The HDFC Bank 10X Reward Points 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 July 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 in July 2020:

• 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 July 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. Also, remember that later in July 2020, the points usage policy is also changing so perhaps better to redeem now for your travel.

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 new 10X promotion?

(HT: Abhinav Jain)

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