Credit Card

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1 week to enhancements to American Express Jet Airways co-branded card

Jet Airways and American Express have been together for roughly two years now, and American Express has decided it needs to freshen up the product. So, in this spirit, multiple efforts have happened in the past few months. The new changes come into effect from October 20, 2014. Firstly, American Express dropped the 1st year pricing on this card to INR 5000 along with 10000 JP Miles for sign up, with 2nd year pricing continuing to be INR 10,000. You could add another 2,000 JP Miles by taking your card via a referral. They also added 7 lounges earlier this year, although for JP co-branded cards, these were paid lounges and not free. Some good and some bad changes coming…

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Citibank, Axis Bank & American Express Credit Card Referrals in India

Citibank offering up to INR 9999 for member referrals in India Citibank ran a pretty lucrative member-get-member promotion earlier in the year, where they offered the originating member (who made a referral INR 2,500) per card referral which was successful. Citibank is now back with a new promotion, where you get INR 2,000 per card referral which is successful, up to 5 cards for INR 9999. I think the INR 9,999 limit comes into play because at INR 10,000 or more, they’d have to start doing Tax Deductions and issue TDS certificates as well. You need to have an existing Citibank Credit Card or Citibank Savings Account to be able to make a referral. The person you refer to, should…

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My Credit Card Strategy 2014 update

In the beginning of the year, I wrote my credit card strategy for 2014. I’ve been meaning to give a mid-year update, but not been able to do so far. Anyhow, lets take a look now at how things are going, and what may be the plan ahead. Here are the credit cards I already have, and my view on them. Citibank PremierMiles Visa (Keep): This is my favourite credit card all around, and if you’ve poked around this blog, you would have noticed I love this product. I intend to keep it and use it as my primary card to book airline tickets and make use of all the special Citibank promotions that come 3-4 times a year, such…

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Jet Airways launches co-branded credit cards with IndusInd Bank

Jet Airways has existing co-branded credit cards with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, American Express and a co-branded debit card with HDFC Bank. And now, they have launched the fifth product in the market, which is in collaboration with IndusInd Bank, called the Jet Airways IndusInd Odyssey Credit Card. There is also a lower product called the Jet Airways IndusInd Voyage Credit Card. The product is similar to ICICI Bank’s card in the sense that IndusInd is offering a Visa Signature version as well as an American Express version, and you can choose to have either or both for the same amount of annual fees. Lets go over the benefits then for these products: Sign-up bonus: For the Odyssey cards, you…

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Citibank Premiermiles: New Signups get extra 10K miles for INR 50K spend in 60 days

The days of American style sign up bonuses are finally coming into India. There is a new promotion that has been sent out to members of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program this morning, which gives you an extra 10,000 PremierMiles for spending at least INR 50,000 on the new card within 60 days of activation. While I have a review of the Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card I did in 2012, here is a quick summary of the features: All spend earn 4 PremierMiles per INR 100 spend Airline purchases and accelerated partner spends earn 10 PremierMiles per INR 100 spend. GoIbibo, Yatra, Raymonds, Bookmyshow are some of the accelerated spend partners. All PremierMiles convert to Airline miles in a 1:1 ratio…

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Citibank PremierMiles v/s Citibank Prestige

 V/S One of my posts about the conversion from Citibank PremierMiles to Citibank Prestige quite set the cat amongst the pigeons out there. While everyone does want to double their miles with the arbitrage, I was inundated with email over the weekend about the differences and the similarities. I just thought I’d put my perspective out here: Citibank PremierMiles in my opinion, is the card targeted towards the travellers. You earn PremierMiles towards various purchases, and earn very high number of PremierMiles for airline purchases. You also get higher number of PremierMiles if you buy from certain brands or websites. Alongside, there are acceleration offers where Citi offers additional miles for certain category spends from time to time. You can…

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The Citibank Prestige Officially Launched!

I’ve been a big cheerleader of Citibank’s credit card products, and earlier this year I posted about the Citibank Prestige Credit Card being launched in India. The product indeed seeks to take the premium product space that was vacated by the Citibank Ultima, which sort of went downhill last year. Citibank, with this product, has been put in the same league as American Express Platinum, which wants to target the premium end of the market, what they lovingly call the affluent segment. Anyhow, when I reviewed the product, I decided to get me one as well. However, I finally went about the process a few days ago and I just received my welcome package late last week which included the…

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Lounge Access with MasterCard in India (2014)

One of the favourite features I have with my various MasterCard products in India is the ability to access lounges at various airports. Why would MasterCard do this? Well, to increase the spread of their cards with clients via Banks. Banks also look at this feature as a differentiation factor, and chip in for a few lounge trips as well. I realise I last wrote about the ability to access lounges with MasterCard products way back in 2012. Since lounge contracts change all the time, I figured it is a good time to write a new post. Under the program, holders of premium MasterCard products (issued in India by select banks) are admitted to select lounges across India, if they…

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Upto 50K Miles & More Miles Bonus returns with Axis Bank Credit Card

Axis Bank took over the the Miles & More co-branded credit cards portfolio in Q1 2013, and had been offering an accelerated bonus of up to 20000 miles on signing up the card before March 15, 2014 and spending at certain benchmarks. The promotion has now returned for a brief while, for card applications received till April 15, 2014. In summary, there are two Axis Bank Miles & More credit cards on offer: M&M Axis Bank MasterCard World: This is the lower version of the credit cards, and comes with 5000 miles after first transaction, and 4 miles for every INR 200 of eligible spend.  The joining fee is INR 3,500 and the annual fee from the second year is…

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Air India status matches work

Last week, I had written about the opportunity that existed to get Gold and Silver Status with Air India, depending on your Air India SBI Credit Card and your status with certain other competing airlines. While I had sent in my request for a status match a few days before I wrote about this post, I expected to do a follow-up or few with SBI Cards and/or Air India before getting this Gold Status, and I wasn’t even sure if I was going to get it or not. It did not matter much because at the moment I am a sporadic Air India flyer with most of my business with Jet Airways. Anyhow, there was radio silence from the other…

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Free Ticket codes very good reason why you should keep your Jet co-branded credit cards

One of the query I receive frequently from readers has been about the renewal for their Jet Airways co-branded credit cards issued by HDFC Bank, American Express and ICICI Bank. Most readers find it attractive to receive the card in the first year with 15,000 to 30,000 JP Miles as sign-up bonus, and want to cancel it after the first year because the second year renewal benefits are not as good, and they are paying the same amount of fees. While everyone who likes collecting miles across the globe loves to look at the US banks and the ability of US residents to churn credit cards every 3-6 months for big sign-up bonuses, it is a heartbreak indeed that the…

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