Axis Magnus How Magnus helped in non-traditional way..

[hrishig]

On the background of the most significant Magnus devaluation, I was thinking about the Magnus card holistically and realized its non-traditional benefit.

Jotting my thoughts down , if they are not adding value, mods please remove thread.

I've been using CC for a long time and benefited in many, many ways (DCB, prestige, Amex plat, many more) ) but Magnus helped me in a non-traditional way which was different from other cards.

Prior to Magnus, I used to do ad-hoc deal base spending on top of regular expenditures. Though the rewards were terrific, my expenditure was not predictable on yearly basis.
The monthly milestone req from Magnus forced me to lay out my entire year's spending plan in an extensive Excel. I reviewed my yearly spending patterns for anything above 7/10k spent. It showed that for a few months, I was spending way above 1lk; in some months, it was below 50k.

Finally, I made some adjustments to prepone-postpone some planned spending to stay very near the 1lk monthly limit and updated the Excel. When I was going way above 1lk I simply moved them to other cards ( Infinia, Amex plat)

This revision also brought clarity on the areas that were not necessary and also showed some cases where some purchases were happening on a regular basis and not on an ad-hoc basis which was an Aaha moment for me.

The exercise finally helped me to chart out and stick to the entire years spending budget, which I had been trying to do for a long time.

I could have done this without Magnus as well, but Magnus FORCED me to put a plan on paper before execution.

After the recent devaluation, I don't know if I will keep Magnus or replace it with something else, but I will always be thankful to the Magnus team for forcing a good financial habit on its users.

 

[saucy]

Great post!

As someone new to budget-planning, I'd love to hear you on how did you lay out your spendings (not sure if this is the right way to ask the question)
Basically It looks like a DAUNTING task to me - perhaps hearing about your expenses would help in better identifying and planning my expenses.
would be great if you could share the generic categories of spends one must look at!!🔥👍

 

[kameshee17]

Same with me as well, i put down my spends in an excel and did a budget planning for the whole year after i got magnus. Planned out some spends like when to buy nps (previously it was always in last min before the income tax proof deadline ends 🙂), changed my yearly insurance spends to monthly which meant that i calculated my cash flows monthly now etc. Apart from the rewards it brought some structure to my financial planning which i was missing before. 25% reward rate is unsustainable and we knew the party will end but i still see value for magnus as hitting the monthly milestone still gives a very good 6% reward rate. Now all my gyftr spends will shift to infinia and amex plat and insurance spends will shift to magnus.

 

[hrishig]

Great post!

As someone new to budget-planning, I'd love to hear you on how did you lay out your spendings (not sure if this is the right way to ask the question)
Basically It looks like a DAUNTING task to me - perhaps hearing about your expenses would help in better identifying and planning my expenses.
would be great if you could share the generic categories of spends one must look at!!🔥👍

Accurate budgeting to the last Rs may keep you running in circles for your entire life. I suggest a straightforward approach.
Identify monthly top 5-7 spends for the last 12/24 months and categorize them into max ten categories.
They should cover 70-80% of your annual spending.
Focus and optimize only those; ignore all other spends.
Even if you achieve the above, you deserve a celebration 🙂

 

[vina]

Same with me as well, i put down my spends in an excel and did a budget planning for the whole year after i got magnus. Planned out some spends like when to buy nps (previously it was always in last min before the income tax proof deadline ends 🙂), changed my yearly insurance spends to monthly which meant that i calculated my cash flows monthly now etc. Apart from the rewards it brought some structure to my financial planning which i was missing before. 25% reward rate is unsustainable and we knew the party will end but i still see value for magnus as hitting the monthly milestone still gives a very good 6% reward rate. Now all my gyftr spends will shift to infinia and amex plat and insurance spends will shift to magnus.

What is the reward rate for amex?

 

[Gaurav Goel]

What is the reward rate for amex?

1 RP on 50 spent on MRCC, Amex Plat Travel, Amex Plat Reserve and Gold Charge. 1RP on 40 spent on Amex Plat Charge. and reward multiplier benefits we get 2x on MRCC, 3x on Platinum Travel and Platinum Reserve and 5x on Gold & Platinum Charge.

 

[vina]

1 RP on 50 spent on MRCC, Amex Plat Travel, Amex Plat Reserve and Gold Charge. 1RP on 40 spent on Amex Plat Charge. and reward multiplier benefits we get 2x on MRCC, 3x on Platinum Travel and Platinum Reserve and 5x on Gold & Platinum Charge.

and how much is each MR worth?

 

[Gaurav Goel]

1 Membership rewards gives you 0.25 paisa value if you utilize for statement credit. However the best use will be to transfer it to airline/ hotel partners. Mariott gives a 1:1 ratio and the best value of the point. I recently booked Westin Himalayas Resort and Spa in Rishikesh for 15K points, which typically goes for 35k a night.

Airline partners transfer to the ratio of 2:1 and Vistara 3:1.

 

[kameshee17]

What is the reward rate for amex?

