Infinia vs Magnus vs Atlas

[raviemailid]

BACKGROUND STORY:

I had no credit card till June 2021 because of bad credit. I had defaulted on a couple of credit cards about a decade ago and had decided to stick to debit cards and real money for my needs. All of this was going good - I was paying full money for amazon, Flipkart shopping, full money for Zomato, Swiggy, Uber and for anything that you can think of. Life was simple.

But I always wished if I had a credit card - especially the Amazon ICICI credit card - I was a moderate user of Amazon and having the luxury of 5% cash back on everything was nothing short of a dream for me. This thought pushed me to apply for it and it got rejected, obviously. I approached the bank - visited the branch nearby, something that I hadn't done for 5 years. ICICI bank was good and friendly - helped me close my old credit card and issued me a credit card against an FD. Well, they also took 2L cheque for opening some premium account. I didn't need all that but the excitement of getting a CC was worth that stupid 2L FD (that FD is still running with them) and I was issued a Coral credit card. I was happy. 6 months later, after many applications and requests, I was issued an Amazon ICICI Pay credit card and then, after some time, I got Flipkart Axis.

I was on cloud 9 - all my credit card dreams were fulfilled, I was saving 5% flat from FK and Amazon plus some sundry 4% cashback from other apps and a flat 1.5% cashback on all the spends for FK Axis. I moved all my expenses to CC and migrated to cred for bill payments. I also got my hands on Zomato RBL card (which became shoprite card), IndusInd Legend and SBI BPCL card. All of this was good for some 10 months. Then in one of my persuasive conversations with my HDFC RM, the bank I have the longest and heaviest relationship with, but also the one refusing to issue me a credit card, sprang a surprise. Guess I had bothered her to death saying how can you not give me a credit card when I am your classic customer and ICICI and Axis can. RM, utterly fed-up with me, apologized again and threw a last straw towards me - "sir, are you from IIT/IIM or any premier institute?" I was like, "What do you mean, I am from IIM."

I was issued Diners Club Black - which introduced me to 3.3% cashback and the luxuries of credit cards. I was elated and boasted about it to my wife. Hell, I got her an add-on card for lounge visits. Life was all good for another 10 months.

Then in June - I was introduced to GYFTR - those reward multipliers of 2x, and 3x were insane. I was like - why on earth I am not using these? Then in GYFTR, I saw Infinia listed with better reward points. I went to the HDFC portal and saw that I couldn't apply for it - it was an invitation only. This led me to do more research then I came across sites like TechnoFino, Cardinsider etc and I was totally blown away. I felt how novice of me to be happy with DCB when Magnus was killing it. I tried for Magnus in July and I was issued one. But then, I got the update of devaluation and in a panic state, I cancelled the card when it was issued. The card was still delivered to me though but it is cancelled now.

Now - I was greedy, I wanted Infinia! Spoke to RM, and being the amazing lady she is, she said I can get the paid one - and I have the paid one with me now, using it for the last 1 week. But I have understood that 3.3% is all I have except SmartBuy and GYFTR. So I have been looking for ways to find the ideal card combination for me. Hence the research.

WHY COMPARING THESE?

I have 4 main categories of expenses. The expenses that can be covered with GYFTR, second the direct hotel and flights, 3rd normal hotel and flights and 4 other expenses like insurance, fees (can't use Apay) etc. I feel stupid to have cancelled the Magnus, but I guess that may have been a blessing in disguise. Had it stayed with me, I would have tried for Burgundy status and that is not something I'd like to do with Axis bank.

Below table runs a sample point calculation for my annualized expenses. The three cards in question (Infinia, Magnus and Atlas) has a very acceptable annual charge, so I am ignoring that totally.



Magnus is considered with Burgundy benefits. For Smartbuy considering it is 5x and 10x, I have taken 7x and Traveledge is 5x. It is clear that Atlas is a very strong card but then, I thought, what if I have Atlas+Infinia combination?

So if I use Infinia for GYFTR and SmartBuy I get 33333+46667 = 80000 and Atlas for direct and general, it is 80000+24000=104000, total 184000. Add 15K milestone of Atlas and 20K joining miles from Infinia and Atlas, I have a total of 2,19,000 miles. 12% return against total expense.

Atlas expense can only be used for flight and hotel, whereas Infinia can be routed to Apple and Tanishq and trains as well. This does look like a good main 2 driver cards to use. What do you all think?

I was slightly tempted by Magnus+Burgundy, but I don't want to shift to premium banking of Axis - and as you see from the table, I am not loosing much. What other cards would you recommend?

P.S - I have applied for Atlas, the card is coming in a week!

Thank you for reading.

 

[drsel]

I was thinking that if I convert my existing Axis saving account to Burgundy , then Burgundy magnus will give me 24% return on booking flights on Traveledge portal and also 4.8% for offline so then I won't really need the Atlas card, right?
What do the experts say?

