Infinia Experience - Infinia Metal Upgrade

[Sisyphus]

Thanks to the TF community members, I successfully upgraded my HDFC DCB LTF to HDFC Infinia Metal FYF after fighting for 3 months. Here's my story.

HDFC Relationship Context / Basic Info:

• Banking Relationship: Savings account (Preferred) for ~13 years
• AMB in HDFC Account: INR 10k
• Existing Cards with HDFC Bank
  • Times Titanium Card (from 2016 onwards) - LTF - Credit Limit: 3.3L
  • Diners Black (from 2019 onwards) - LTF - Alumni Program - Credit Limit: 3.9L
• Spends in the trailing 6 months on both cards
  • Times Titanium - INR 1.9L
  • Diners Black - INR 1L
• Other Products with HDFC
  • Loan > 1cr
  • No other products, loans or fixed deposits
• Main source of income: Salary

After I got rejected for the first credit card I applied for after 4+ years (Amazon Pay ICICI), I discovered TF and added an upgrade to Infinia as a target.

Data I was prepared with for the Escalation / Request for Upgrade:

• Banking history with HDFC along with all details (Savings account, Home Loan account, length of relationship, customer ID etc)
• ITR from last year (> INR 36L)
• Salary Slips for the last 3 months
• Bank statement of my salaried account from ICICI for the last 6 months
• Details & quantum of purchases I had routed to my family/friend's cards over the last 6 months (acceptability & reward cap issues)
• Projected spending with a detailed breakdown for the next 6 months

Chronology:

• Escalation 1: RM from my home branch. He rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 2: Credit Card customer care. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 3: grievance.redressalcc@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 4: PriorityRedressal.CreditCards@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 5: pnohdfcbank@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 6: Customer care, one person said he would help me out. Request rejected, internal policies
• Escalation 7: infinia.services@hdfcbank.com. Request rejected, internal policies.

Here's where finally my RM relented for at least a Credit limit enhancement request since he was feeling bad that my upgrade request got shot down at all levels. Took ITR & salary slip over email and he helped reallocate my credit limit across the 2 cards, increasing limit by 1.65L, thus bumping up the CL of my HDFC DCB to INR 8.85L. Post this CL increase, I re-started the escalations in a different route based on a thread from @CC_Exuberant containing the image attached in this post

• Escalation 8: BM - Branch Manager of my Home Branch. Spoke to him and sent him an email. He was realistic, and told me spends was not there and to come back only when spends exceeded INR 7.5L in a trailing 6-month period. He said he was helpless in his conversation with the internal credit card team.

• Escalation 9: My RM provided the details of the escalation matrix. I sent an email to the CH - Cluster Head. Post which he forwarded the email to my Branch Manager and he reached out to me to help build a case - NRV across the rest of the family, how much funds I could move, can I move my salary account etc. But he clearly said don't do any of this now and that he was still not confident in my case as the credit cards team seemed to be rejecting things. They asked me to 'Upgrade' to Regalia if acceptability of DCB was my issue, spend INR 7.5L and then apply for Infinia

• Escalation 10: Post-new year, I called the Cluster Manager over the phone & spoke to him. I cited 10+ examples of cases where NTB people were offered Infinia and how they were ill-treating an existing customer who had better stats than the ones who had already been given Infinia. I told him I understood I don't meet the spend criteria, but if the yardstick for granting Infinia was used consistently for all users, I wouldn't even be wasting my time escalating things. He was extremely curt, and defended HDFC throughout the conversation. I finally asked him what is the way forward. He said the BM will take up the case again and see what can be done

• Escalation 11: Throughout all the escalations post my conversation with BM (escalation 8), he was always sympathetic to my case whenever I sent him examples of profiles that have gotten Infinia as an NTB especially. I updated him on my conversation with the cluster manager and told him I don't need Infinia, I am happy with DCB LTF, but I am extremely unhappy with the way HDFC is treating existing customers and I will not stop escalating even if it means I have to go to BBH, GH, CEO if necessary.

Post the last conversation, he got my upgrade request approved in 3 days, RM asked me to fill & send a form & income documents to the home branch directly. 7 working days after that Infinia Metal FYF showed up in my net banking (image attached in the post). BM was again saying do not do anything - Moving salary account, FDs etc until I got the card in my hand.

