SBI Simply Save Credit card can be your starting out credit card and has benefits for offline or instore, grocery spending etc. Other than that it is issued by our trusty govt Bank SBI. I think this name in itself has value.
Truly speaking, the time has already come where our offline spends have reduced considerably making this card obsolete.
Eligibility
SBI has not disclosed any numbers for the income criterion for this card, but my guess would be around Rs. 5 lacs. If you have no credit history there is a good chance that you will be denied by SBI. Additionally, SBI also generally gives lower limits on their approved cards.
Fees and Welcome Offer
The annual fees for this card is Rs 499+93 (tax). However, as per the welcome offer if you spend Rs2000 within 60 days of card issuance, they will reward you 2000 points. These are worth Rs 500. Note that you will lose the taxes part.
Renewal Fee reversed if annual spends for last year >= Rs. 1,00,000.
Incase, you do spend more than Rs. 1 laca, the charges will be included statement at the end of your first year which you need to pay. However, they will reimburse the charges in the next statement. Quite a long process, wouldn’t it be simpler to not charge in the first place.
Rewards
The default reward rate is 1 reward point per Rs 100. Each reward point is worth Rs 0.25.
The rewards rate as 0.25%.
There is an 10X accelerated reward rate for Dining, Movies, Departmental Stores and Grocery Spends.
The reward rate here is an exceptional 2.5%
The term Departmental stores is a bit misleading for eg. it does not cover medical stores. You will need to check your SBI credit card app to see which stores qualify as per the amount of Reward points credited. The SBI website, mobile applications are the best in the business and a great comfort to use.
No reward points on wallet transactions
The points expire after 2 years.
Reward Redemption
There are multiple items, vouchers etc. you can go for to redeem your points. But I would suggest you to only go for the statement credit option.
1 rp = Rs 0.25
You will need to call the SBI call center (given on the back of the card) to go for the statement credit option. You will also be charges Rs. 99 + 18 (taxes) for each redemption request. Also you can only redeem them in multiple of Rs. 500 or 2000 reward points.
So the strategy I would suggest will be to go for the redemption just before your points are about to expire.
SBI Simply save Credit card lounge access
Being an entry level card, there is no lounge access provided for this card.
You will need to go with SBI's premium credit card called SBI Prime Credit Card. This card has all of Simply save's features and more. However, do consider that this card comes with Heavy annual fees of Rs 3560 before you decide to go with it.
SBI Yono
With an SBI credit card you will get access to SBI yono. SBI yono is a portal which directs us to different ecommerce websites like flipkart, amazon etc and you will get a 5% cash back within 90 days of your transaction date. Do note this will be an additional discount, and will apply on any prevailing offer. However, you will need to pay with SBI card only.
These are the present offers on SBI Yono
You can also get access to SBI yono if you have a bank account with SBI.
Fuel Surcharge waiver
1% charge will be waived off on fueling only if the billing amount is between Rs. 500-Rs 3000.
Earning table
I have considered a spending of Rs. 10000 per month of which Rs. 5000 is in the accelerated category.
Even though this table may show the reward rate to be 1.4%, I doubt this number is practical. I think you will most likely reach an earning rate in the range of 0.7-0.9%. This is a very poor reward rate.
SBI Simply Save Credit Card Savings Calculator
In the below table you can add your expenses and click on "Calculate" to find out how much you will be saving with this credit card.
If the Calculator doesn't run, click here and run again :)
SBI Simply save Variants
SBI Simply Save Pro: This is given to SBI account holder or Central Govt employees. The benefit of this card is the renewal fee waiver is relaxed to Rs. 30000 instead of Rs. 1 lac for the default version of the card. However, the con is that the reward rate is reduced too. You will get 1 Rp for spends of Rs 125 for the regular category and 5 Rp for spends of Rs 125 in the accelerated category. Simply save in itself is a poor card and this "Pro" version is an even poorer version.
SBI Simple Save Advantage: Incase, you don't have a credit history or poor CIBIL score, most banks will not provide you credit cards directly. In this case, you may get a Credit card by holding a Fixed Deposit in the Bank against which you will be provided with the "Advantage" version of Simply Save. This card has the save features as the regular version of the card.
Rating
This card has obsolete features and nothing for the newer generation which does everything online.
1.5/5
Similar or better cards
You can go for ICICI Amazon credit card or CITI rewards credit card or even SBI own Simply Click Credit card.