 

[raviemailid]

So which three do you have, Magnus Atlas and ?

Here are the cards that I have:

1. HDFC Infinia Visa
2. HDFC Regalia Visa
3. HDFC Tata Neu Infinity Rupay Select (need to have 1 Rupay)
4. ICICI Amazon Pay Visa (this one has the max 15L limit)
5. ICICI Coral visa (my first credit card against FD - I will be canceling it)
6. Axis Flipkart Mastercard
7. Axis Atlas Visa
8. Axis Magnus Visa (CANCELLED after devaluation)
9. SBI BPCL Octane Visa (for fuel, gives 7.25% back)
10. IndusInd Legend Visa
11. Kotak Royal Visa
12. RBL Shoprite Visa

RBL Shoprite, IndusInd Legend, ICICI Coral, Tata Neu Rupay & HDFC Regalia are my least used cards. I plan to close these cards in the next few months. These are anyway LTF cards - so not thinking much. I have main expenses in Infinia and Flipkart. I'll move some of Infinia and Flipkart expenses to Atlas.

4.8% offline and 24% on TravelEdge with Magnus Burgundy is better than Atlas which mostly be 4% and 10%. So yes, you're right, if you have Magnus Burgundy, you don't need atlas.

My use-case is slightly different - for flight and travel using traveledge, you do get 24% on Magnus, but you get 33% on hotel and 16% on the flight on Infinia as well. If you average out, they match or better 24% of Magnus. Plus SmartBuy is a much better platform than TravelEdge. Also, I don't have to worry about maintaining a burgundy status with Axis. The 15K limit works as well - very rarely I'd touch the monthly 15K rewards on Infinia (or even 7500 on DCB that I had before)

So for my kind of expense, Infinia + Atlas work the best. For people with different real-life expenses, there might be different card combinations.

 

[drsel]

Actually Infinia gives you only approx. 14.5% discount on airlines. I will explain how
If you buy one lakh air tickets for 90000, you get 15000 points. (max)
Then you can use 15000 points to buy 21400 air tickets in the second transaction. (70% points allowed) and you have to pay 6400 by card.

total expense 96400 to buy air tickets worth 111400.
Discount is 15000 on 111400 which is 13.5%
Investment bankers are the highest paid professionals in the whole world and smarter than all of us.
Even if you consider the 1066 points that you get on the second transaction of 6400, the discount becomes around 14.5%

With Burgundy Magnus if you buy one lakh airtickets you will get 30000 edge points which convert to 24000 Accor points worth Rs. 21600. (Conservative realistic estimate of 90 Paisa instead of Rs.1.80 claimed by Accor)
and you can use 100% of those in the second transaction of 21600 which means your spending 1 lakh to get value of 121600 on both Airlines & hotels
This is a discount on 17.77% , much higher than Infinia.
If you consider Accor points to be worth Rs 1 then the discount is 19.36%
If you consider Accor points to be worth rupees 1.80 then the discount is much much more than infinia. No contest

 

[drsel]

And regarding hotels I would never use infinia because Cleartrip give me 35% discount on Kotak and other cards also

 

[sourpai]

You can transfer HDFC Infinia points to Accor or any airline partners. How would your calculations work then? Using points on smartbuy is optional thing. Feel free to not use them on smartbuy if you want higher returns as per your calculations

 

[drsel]

You can transfer HDFC Infinia points to Accor or any airline partners. How would your calculations work then? Using points on smartbuy is optional thing. Feel free to not use them on smartbuy if you want higher returns as per your calculations

If you use 15000 points on Accor, you will be spending 90000 to get air tickets of 90000 and also get Accor hotels worth 15000
Spending 90000 to get value of 105000.
discount will become 14.29%

 

[raviemailid]

Agree with your calculations @drsel sir.

As I said, the kind of expenses I have, and the simplicity & flexibility of Infinia make a lot of sense. My monthly travel (flight + hotel from SmartBuy) is around 15-20k. I have a lot of direct hotel expenses where Atlas makes a lot of sense. Plus I use the GYFTR extensively. I am happy with rotating my 70% points - I feel like the points from GYFTR alone at times will be enough to fund my travel next month.

Also, Burgundy Magnus means being tied with Axis with the commitment of FD, investment, salary etc. Also, Axis is so unreliable with its programs. God knows what will happen.

 

[gurubhai]

Actually Infinia gives you only approx. 14.5% discount on airlines. I will explain how

Your idea is right but calculation is little wrong as it can go on in loops 😅
I have the following theory... correct me if I am wrong:
Basically Suppose I earn X% of RPs and the place where I redeem provides me Y% RPs, and now while redeeming the points earned where I get Y% points back, I am not getting the Y% on those points redeemed. I will only get Y% RPs for the amount paid.
So correct mathematical formula for this is (Reward Rate - (Redemption Rate percentage of Reward Rate)) ie. = X - (Y% of X)
For flights both X and Y is same ie. 16.67%
So for Flights 5x = 16.67( 1 - 16.67% ) = 13.89%
General spends 1X = 3.33( 1 - 16.67% ) = 2.77%
Instant Vouchers 3x = 10( 1 - 16.67% ) = 8.33%
For Hotels 10x = 33.33( 1 - 16.67% ) = 27.7%

Investment bankers are the highest paid professionals in the whole world and smarter than all of us.