So for existing customers - Spend of > INR 7.5L in trailing 6 months is the most important criteria apart from having a Credit Limit > INR 8L. For NTB customers having a decent salary and opening a salaried account (depending on the branch) could be more than sufficient to get an FYF Infinia Metal directly.

There were options during this journey where a ULIP of ~ INR 2L/year could have gotten me an Infinia. At this point, my investment portfolio couldn't accommodate such an investment even though the Tax-free IRR was equivalent to a good debt instrument. This is again an option if people want to diversify their investment / looking for alternative debt options.

I had a lot of support from the community through several messages and posts that I had written on this topic throughout the last 3 months. Multiple people cheering me on (@elite34700 and others) to not let existing customers be taken for a ride by large banks, thank you to everyone.

Hope this post helps someone else in their journey to Infinia Metal (or probably Infinia Reserve soon)

 

[Pravas]

Md desk email?

The email id I sent was sashi.jagdishan@hdfcbank.com

 

[booklover]

Thanks to the TF community members, I successfully upgraded my HDFC DCB LTF to HDFC Infinia Metal FYF after fighting for 3 months. Here's my story.

HDFC Relationship Context / Basic Info:

• Banking Relationship: Savings account (Preferred) for ~13 years
• AMB in HDFC Account: INR 10k
• Existing Cards with HDFC Bank
  • Times Titanium Card (from 2016 onwards) - LTF - Credit Limit: 3.3L
  • Diners Black (from 2019 onwards) - LTF - Alumni Program - Credit Limit: 3.9L
• Spends in the trailing 6 months on both cards
  • Times Titanium - INR 1.9L
  • Diners Black - INR 1L
• Other Products with HDFC
  • Loan > 1cr
  • No other products, loans or fixed deposits
• Main source of income: Salary

After I got rejected for the first credit card I applied for after 4+ years (Amazon Pay ICICI), I discovered TF and added an upgrade to Infinia as a target.

Data I was prepared with for the Escalation / Request for Upgrade:

• Banking history with HDFC along with all details (Savings account, Home Loan account, length of relationship, customer ID etc)
• ITR from last year (> INR 36L)
• Salary Slips for the last 3 months
• Bank statement of my salaried account from ICICI for the last 6 months
• Details & quantum of purchases I had routed to my family/friend's cards over the last 6 months (acceptability & reward cap issues)
• Projected spending with a detailed breakdown for the next 6 months

Chronology:

• Escalation 1: RM from my home branch. He rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 2: Credit Card customer care. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 3: grievance.redressalcc@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 4: PriorityRedressal.CreditCards@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 5: pnohdfcbank@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 6: Customer care, one person said he would help me out. Request rejected, internal policies
• Escalation 7: infinia.services@hdfcbank.com. Request rejected, internal policies.

Here's where finally my RM relented for at least a Credit limit enhancement request since he was feeling bad that my upgrade request got shot down at all levels. Took ITR & salary slip over email and he helped reallocate my credit limit across the 2 cards, increasing limit by 1.65L, thus bumping up the CL of my HDFC DCB to INR 8.85L. Post this CL increase, I re-started the escalations in a different route based on a thread from @CC_Exuberant containing the image attached in this post

• Escalation 8: BM - Branch Manager of my Home Branch. Spoke to him and sent him an email. He was realistic, and told me spends was not there and to come back only when spends exceeded INR 7.5L in a trailing 6-month period. He said he was helpless in his conversation with the internal credit card team.

• Escalation 9: My RM provided the details of the escalation matrix. I sent an email to the CH - Cluster Head. Post which he forwarded the email to my Branch Manager and he reached out to me to help build a case - NRV across the rest of the family, how much funds I could move, can I move my salary account etc. But he clearly said don't do any of this now and that he was still not confident in my case as the credit cards team seemed to be rejecting things. They asked me to 'Upgrade' to Regalia if acceptability of DCB was my issue, spend INR 7.5L and then apply for Infinia

• Escalation 10: Post-new year, I called the Cluster Manager over the phone & spoke to him. I cited 10+ examples of cases where NTB people were offered Infinia and how they were ill-treating an existing customer who had better stats than the ones who had already been given Infinia. I told him I understood I don't meet the spend criteria, but if the yardstick for granting Infinia was used consistently for all users, I wouldn't even be wasting my time escalating things. He was extremely curt, and defended HDFC throughout the conversation. I finally asked him what is the way forward. He said the BM will take up the case again and see what can be done

