Honestly, keeping any Standard Chartered (SC) cards isn’t really beneficial. You can safely close them, and if they improve their products in the future, you can always reapply.
Here are a few reasons why even a lifetime-free (LTF) card in SC might not be worth it:
- If you're not spending, then an LTF card doesn’t hold any value.
- SC doesn’t offer 10% instant discounts. whether online or offline. Most EMI offers from SC can easily be found with other banks, and they never alone with those offers, always with other bank.
- If you’re spending regularly, there’s no point in holding an LTF card because you’ll likely hit the milestones/fee waiver anyway.
- For the SVT | Smart redemption, the minimum points required are pretty high. You need to spend at least ₹80k - ₹1.2L to accumulate enough points. If your spending is low (say around ₹50k), you won't reach the redemption threshold, making the points practically useless unless you hit the required amount.
- Even with Rewards | Platinum Rewards, the redemption catalog isn’t much different from the Ultimate card, and each redemption requires at least 10,000 points, which means significant spending is necessary.
Note: With reward cards, the longer you hold onto your points, the more devaluation you risk. It's better to earn and redeem points as quickly as possible.
By the way, SC reward points are only valid for 2-3 years, and since 2021, SC has been removing vouchers from the catalog without offering any changes.
Even today nothing changed in SC.
You can close it, don't be attached to bank/card if not useful to you.
