HDFC Bank, for the longest time, used to have a form to get your redemption requests in for your HDFC Reward Points. For HDFC Bank Diners Club cards and Infinia/Regalia cards; however, they allowed you to redeem your points for flight via individual portals they had created, and make transfer requests via the netbanking platform.

However, over the weekend, they have integrated a lot of their redemption options and consolidated them under the Smartbuy portal, which is their white-labelled portal for offers. This morning onwards, one could see a new Privileges tab to redeem HDFC Reward Points. Now, a lot more of the HDFC Bank Credit Cardholders can redeem their points for flights and hotels using the new option on the SmartBuy portal.

You need to register with your registered email address, registered phone number and your credit card number to be able to access the specific portals for various Credit Cards.

Primarily, the catalogue ordering option has been brought online and combined for online redemption as well. Redemptions are validated with an OTP on your phone, so you can’t have an illegal redemption unless your SIM was cloned or you left your phone with an unknown person willingly.

The Infinia and Diners Club portals now offer the option to redeem for flights, just like before, at INR 1 per Point, and for other products at INR 0.5 per point. Take, for instance, the shopping vouchers, which are directly a cash equivalent conversion.

I don’t have access to a Regalia card, so I can’t comment on what is the value they are receiving from the new options.

The following Card products can now use the Smartbuy portal to redeem their points for Reward Flights or hotels.

• Infinia
• Infinia NRI
• Diners Club Miles
• Diners Rewards
• Diners Premium
• Diners Black
• Regalia
• Regalia First
• Regalia Nri
• Doctors Regalia
• All Miles
• Bharat Card
• Business Money Back
• Doctors Platinum
• Doctors Superia
• Freedom Card
• Gold
• Maruti Co-Brand
• Money Back
• Platinum
• Platinum Edge
• Platinum Plus
• Signature
• Silver
• Solitaire
• Solitaire Premium
• Superia
• Teachers Platinum
• Times Platinum
• Times Titanium
• Titanium
• Titanium Edge
• Women’s Gold
• World

Of course, there are a new set of rules for all the new cards which can redeem their points for flights and hotels. While the Infinia, Regalia and Diners Club cards can redeem their points for 100% of the value of their flight or hotel redemption, the lower end cards can only use it for 50% of their redemption, with the rest of the amount being paid for in cash.

Also, there is a redemption limit of just 20 redemptions per month for the lower-end cards. While the premium cards can do as many redemptions as they want per month. Here is the workflow for points redemptions

1. You can redeem your points for flight and hotel bookings. Continue the current steps to book Flight or Hotel in HDFC Bank SmartBuy https://offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com. At the Payment leg, you will have an additional option to redeem your points. With this you will be able to pay using the below options:
   1. Pay with Credit Card/ Debit Card/ Net banking/ Payzapp wallet
   2. Pay with Reward Points
   3. Pay partially using Reward Points and balance through Credit Card/ Debit Card/ Net banking/ Payzapp wallet.
2. To redeem your points, you need to input the following details,
   1. First 9 and last 4 digits of your credit card
   2. Mobile number registered with HDFC Bank
   3. Enter your Date of Birth, as registered with HDFC Bank
3. Enter the OTP sent to the mobile number registered with HDFC Bank. On successful OTP validation, SmartBuy display below details:
   1. Customer Name, as registered with HDFC Bank
   2. Available Points Balance
   3. Transaction value
   4. Reward Points redemption value
4. Enter the value/ amount for which you intend to redeem your points. SmartBuy will auto calculate and show equivalent points required for redemption.
5. Enter the voucher code sent to the mobile number and email address registered with HDFC Bank.
6. Smartbuy will display the amount paid through points and balance amount (if any) to be paid through card or any other mode.

For point transfers, you will still need to go to the net banking system and authorise a transfer of points.

Bottomline

This is a very good move from HDFC Bank Credit Cards. Many people want to use their points to travel, and HDFC Bank has now broad-based their options by offering redemptions for flights, even if partly, to everyone.

What do you think of the new HDFC Reward Points Redemption System?