• Escalation 11: Throughout all the escalations post my conversation with BM (escalation 8), he was always sympathetic to my case whenever I sent him examples of profiles that have gotten Infinia as an NTB especially. I updated him on my conversation with the cluster manager and told him I don't need Infinia, I am happy with DCB LTF, but I am extremely unhappy with the way HDFC is treating existing customers and I will not stop escalating even if it means I have to go to BBH, GH, CEO if necessary.

Post the last conversation, he got my upgrade request approved in 3 days, RM asked me to fill & send a form & income documents to the home branch directly. 7 working days after that Infinia Metal FYF showed up in my net banking (image attached in the post). BM was again saying do not do anything - Moving salary account, FDs etc until I got the card in my hand.

So for existing customers - Spend of > INR 7.5L in trailing 6 months is the most important criteria apart from having a Credit Limit > INR 8L. For NTB customers having a decent salary and opening a salaried account (depending on the branch) could be more than sufficient to get an FYF Infinia Metal directly.

There were options during this journey where a ULIP of ~ INR 2L/year could have gotten me an Infinia. At this point, my investment portfolio couldn't accommodate such an investment even though the Tax-free IRR was equivalent to a good debt instrument. This is again an option if people want to diversify their investment / looking for alternative debt options.

I had a lot of support from the community through several messages and posts that I had written on this topic throughout the last 3 months. Multiple people cheering me on (@elite34700 and others) to not let existing customers be taken for a ride by large banks, thank you to everyone.

Hope this post helps someone else in their journey to Infinia Metal (or probably Infinia Reserve soon)

Congrats!! On a serious note, HDFC should improve this process and also take more care of the existing customers.

I am curious to know why you went for Infinia FYF when you already had DCB LTF 🤔🤔

 

[booklover]

Excellent summary. Congratulations. What a persistent effort.

Our journey is almost similar my friend. Although mine was easier. Same 13 years, but was stuck at Regalia LTF. Never bothered for alumni offer of DCB, and forgot to click the LTF Infinia upgrade that had shown up in COVID days.

But new RM, BM were extremely supportive and got spend criteria waiver. Salary credit helped and 20L limit on existing regalia helped and took a yearly insurance plan to lock in good debt rates.

So you got the visa variant?

What kind of insurance plan did you buy? I had also received an offer to get the card in the past if I buy insurance - but I had declined back then.

 

[Pravas]

Congrats!! On a serious note, HDFC should improve this process and also take more care of the existing customers.

I am curious to know why you went for Infinia FYF when you already had DCB LTF 🤔🤔

Not sure about him but i took infina FYF over LTF DCB is for smartbuy limit and multiplier and tanishq vouchers which suits me.

Believe me when I tell you that GST amount you give for FYF is recovered within 2 months if you use Amazon pay about 20k PM. (Which can be used to pay utility bill, zepto and Uber)

 

[Arosaurabh]

Very well detailed post and kudos to you for your persistent efforts.

My journey to infinia was somehow smoother.

1. I had only credit card relationship with HDFC - regalia first with 5L limit for past 3 years.
2. Joined TF community and got to know about alumini program and got DCB LTF with same 5L limit.
3. Sent mail to PNO to increase credit limit of DCB and they increased it to 8L.
4. Sent mail again to PNO for infinia upgrade but they declined.
5. Opened a savings account with HDFC and parked some emergency fund (around 10L) for 15 days and asked BM to upgrade to imperia program.
6. Meanwhile spent around 4.5 L mostly insurance related payments for my parents and me with DCB in 2-3 months.
7. Sent mail again to PNO for upgrade to infinia, again got declined.
8. Sent a email to MD desk mentioning that I am an existing impera customer with good balance in the account, good salary, spend in CC, and if they did not upgrade to infinia I am going to move my banking relationship else where. It worked and they approved infinia FYF. I tried to negotiate for LTF but they declined so took the FYF Card.


The whole process from point 5 to 8 took like 20-25 days where i had to park my emergency fund in there bank account. Once I saw the card in mobile banking removed the 10L to other high interest bank accounts like indus select and RBL.

