HDFC Regalia is a fabulous credit card. If you want to hold just one credit card, this is it.
HDFC bank has the most online offers going around and is a market leader for in shop offers too. It has a decent reward rate of 1.33% too. It not only provides lounge access to the primary holder but to add on card holders too. Not to mention the smartbuy portal of HDFC which will take care of most of your shopping.
Lets get into the numbers and how you can make the most out of it.
Welcome Offer and fees
Its eligibility is Rs. 70000 per month and on its website it does say that the fees are Rs. 2500 per year (taxes extra). 2500 rp are given when fees are paid which is effective Rs. 1250.
Fees are waived off on spending more than Rs. 3 lacs which is reasonable against the many benefits this card is providing.
However, I know of no person who pays renewal fees on HDFC cards. HDFC generally gives this card as lifetime free. If they are not providing it to you, I would suggest you wait and try again.
Lounge Access
International Lounges: Access via Priority Pass Membership with 12 complimentary visits per year
Domestic Lounges: 6 complementary per year access allowed.
Notably your addon card members can also avail lounge benefit.
You are also provided with a Dineout Membership which in my estimate is worth about Rs 800.
Reward Programme
4 Reward Points on every Rs. 150 spent on all retail* spends including Insurance, Utilities, Education and Rent Pay except wallet and fuel transactions.
Each Reward point is worth Rs 0.5 taking the reward rate to 1.33%. (Applicable only on booking flight and hotel bookings)
The reward points expire after 2 years.
HDFC Regalia Credit Card Reward Points redemption
The best option here is for booking flight and hotels where you are allowed to pay upto 70% of the amount by points and the rest you can pay via the same regalia card.
1 Reward Point = Rs. 0.5
You can also get statement credit, voucher etc however these give poorer Points to Rupee ratios and should be avoided.
Milestone Benefits
· Earn Bonus 10,000 Reward Points when you spend Rs. 5 lakhs in the anniversary year (worth Rs. 5000).
· Earn additional 5,000 Reward Points when you spend Rs. 8 lakhs spends in the anniversary year (worth Rs. 2500).
SMARTBUY
This is the most shining feature of HDFC and where you should be able to save the most.
The link is https://offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com/
You have to make your purchases via this link and cashback will be posted within 90 working days from the last date of transaction month. This is a very long wait, and is generally difficult to track. Let me know how you track your cash backs.
The Maxcap per calendar month for HDFC regalia credit card is Rs. 2000.
The cap becomes applicable for purchases above Rs. 40000 per month. This is quite decent for most situations except when you are going for that latest iphone!
The gem here is the vouchers. This will allow you to get minimum 5% off for most of your retail purchases. The voucher portal is gyftr and has vouchers from almost all brands we frequent including Bata, Central, shoppers stop etc
Many times smart buy is providing additional discounts on top of 5% cash back.
I have bought Bata vouchers multiple times at 20+5% discount.
I will explain how to buy the voucher process works.
1) After you retail shopping is done, find out the amount at the counter of your bill
2) login to your smartbuy portal and go to the vouchers section
3) buy vouchers for the specific shop. Do note to buy vouchers for a value lesser than the bill amount. Vouchers are generally available in denominations of 1000,500 etc. If you buy voucher higher than the bill amount the system does not proceed.
4) The voucher will come through your email and SMS within mostly 5 mins.
5) You can now show the voucher at the counter and pay the difference however you like.
AMAZON VOUCHER
Of all the voucher the most lucrative one is the Amazon voucher. Via this voucher you can load amount into you amazon account from where you can pay you recharge, insurance, flight tickets to even train tickets. Hence, there is a limit of Rs 5000 for this voucher for each month. I suggest that you can go ahead and max this quota out.
The loop hole here is that that quota is for each smart buy account (unique mobile number) not to the card itself. You can buy vouchers with smartbuy accounts of your friends and family.
HDFC Payzapp
This is a wallet provided by hdfc. You can pay your utility bills via it where you will get 5% cash back upto Rs 150. This allows you to pay a bill of Rs 3000.
Effective reward rate
I think this calculation quite well sums up this card. I have calculated spending of Rs 5lacs. In case you can spend Rs 8lacs, you should be eligible for super premium cards and so not considered here.
This card gives about 4% reward rate which is quite awesome and should easily take care of all your travel expenses.
HDFC Regalia Credit Card Savings Calculator
In the table below you can fill in your expenses and check out what you will save. The table will calculate exactly how much you will save and also takes care of all the cappings on each of the offers.
If the Calculator doesn't run, click here and run again :)
Rating
Easily 4/5 .
Similar or Better credit cards
Sbi Prime credit card, Yes First Preferred are similar tiered cards. Though Regalia will beat these cards any day be it base reward rate, online offers or even physical store offers. You may consider holding them as additional cards for their respective benefits though.