined on their own mind, while the credit history and payments are perfectly in line. Third, ICICI Bank is as clueless as ever on when do they intend to credit the miles earned. I’ve done two billing cycles on the card, and I’ve still not received any miles for the spend. The bonus miles got credited only after an escalation. And the story goes on and on…In a nutshell, they really make you work hard and keep you on the tenterhooks. Some might feel this is not worth the effort. If you still think it is worth your time, do jump on the bonus offer valid till March 31, 2013.
- American Express: American Express also bungled up in the beginning but smooth sailing there on. American Express launched their Jet Airways CC after much preparation in December 2012. They offered an introductory offer to everyone who was going to apply before December 25, 2012 for 10,000 extra JP Miles on approval of their card. I applied during this period, and never heard from Amex till January, when I asked for an escalation again. My card came quickly, and the miles were deposited in my account within a few weeks after, even before I had paid the fee for the card. Though, I am still waiting for my ticket code from them which was supposed to come maybe a while back.
Have you folks had a similar experience, or do you have a better experience than me in case of your JP Miles cobranded credit cards? Drop me a line in the comments section below.
Related Posts:
- Breaking: Jet Airways American Express Platinum card launched
- Details out about the new Jet Airways ICICI Bank card
- Jet Airways’ HDFC Bank co-branded credit card does not raise the bar!
- Sunday Plastic: Jet Privilege HDFC Bank World Credit Card
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Hello, I’m currently confused between Citibank PremierMiles card and Jet Airways ICICI cards. Request you to recommend a beneficial credit card for reward travel. Thank you in advance.
will i get the jpmiles on spending on airlines web sites or will i get those on swiping of my credit card any where in india like malls or restaurants?
@hemanth you get it for all spends
And saving me 2499 !
Hey AJ ! Actually, this was the 1st post I read about it, so I asked here. Anyhow, thanks for answering 🙂
Hi AJ ! Just one question, why did HDFC bank people have to ask for your citibank premier miles card statement ? Thanks.
@Varun, you’re asking the question in the wrong post, but anyhow, HDFC Bank gives you fee waiver for 1 year if you give them PremierMiles statement.
Hi AJ,
1) My experience with ICICI Jet Sapphiro has been the same. It took a lot of follow up to get the 15000 sign up miles credited to my JP Account. I am still chasing them to transfer my spend based miles to my JP Account. As of March I have stopped using this card except for using it for the “buy 1 get 1 movie ticket free” ICICI offer via bookmyshow.
2) HDFC Jet card came promptly after application. The first swipe bonus miles got transferred to Jet within a couple of days. As of now it is my primary go to card, mainly because of the issues highlighted with ICICI Jet card in the above para and the fact that I need to spend 75000 bucks on the HDFC Jet card to get an additional 5000KJP miles. I agree with you on the pain value of each transaction reflecting as a separate entry on the JP account, but hey, atleast the miles are getting transferred in a hurry. Can’t complain about that :).
3) I somehow wasn’t aware of the bonus offer on the Amex Jet card and hence missed out on applying for the same. Having bought JP miles at effectively 33 paise via the ICICI and HDFC Jet cards I didnt want to buy miles at 50 paise now, which is what I would have paid had I applied for it in Jan after the bonus offer had ended.
4) I cancelled my Citi Premier Miles card last Nov after the card got devalued beyond belief and after going over the renewal terms. I effectively churned the card by reapplying for it in Jan this year, my only motive being getting 10000 miles for 3000 bucks. Citi made me hang in balance for a while, declined it once, approved it after I escalated the matter, and got back at me by slashing my credit limit to about 1/3rd of what I had with them till Nov. Net result, I received the card, got the 10000 sign up miles after a mandatory 1st swipe, and promptly took the card out of my wallet. Everybody wins !
Hi AJ,
I want to clarify that I have received a [substantial]compensation for a similar issue from another bank [transaction declined]. Hence my fight is on with ICICI Bank. Lets see.
Hi AJ,
I have recently started following your blog. I enjoy tracking all offers on credit cards and then availing the best ones. Last yr I earned Rs 50k of benefits from the Amex Travel card on Indigo airlies. Once the 4Lac spend was over, i cancelled that card and took the Plat reserve card. This year, I have decided to avail all the jet airways co branded cards for the welcome offers. For day to day use, as of now, the ICICI Amex card has the best offer of 7 miles per INR 100 of spend. Hence I took up the challenge of getting this card. Many phone calls later/ many months later, I finally got both the cards.
Initial experience: Name incorrect, DOB incorrect, email ID incorrect, not able to do online transactions, repeated blocking of card while registering for safe key etc. It took me about 15 days to get everything streamlined. Both cards now work fine. I had a poor experience on ín Feb when their entire card network was non functional because of ‘System Upgrade’ issue. I had some large value transactions on that day which got declined because of the ‘system upgrade’. My fight for getting the JP miles for those transactions continues. Any advice for that?
Welcome gift did not get credited and had to follow up repeatedly. The first bill was raised after 2 months.
Two positive points: 7 miles per 100 spend until Sept 2013 on the Amex card and NO markup on FX spend on the AMEX card. This seems to be a software issue or is it a promotion? 3.5% saving on all FX transactions is quite substantial.
@Smart_XPlorer, I don’t think you will receive JP Miles for transactions that did not happen on these cards anyways. As for the no-markup, I am working on investigating it further. Till then, lets just use it 😉
Hi AJ. Similar yet slightly diff story.
Since HDFC has never been too generous with their reward points and is a pain for redemptions I never went for HDFC.
Next was Amex and it was a smooth sail all the way except for a slight bit of suspense period of around 2 weeks post collection of the application when there was no communication. Since for Plat it was free I didn’t pay the fees but did get teh 10k bonus after first cycle itself. And the experience has been best with them except credit of payments taking 3 working days inspite of NEFT.
Third and by far the worst indeed has been ICICI. Since I had old card I asked for upgrade but nothing happened so I cancelled the card. Just to try I made fresh online application. They took it changed the app number thrice and despite repeated contacts didn’t revert. One fine day the guy called for filling forms, came promptly only for a long lull to be followed for a month. And just when I had given up suddenly a flurry of verification calls and the card landed up in my office this month. First came the Amex and got the Visa just yesterday. But both don’t get registered for online transactions. Customer care is as clueless as one can be for a solution. So as of now it’s only POS transactions. But given the horror stories of JP miles credit and no online use, I am wondering if I should use it at all or just sick to Amex only and Citi PM. But bottomline is if one was to rank it would be Amex on top and ICICI at the bottom for sure.