I think if you have spent a decent amount in HDFC card and have a good enough credit limit you can follow this route to get the infinia card relatively easy.

What was the time difference between your getting DCB and requesting for Infinia, and can you share the mail id for MD desk?

 

[Pravas]

What was the time difference between your getting DCB and requesting for Infinia, and can you share the mail id for MD desk?

The time difference was 4 months.

Email ID : sashi.jagdishan@hdfcbank.com

 

[Arosaurabh]

The time difference was 4 months.

Email ID : sashi.jagdishan@hdfcbank.com

Thanks for the inputs, I am about to cross 3 months I was thinking of trying my luck. Though my spend are still away from 7.5 L,

 

[sanzz]

Thanks for the inputs, I am about to cross 3 months I was thinking of trying my luck. Though my spend are still away from 7.5 L,

You can request for upgrade as soon as you meet the spend and CL requirements . I had DCB plastic FYF since 2022 but didn't use and was due for renewal in Nov'23. Luckily DCB metal was launched and I got the FYF Metal upgrade so took it . From Nov'23 to Jan'24 I spent around 8lac+ and wrote for the upgrade to Infinia.
First request was denied but then I threatened with no spending afterwards, banking relationship closure (which I don't have ) and FYF Infinia Metal was offered.

From my experience I can say that upgrade can happen anytime given you meet the eligibility criteria in terms of spends (8l+) in 6 months and CL (mine was 10l +).

 

[Arosaurabh]

You can request for upgrade as soon as you meet the spend and CL requirements . I had DCB plastic FYF since 2022 but didn't use and was due for renewal in Nov'23. Luckily DCB metal was launched and I got the FYF Metal upgrade so took it . From Nov'23 to Jan'24 I spent around 8lac+ and wrote for the upgrade to Infinia.
First request was denied but then I threatened with no spending afterwards, banking relationship closure (which I don't have ) and FYF Infinia Metal was offered.

From my experience I can say that upgrade can happen anytime given you meet the eligibility criteria in terms of spends (8l+) in 6 months and CL (mine was 10l +).

Thanks for the inputs, though it will take me some time to reach the spend target, i feel encouraged to try my luck even after 3 months to see the response.

 

[paxauquabriba-4876]

NTB people
CH - Cluster Head
Cluster Manager
BBH,
GH
ULIP

?

 

[girish3456]

Very well detailed post and kudos to you for your persistent efforts.

My journey to infinia was somehow smoother.

1. I had only credit card relationship with HDFC - regalia first with 5L limit for past 3 years.
2. Joined TF community and got to know about alumini program and got DCB LTF with same 5L limit.
3. Sent mail to PNO to increase credit limit of DCB and they increased it to 8L.
4. Sent mail again to PNO for infinia upgrade but they declined.
5. Opened a savings account with HDFC and parked some emergency fund (around 10L) for 15 days and asked BM to upgrade to imperia program.
6. Meanwhile spent around 4.5 L mostly insurance related payments for my parents and me with DCB in 2-3 months.
7. Sent mail again to PNO for upgrade to infinia, again got declined.
8. Sent a email to MD desk mentioning that I am an existing impera customer with good balance in the account, good salary, spend in CC, and if they did not upgrade to infinia I am going to move my banking relationship else where. It worked and they approved infinia FYF. I tried to negotiate for LTF but they declined so took the FYF Card.


The whole process from point 5 to 8 took like 20-25 days where i had to park my emergency fund in there bank account. Once I saw the card in mobile banking removed the 10L to other high interest bank accounts like indus select and RBL.

I think if you have spent a decent amount in HDFC card and have a good enough credit limit you can follow this route to get the infinia card relatively easy.

Can you please share MD desk email id

 

[Pravas]

Can you please share MD desk email id

Email ID I used was Sashi.Jagdishan@hdfcbank.com

 

[sharad007]

Thanks to the TF community members, I successfully upgraded my HDFC DCB LTF to HDFC Infinia Metal FYF after fighting for 3 months. Here's my story.