12.5% for plat charge with 1% discounts available for some brands. Reward points get credited with in 5 days mostly. Value of these points is not so high as the transfer options are limited. I would say it makes sense to redeem for Hilton as you get 5th night free on award bookings with the gold membership you get with plat charge. Also the voucher limits are higher so if you are a heavy buyer like me - amex makes sense after you hit the infinia limits

 

[vina]

12.5% for plat charge with 1% discounts available for some brands. Reward points get credited with in 5 days mostly. Value of these points is not so high as the transfer options are limited. I would say it makes sense to redeem for Hilton as you get 5th night free on award bookings with the gold membership you get with plat charge. Also the voucher limits are higher so if you are a heavy buyer like me - amex makes sense after you hit the infinia limits

after that post, I did some research.

the best reward it seems one can get on Amex is via Reward Multiplier - and that gives max 5x (Platinum and Gold cards). for Platinum that comes to 5 points per Rs. 40 spent.

However the value of the reward points is at best rs 7/18 each when converted to Amazon etc. (7000 rupees worth, for 18000 points). so one gets about 4.86% reward rate when converted to Amazon

with Magnus there are plenty of options on the equivalent of Reward Multiplier (gyftr platform) - so one can get 5x there too, but I'll keep it at 3x. So for 200rs spent, one can get 36 ER points. for those 200 rupees spent, if milestone is reached, one gets another 50 points, making a total of 86 points. for Rs. 200

This is equivalent to 86/5 = 16.3 rupees worth of amazon vouchers (for rs 200) - or a reward rate of about 8.15%

obviously there are several caveats - you need to get to the milestone on Magnus, and Platinum has a few other benefits in addition. However Platinum costs a ton. Gold costs less but the return is 4/5th that of Platinum (and additional benefits a lot fewer).

So for those who don't particularly spend on travel too much and can meet milestones most months of the year, Magnus still clearly beats Amex cards. Not the least because if you only beat the milestone every month, then the return is 6% guaranteed on nearly everything (including retail spends) - you can't do reward multipliers on nearly everything.

 

[vina]

after that post, I did some research.

the best reward it seems one can get on Amex is via Reward Multiplier - and that gives max 5x (Platinum and Gold cards). for Platinum that comes to 5 points per Rs. 40 spent.

However the value of the reward points is at best rs 7/18 each when converted to Amazon etc. (7000 rupees worth, for 18000 points). so one gets about 4.86% reward rate when converted to Amazon

with Magnus there are plenty of options on the equivalent of Reward Multiplier (gyftr platform) - so one can get 5x there too, but I'll keep it at 3x. So for 200rs spent, one can get 36 ER points. for those 200 rupees spent, if milestone is reached, one gets another 50 points, making a total of 86 points. for Rs. 200

This is equivalent to 86/5 = 16.3 rupees worth of amazon vouchers (for rs 200) - or a reward rate of about 8.15%

obviously there are several caveats - you need to get to the milestone on Magnus, and Platinum has a few other benefits in addition. However Platinum costs a ton. Gold costs less but the return is 4/5th that of Platinum (and additional benefits a lot fewer).

So for those who don't particularly spend on travel too much and can meet milestones most months of the year, Magnus still clearly beats Amex cards. Not the least because if you only beat the milestone every month, then the return is 6% guaranteed on nearly everything (including retail spends) - you can't do reward multipliers on nearly everything.

Obviously, those who couldn't get to milestones consistently every month - they may not have gotten that much out of Magnus even earlier.

 

[kameshee17]

after that post, I did some research.

the best reward it seems one can get on Amex is via Reward Multiplier - and that gives max 5x (Platinum and Gold cards). for Platinum that comes to 5 points per Rs. 40 spent.

However the value of the reward points is at best rs 7/18 each when converted to Amazon etc. (7000 rupees worth, for 18000 points). so one gets about 4.86% reward rate when converted to Amazon

with Magnus there are plenty of options on the equivalent of Reward Multiplier (gyftr platform) - so one can get 5x there too, but I'll keep it at 3x. So for 200rs spent, one can get 36 ER points. for those 200 rupees spent, if milestone is reached, one gets another 50 points, making a total of 86 points. for Rs. 200

This is equivalent to 86/5 = 16.3 rupees worth of amazon vouchers (for rs 200) - or a reward rate of about 8.15%

obviously there are several caveats - you need to get to the milestone on Magnus, and Platinum has a few other benefits in addition. However Platinum costs a ton. Gold costs less but the return is 4/5th that of Platinum (and additional benefits a lot fewer).

So for those who don't particularly spend on travel too much and can meet milestones most months of the year, Magnus still clearly beats Amex cards. Not the least because if you only beat the milestone every month, then the return is 6% guaranteed on nearly everything (including retail spends) - you can't do reward multipliers on nearly everything.

Correct, it depends on what you want. If you want to convert to amazon vouchers, the return is less. But the best value is when you convert to hotel points/airmiles and if you make use of some of the other hotel memberships that amex offers, amex will be better than magnus. As i said in the earlier post, magnus is still good if you hit the milestone which in my case i can do with insurance spends and amazon pay vouchers. Over the 1 lakh milestone spend I will switch to amex to accumulate for the hilton points.

 

[harshar]

magnus introduced me to hotel and flight memberships and redemptions, thats a great return in itself

 

[Gabbar.Singh]

I just watched this video. My spends anre around 12 lacs in a year, and I'm wondering which credit card would be more beneficial: the DCB or the Axis Magnus? Currently, I have a Lifetime Free (LTF) DCB, and I also have an Axis Magnus, which incurs an annual fee. I'm a bit confused about their devaluation and whether it's better to keep the Magnus or not.