Credit Card Strategy for Diwali 2017!

It is that time of the year when we are all either off for our annual holidays or shopping for friends and family. After all, it’s Diwali and it is here. I just thought I’d be sharing my thoughts on how are my spends being allocated to various cards this Diwali season.

HDFC Bank Diners Club Black

HDFC Bank Diners Club

HDFC Bank Diners Club

We have some work ongoing at my parental home in Delhi. Given that the Flipkart Big Diwali Sale is ongoing at Flipkart a 10% discount on these cards is great as well then. So, I’ll be using the HDFC Bank Diners Black at both Flipkart and Amazon (10X partner, i.e. 33% discount or so). Amazon is also running one final sale before Diwali, in case you missed it!

If you are planning to travel abroad for the Diwali Holidays, it may also be a good idea to put spend on the HDFC Bank Diners Club Black card. Because you’d get a 1% cashback and 10x points for international spend as well.

All these promotions are of course also valid on other Diners Club variants, so if you hold another version of the card, you could use that as well. HDFC Bank Diners Club has the promotions going on all of them!

American Express Gold Charge Card

Oh yes, trying my level best to get some Tanishq Vouchers on my spends which are not 10X on HDFC Bank Diners Club. More value for the spends. If I’d end up going to a Croma, then 5 MR Points per INR 100 extra as well! Of course, the Tanishq voucher promotion is also valid on the Amex Platinum Travel Credit Card, Amex Platinum Charge Card (with 40K Vouchers) and Amex Platinum Reserve Credit Card.

Citibank Prestige

Citi Prestige

Citi Prestige

Now, everyone knows Citi has some of my favourite card products always. Citi Prestige is my go-to card for all the shopping I usually do, but I also still like the Citi PremierMiles which has a fan following beyond my imagination. I’ll be putting up spend on my Citibank card as well, given they are donating money for a noble cause this Diwali.

Citibank will donate money this Diwali

Citibank will donate money this Diwali

HDFC Diners Jet Black

a credit card with different logos

Given I’ve been on Jet Airways all through the past few weeks, I’ve been putting all my spend on Shipra’s JetPrivilege Diners Black for that. 24 JPMiles/INR 150 spent and the ability to modify plans due to booking directly as a JetPrivilege Platinum.

Of course, there are tonnes of other promotions out there that I’m sure I haven’t noticed or used, so happy to hear your thoughts about my strategy, and what could be done better.

How are you allocating your spends on various credit cards this Diwali? I’d love to hear and adjust my strategy accordingly too!

P.S.: Just landed the Yes Bank Preferred Card as well, which has a 10X points promotion of its own but only when you spend 50000 INR upwards. So that is out of my consideration set for now.

About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Yes Preferred looks interesting with 10x but the value is much lower than Diners Black. Each reward point is worth 0.25 and you get 8 points for every 100 spend. That means, for 10x, it will be 80 points = INR 20 / 100 spent. Not bad for those that are not part of the diners black card.

  2. Like other commentators have pointed out, the Yes bank 10x has no min spend need. Also, standard earning is 10 yes points, so 10x should be 100 points i.e. 25% on select merchants.

    Also, you can get diners 33% on Flipkart via smartbuy? Coupled with extra 10% off, that could potentially be 43%?

            • Ajay, it’s not a written down offer on website, but you tell them you want the top-end exclusive card on credit card match basis. They want another card with 8L+ limit, that’s all. Copy of card/statement and you get the lifetime free variant. No welcome points, but hey, free priority pass for family was worth the effort for me. They matched a high limit premiermiles for me! 😀

  3. Still, Diners is 1 point = 1 INR, Yes is 1 point = .25 INR which means a total of INR 2.5 INR with the ten points as well. much less value, right?

  4. Am parking some spends with yes first exclusive card. 10X without min spends cap.

    Have intl travel coming up and that’s going on Hdfc jet privilege diners card.

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