HDFC Relationship Context / Basic Info:

• Banking Relationship: Savings account (Preferred) for ~13 years
• AMB in HDFC Account: INR 10k
• Existing Cards with HDFC Bank
  • Times Titanium Card (from 2016 onwards) - LTF - Credit Limit: 3.3L
  • Diners Black (from 2019 onwards) - LTF - Alumni Program - Credit Limit: 3.9L
• Spends in the trailing 6 months on both cards
  • Times Titanium - INR 1.9L
  • Diners Black - INR 1L
• Other Products with HDFC
  • Loan > 1cr
  • No other products, loans or fixed deposits
• Main source of income: Salary

After I got rejected for the first credit card I applied for after 4+ years (Amazon Pay ICICI), I discovered TF and added an upgrade to Infinia as a target.

Data I was prepared with for the Escalation / Request for Upgrade:

• Banking history with HDFC along with all details (Savings account, Home Loan account, length of relationship, customer ID etc)
• ITR from last year (> INR 36L)
• Salary Slips for the last 3 months
• Bank statement of my salaried account from ICICI for the last 6 months
• Details & quantum of purchases I had routed to my family/friend's cards over the last 6 months (acceptability & reward cap issues)
• Projected spending with a detailed breakdown for the next 6 months

Chronology:

• Escalation 1: RM from my home branch. He rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 2: Credit Card customer care. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 3: grievance.redressalcc@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 4: PriorityRedressal.CreditCards@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 5: pnohdfcbank@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 6: Customer care, one person said he would help me out. Request rejected, internal policies
• Escalation 7: infinia.services@hdfcbank.com. Request rejected, internal policies.

Here's where finally my RM relented for at least a Credit limit enhancement request since he was feeling bad that my upgrade request got shot down at all levels. Took ITR & salary slip over email and he helped reallocate my credit limit across the 2 cards, increasing limit by 1.65L, thus bumping up the CL of my HDFC DCB to INR 8.85L. Post this CL increase, I re-started the escalations in a different route based on a thread from @CC_Exuberant containing the image attached in this post

• Escalation 8: BM - Branch Manager of my Home Branch. Spoke to him and sent him an email. He was realistic, and told me spends was not there and to come back only when spends exceeded INR 7.5L in a trailing 6-month period. He said he was helpless in his conversation with the internal credit card team.

• Escalation 9: My RM provided the details of the escalation matrix. I sent an email to the CH - Cluster Head. Post which he forwarded the email to my Branch Manager and he reached out to me to help build a case - NRV across the rest of the family, how much funds I could move, can I move my salary account etc. But he clearly said don't do any of this now and that he was still not confident in my case as the credit cards team seemed to be rejecting things. They asked me to 'Upgrade' to Regalia if acceptability of DCB was my issue, spend INR 7.5L and then apply for Infinia

• Escalation 10: Post-new year, I called the Cluster Manager over the phone & spoke to him. I cited 10+ examples of cases where NTB people were offered Infinia and how they were ill-treating an existing customer who had better stats than the ones who had already been given Infinia. I told him I understood I don't meet the spend criteria, but if the yardstick for granting Infinia was used consistently for all users, I wouldn't even be wasting my time escalating things. He was extremely curt, and defended HDFC throughout the conversation. I finally asked him what is the way forward. He said the BM will take up the case again and see what can be done

• Escalation 11: Throughout all the escalations post my conversation with BM (escalation 8), he was always sympathetic to my case whenever I sent him examples of profiles that have gotten Infinia as an NTB especially. I updated him on my conversation with the cluster manager and told him I don't need Infinia, I am happy with DCB LTF, but I am extremely unhappy with the way HDFC is treating existing customers and I will not stop escalating even if it means I have to go to BBH, GH, CEO if necessary.

Post the last conversation, he got my upgrade request approved in 3 days, RM asked me to fill & send a form & income documents to the home branch directly. 7 working days after that Infinia Metal FYF showed up in my net banking (image attached in the post). BM was again saying do not do anything - Moving salary account, FDs etc until I got the card in my hand.

So for existing customers - Spend of > INR 7.5L in trailing 6 months is the most important criteria apart from having a Credit Limit > INR 8L. For NTB customers having a decent salary and opening a salaried account (depending on the branch) could be more than sufficient to get an FYF Infinia Metal directly.

There were options during this journey where a ULIP of ~ INR 2L/year could have gotten me an Infinia. At this point, my investment portfolio couldn't accommodate such an investment even though the Tax-free IRR was equivalent to a good debt instrument. This is again an option if people want to diversify their investment / looking for alternative debt options.

