92K Savings with Credit cards over 14 months
I have been advocating credit cards through my blog for a while and I write my experience with credit cards in my blogs. I tried to note down the money I saved using various cards since January 2021 and it comes to about 92K. Here is a summary of how.
| Sl | Category | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reward point | 56k |
| 2 | Discount | 10k |
| 3 | Cash back | 13k |
| 4 | Voucher | 13k |
| Total | 93k |
The biggest savings has been from my HDFC Diners Black credit card, mostly in redeeming reward points as flight tickets on HDFC Smartbuy. Few high value transactions are:
- HDFC - 15K on flights
- HDFC - 12K on flights
- Amex - 9K on Reward Points
- HDFC - 7.5K Cashback from Croma
- HDFC - 3K Cashback on Apple Ipad
| Card | Amount |
|---|---|
| HDFC Diners | 68K |
| Amex MRC | 10.5K |
| Citi Rewards | 3.5K |
| One Card | 3K |
| Amazon pay | 2K |
| SBI Simply Click | 2K |
| ICICI | 1.5K |
How?
HDFC Diners Black
Easiest was with HDFC Diners Black. 8 out of my top 10 deals were on Diners Black and 5 of them were reward point redemptions.
- HDFC has a portal called SmartBuy where I book all my flight tickets as well as redeem reward points. Usual reward rate is 3.3% for Diners Black, while it gives 10X RPs (i.e. 33.3% ) on flights and hotels booked via SmartBuy. HDFC has recently downgraded this offer from 10X to 5X which is really sad.
- While shopping on popular sites like Myntra, instead of paying with card on the site, purchase coupons from Smartbuy and pay with coupons. It gives you twin benefits - 5% off on the coupon as well as 2X / 3X reward points
- 2X RP on weekend dining simply means 6.6% savings on weekend restaurant bills
- Free Amazon Prime membership as yearly bonus
- BookmyShow/ TataCliq vouchers worth 500X2 every month if the spend is more than 80K. Imagine a month where you pay school fee or an Insurance premium or festive shopping.
Diners Black cards were not available for a while due to RBI restrictions. Bank has started issuing these cards again. So Get one if you can. I am looking forward to an upgrade to Infinia, hope to get it soon!
Amex MRC
Spend 1500 or more 4 times in a month. This would give you 1000RPs every month over and above the regular RPs, which counts to 12K RPs in a year.
Other cards
- IDFC bank gives 750 Amazon Voucher if you spend 15K in first 3 months
- Onecard gives 30% discount on Swiggy purchases
- 5% cashback on ICICI Amazon Pay card on purchases made on Amazon