Au Bank has circulated below mail on 14th Jun, 2023. It’s a BIG devaluation for Zenith credit card.
Au Bank had devalued their cards earlier this year in April too. The link to that is here.
The Devaluations
The concise version of all these devaluations in decreasing order of importance are
1) Devaluation of Reward Point Value
The best redemption for Zenith was its convenient Amazon Gift cards. You could even redeem 4 RP to Rs 1 of Amazon gift card.
1 RP = Rs 0.25
However, come 5th July , 1RP = 0.2 for Amazon Gift cards. That is a terrible 20% devaluation.
The table below shows how it affects saving across different spend categories.
Zenith Spend categories | Rewards Rate | Savings as per Old Reward Rate | Savings as per New Reward Rate |
Dining Spends | 20 RP/ Rs 100 | 5% | 4% |
Departmental, Grocery & Intl | 10 RP/ Rs 100 | 2.5% | 2% |
Normal Spends | 5 RP/ Rs 100 | 1.25% | 1% |
2) Reward Point Redemption Fees
Earlier Reward Point Redemption was free. From 5th July, it will be chargeable as per the industry standard Rs 99+ taxes.
Au Bank Zenith was at best an above average card. It was these small features which made me carry this card in my pocket.
3) Fuel Surcharge Unlimited
Unlimited Fuel Surcharge is what was advertised when the card was launched. Since, 1st April, 2023 it is now capped at Rs 1000 per month. Though it is generous and allows you to fuel upto Rs 1 Lac per month, I still do miss the UNLIMITED word. I do wonder what kind of trucks are Zenith holders riding, that they had to devalue this.
4) Rent Processing fee
This has been introduced throughout the industry, and no one can blame them that it came up. Still, the 1st transaction of the month is free, and from the 2nd onwards you pay an additional 1% processing fee.
Conclusion
Amazon pay ICICI bank credit card gives 1% flat cash back for normal spends and you need not even pay Rs 99 + taxes in Redemption fees. Ring a Bell.
Au Bank’s top card Zenith is being compared to an entry level card. With this, we can see that this card is following IDFC First credit cards’ path.
It is still not a bad card considering it is a LTF card, but which Life Time Free card is!