I had a lot of support from the community through several messages and posts that I had written on this topic throughout the last 3 months. Multiple people cheering me on (@elite34700 and others) to not let existing customers be taken for a ride by large banks, thank you to everyone.

Hope this post helps someone else in their journey to Infinia Metal (or probably Infinia Reserve soon)

i don't know but i got Infinia as LTF without any efforts they offered me upgrade with account opening which i have closed later.

 

[LiamHouse]

i don't know but i got Infinia as LTF without any efforts they offered me upgrade with account opening which i have closed later.

when did you get the LTF offer? they used to offer it very easily during covid apparently.

 

[sharad007]

when did you get the LTF offer? they used to offer it very easily during covid apparently.

after covid actually ... but now it seems impossible

 

[Hemang]

Nice, congrats on your journey too!

Yes the variant is Visa. When I asked my RM to check on the variant during the application process, I wanted it to be Visa specifically (Visa Infinite), he sent me screenshot of his conversation which showed the credit card team saying they are only issuing the Visa variant anyway.

Bhai matlab BM can waive spend criteria as well as credit limit criteria to get the approval for DCB or Infinia ?

 

[Lord Silvr]

Thanks to the TF community members, I successfully upgraded my HDFC DCB LTF to HDFC Infinia Metal FYF after fighting for 3 months. Here's my story.

HDFC Relationship Context / Basic Info:

• Banking Relationship: Savings account (Preferred) for ~13 years
• AMB in HDFC Account: INR 10k
• Existing Cards with HDFC Bank
  • Times Titanium Card (from 2016 onwards) - LTF - Credit Limit: 3.3L
  • Diners Black (from 2019 onwards) - LTF - Alumni Program - Credit Limit: 3.9L
• Spends in the trailing 6 months on both cards
  • Times Titanium - INR 1.9L
  • Diners Black - INR 1L
• Other Products with HDFC
  • Loan > 1cr
  • No other products, loans or fixed deposits
• Main source of income: Salary

After I got rejected for the first credit card I applied for after 4+ years (Amazon Pay ICICI), I discovered TF and added an upgrade to Infinia as a target.

Data I was prepared with for the Escalation / Request for Upgrade:

• Banking history with HDFC along with all details (Savings account, Home Loan account, length of relationship, customer ID etc)
• ITR from last year (> INR 36L)
• Salary Slips for the last 3 months
• Bank statement of my salaried account from ICICI for the last 6 months
• Details & quantum of purchases I had routed to my family/friend's cards over the last 6 months (acceptability & reward cap issues)
• Projected spending with a detailed breakdown for the next 6 months

Chronology:

• Escalation 1: RM from my home branch. He rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 2: Credit Card customer care. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 3: grievance.redressalcc@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 4: PriorityRedressal.CreditCards@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 5: pnohdfcbank@hdfcbank.com. They rejected the request, internal policies
• Escalation 6: Customer care, one person said he would help me out. Request rejected, internal policies
• Escalation 7: infinia.services@hdfcbank.com. Request rejected, internal policies.

Here's where finally my RM relented for at least a Credit limit enhancement request since he was feeling bad that my upgrade request got shot down at all levels. Took ITR & salary slip over email and he helped reallocate my credit limit across the 2 cards, increasing limit by 1.65L, thus bumping up the CL of my HDFC DCB to INR 8.85L. Post this CL increase, I re-started the escalations in a different route based on a thread from @CC_Exuberant containing the image attached in this post

• Escalation 8: BM - Branch Manager of my Home Branch. Spoke to him and sent him an email. He was realistic, and told me spends was not there and to come back only when spends exceeded INR 7.5L in a trailing 6-month period. He said he was helpless in his conversation with the internal credit card team.

