I applied for most of my cards when I was a self-employed professional (contractor) and starting out, most of these were based on C2C or CIBIL but Axis and AmEx required ITR. Now I am salaried and get way more (well not really, the govt gets way more though) my will be ITR is 5x higher now as I can't use 44ADA. But currently only have payslips for this FY.
My current portfolio:
Most of my LTF cards are kinda useless now especially with lounge access gone and I will be hitting the Plat Travel milestone which leaves me with no cards for big spends or travel spends or international lounge access.
I got rejected for Marriott Bonvoy (my mistake, didn't know it required 1.5L limit) which I really needed as I am paying for quite a few Marriott nights this month. Also applied for HSBC Cashback a month back which has been a slow process as I uploaded a password protected salary slip🫠 but might get it.
The main issue is, I am not getting a LE on my HDFC bank cards nor any upgrade offer. I updated my Netbanking profile to salaried but it still thinks I am a business user.
I have fixed spends of 10k on EazyDiner, 20-30k on Swiggy/Zomato/Instamart and 30-50k on Marriott+airlines a month if I keep up my travelling. Future spends - planning for an Asia trip, new Apple laptop/phone, jewelry (for family), etc.
I am wondering is there any quick course of action. Should I close both the HDFC cards and apply for DCB offline (or even Infinia) with my salary slips? Is there a cooldown? My salary is also having a major quarterly bonus component so if they ask for 3 month salary slips it might make me ineligible. I am a heavy user of Swiggy so I will lose out on 1K per month cashback unless the HSBC card comes through.
The other thing I wanted to do was trying to get AmEx to upgrade my Plat Travel to Plat Charge after I am done with the milestone (will reapply next year) for the MR points or applying fresh and convincing them to change the welcome bonus. Not sure on how to go about that.
Axis Atlas also seems lucrative but a lot of the spends on Plat Travel have not been travel related so far. And I am not sure how the limits will work if I apply for Atlas while having Axis Airtel with 1.1L limit.
My current portfolio:
| Name | Limit | Fee | Remarks |
| IndusInd EazyDiner | 462k | 1999 | Using ED Prime and the 25% off like twice a month. 10k+ savings. |
| AmEx Platinum Travel | 307k | 5000 | About to max out 4L milestone. This is my newest card. I transferred 1.5L limit from MRCC as I had 1.59L limit and it was affecting CIBIL. |
| AmEx Gold Charge | - | 4500 | Using for AmEx Gyftr 1000 x 6. |
| AmEx MRCC | 72k | 0 | Using for AmEx Gyftr and offline spends. Hit the 20k milestone most of the time. |
| ICICI Amazon Pay + LTF Coral RuPay | 460k | 0 | Not using much. |
| IDFC Select | 300k | 0 | Not using much. |
| SIB OneCard | 190k | 0 | Not using much. |
| Axis Airtel | 110k | 500 | Getting minimum 600 cashback every month. |
| Axis Ace | 110k | 500 | Offline backup for AmEx MRCC, want to get rid of it though. |
| HDFC Millenia | 72k | 0 | Not using much. |
| HDFC Swiggy | 72k | 500 | Getting minimum 1K cashback every month. |
| BOB Select | 32.5k | 0 | Not using much. |
| Kotak League Platinum | 219k | 0 | Not using much. |
Most of my LTF cards are kinda useless now especially with lounge access gone and I will be hitting the Plat Travel milestone which leaves me with no cards for big spends or travel spends or international lounge access.
I got rejected for Marriott Bonvoy (my mistake, didn't know it required 1.5L limit) which I really needed as I am paying for quite a few Marriott nights this month. Also applied for HSBC Cashback a month back which has been a slow process as I uploaded a password protected salary slip🫠 but might get it.
The main issue is, I am not getting a LE on my HDFC bank cards nor any upgrade offer. I updated my Netbanking profile to salaried but it still thinks I am a business user.
I have fixed spends of 10k on EazyDiner, 20-30k on Swiggy/Zomato/Instamart and 30-50k on Marriott+airlines a month if I keep up my travelling. Future spends - planning for an Asia trip, new Apple laptop/phone, jewelry (for family), etc.
I am wondering is there any quick course of action. Should I close both the HDFC cards and apply for DCB offline (or even Infinia) with my salary slips? Is there a cooldown? My salary is also having a major quarterly bonus component so if they ask for 3 month salary slips it might make me ineligible. I am a heavy user of Swiggy so I will lose out on 1K per month cashback unless the HSBC card comes through.
The other thing I wanted to do was trying to get AmEx to upgrade my Plat Travel to Plat Charge after I am done with the milestone (will reapply next year) for the MR points or applying fresh and convincing them to change the welcome bonus. Not sure on how to go about that.
Axis Atlas also seems lucrative but a lot of the spends on Plat Travel have not been travel related so far. And I am not sure how the limits will work if I apply for Atlas while having Axis Airtel with 1.1L limit.
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