• Escalation 9: My RM provided the details of the escalation matrix. I sent an email to the CH - Cluster Head. Post which he forwarded the email to my Branch Manager and he reached out to me to help build a case - NRV across the rest of the family, how much funds I could move, can I move my salary account etc. But he clearly said don't do any of this now and that he was still not confident in my case as the credit cards team seemed to be rejecting things. They asked me to 'Upgrade' to Regalia if acceptability of DCB was my issue, spend INR 7.5L and then apply for Infinia

• Escalation 10: Post-new year, I called the Cluster Manager over the phone & spoke to him. I cited 10+ examples of cases where NTB people were offered Infinia and how they were ill-treating an existing customer who had better stats than the ones who had already been given Infinia. I told him I understood I don't meet the spend criteria, but if the yardstick for granting Infinia was used consistently for all users, I wouldn't even be wasting my time escalating things. He was extremely curt, and defended HDFC throughout the conversation. I finally asked him what is the way forward. He said the BM will take up the case again and see what can be done

• Escalation 11: Throughout all the escalations post my conversation with BM (escalation 8), he was always sympathetic to my case whenever I sent him examples of profiles that have gotten Infinia as an NTB especially. I updated him on my conversation with the cluster manager and told him I don't need Infinia, I am happy with DCB LTF, but I am extremely unhappy with the way HDFC is treating existing customers and I will not stop escalating even if it means I have to go to BBH, GH, CEO if necessary.

Post the last conversation, he got my upgrade request approved in 3 days, RM asked me to fill & send a form & income documents to the home branch directly. 7 working days after that Infinia Metal FYF showed up in my net banking (image attached in the post). BM was again saying do not do anything - Moving salary account, FDs etc until I got the card in my hand.

So for existing customers - Spend of > INR 7.5L in trailing 6 months is the most important criteria apart from having a Credit Limit > INR 8L. For NTB customers having a decent salary and opening a salaried account (depending on the branch) could be more than sufficient to get an FYF Infinia Metal directly.

There were options during this journey where a ULIP of ~ INR 2L/year could have gotten me an Infinia. At this point, my investment portfolio couldn't accommodate such an investment even though the Tax-free IRR was equivalent to a good debt instrument. This is again an option if people want to diversify their investment / looking for alternative debt options.

I had a lot of support from the community through several messages and posts that I had written on this topic throughout the last 3 months. Multiple people cheering me on (@elite34700 and others) to not let existing customers be taken for a ride by large banks, thank you to everyone.

Hope this post helps someone else in their journey to Infinia Metal (or probably Infinia Reserve soon)

Kudos on the effort m8 and Welcome to the Club !
Make wise spends, Infinia is rewarding and I hope you'll make the most of it.
Cheers

 

[Ambujj64]

Hi Everyone,
I recently achieved a spend of 8 lacs in 6 months. I had credit limit of 9 lacs and good ITR to be eligible for Infinia. I emailed to priority redressal as well as grieviance email ids but they declined my request for Infinia upgrade from DCB LTF. Then I reached out to RM who wanted more spending and made vague reasons to decline my upgrade request.
After this I mailed to MD desk I’d with my details and docs. They immediately responded and asked me to email the signed upgrade form and my card got issued within 24 hours. I will receive my card in 7 days.

Thanks everyone for sharing their experience.

 

[girish3456]

Hi Everyone,
I recently achieved a spend of 8 lacs in 6 months. I had credit limit of 9 lacs and good ITR to be eligible for Infinia. I emailed to priority redressal as well as grieviance email ids but they declined my request for Infinia upgrade from DCB LTF. Then I reached out to RM who wanted more spending and made vague reasons to decline my upgrade request.
After this I mailed to MD desk I’d with my details and docs. They immediately responded and asked me to email the signed upgrade form and my card got issued within 24 hours. I will receive my card in 7 days.

Thanks everyone for sharing their experience.

I have dropped a email today morning to MD desk for Infinia upgrade (from DCB Plastic). But got no reply till now

 

[tbharech]

H

Hi Everyone,
I recently achieved a spend of 8 lacs in 6 months. I had credit limit of 9 lacs and good ITR to be eligible for Infinia. I emailed to priority redressal as well as grieviance email ids but they declined my request for Infinia upgrade from DCB LTF. Then I reached out to RM who wanted more spending and made vague reasons to decline my upgrade request.
After this I mailed to MD desk I’d with my details and docs. They immediately responded and asked me to email the signed upgrade form and my card got issued within 24 hours. I will receive my card in 7 days.

Thanks everyone for sharing their experience.

Hi - did you meet all 3 criteria’s for the upgrade i.e. spends, credit limit and salary ?