I don't understand the context in which you said this line but this thing can be figured out.

 

[ccfan]

I too have an Infinia that I rarely reach the 15k monthly limit on, but once or twice a year the situation does come up that I want uncapped rewards on either offline spends or travel spends for a month (say, 1-3L) (one international trip for example). I don't mind 10% vs 15% on lower amounts, but I have not had the discipline to shift spends onto a travel card like Axis Vistara Infinite or Axis Atlas instead of the easy-to-use, flexible and simple Infinia. My annual spends are 8-10L but can't know upfront how much of it will be direct travel vs GyFTR vouchers.
I have been unable to decide whether to get an Axis Atlas for those 1-2 times a year or just manage with Infinia and lose out on a bit of extra points. I definitely won't reach 4L+ on direct hotel/flight portals (and am not yet in the airmiles game) whereas Atlas seems to shine on spends above 5-7L annually.
Similarly the hassle of Axis Burgundy and loss of higher interest due to having to keep savings/FDs there goes against it too. Can't move my salary account to Axis.

 

[drsel]

After all my analysis and calculations, i realised that I don't need HDFC Infinia if I have Axis Magnus with Burgundy.
I don't even need Axis Atlas

 

[raviemailid]

I have been unable to decide whether to get an Axis Atlas for those 1-2 times a year or just manage with Infinia and lose out on a bit of extra points.

Even if you have 2L direct hotel/flight expenses - the gap between Infinia (6666 points, assuming no SmartBuy) and Atlas (20K airline miles) is substantial. Also, Atlas has 5K charges but gives you back 5k edge miles (10K airline miles), eventually rendering the card at not much cost.

I am sure it's not a big deal, however, if you could move the direct hotel and flight expenses to Atlas, you'd be rewarded well. Also, on general spending, Atlas gives 2 edge miles (4 airline miles, 4%), which is better than Vistara Infinite's 3% and Infinia's 3.3% - so you can actually move non-GYFTR and non-SmartBuy spend to Atlas well.

The para above is exactly my plan. I plan to keep 4 major cards 1) Infinia for all the GYFTR vouchers and SmartBuy 2) Tata Rupay for UPI and Rupay benefit payments 3) SBI BPCL Octane for Fuel 7.25% cashback and 4) Atlas for everything else.

 

[drsel]

It doesn't make sense to use Infinia for just 3.3%.
you have to use it ONLY to buy air tickets to get 16.66% points, but not for hotels.

Because hotels are available at a discount of 35% on Cleartrip and others.
So you don't need Infinia, Magnus or Atlas for hotels

 

[ccfan]

the gap between Infinia (6666 points, assuming no SmartBuy) and Atlas (20K airline miles) is substantial

For Infinia, I would definitely be using SmartBuy for travel bookings (unless there is some major advantage to direct bookings that I am not used to. I don't have premium loyalty memberships for hotels/specific flights), so this comparison would be 15K (worst case the 2L travel is all in one month and you exhaust the cap) rupee equivalent points vs 20K Atlas airline miles. The more spiky the travel spend, the more the gap in points.
Often though I have seen aggregators/portals with cheaper deals/prices/freecancellation/etc. Recently I spent ~40k on hotels on Agoda with Infinia's 3.3% on general spend, because it was cheaper than the same hotels on Smartbuy even with 33%. I don't know if those would have been available on Axis traveledge at all, and so drsel's point of there being good offers on portals holds true too.

I see your point for the general spends though, and if I am able to use miles effectively, Atlas definitely makes sense, potentially even more over Vistara Infinite since I don't really care about business class and upgrades.

I admit I am a bit hesitant on airline miles because I usually travel on price sensitive economy flights so have rarely/never seen airline mile redemption approaches. I'll start looking at usage options for airline miles for sure, let me know if you have any good intro guides or maybe the true value will hit me only once I have an opportunity to explore Axis edgerewards/edgemiles with a card of my own. (I only have a basic Axis Airtel card and no Axis Savings acc).

 

[raviemailid]

@drsel, @ccfan - you folks are doing such a great conversation. I wish we all could meet and explain/share it in person.

I am no different than you all. I agree that there are times when deals on flights/hotels from either direct or aggregators work best and those times, I have an option to not use SmartBuy, use Atlas and still get 4%.

But then - there are times when I have gotten a lower price on SmartBuy than the aggregator (and this was very surprising to me). The screenshot below for next Friday on SB vs CT (first pic is SB and second is CT)





So with Atlas and Infinia, you can always compare and find what works best for you.

Now, to drsel's point, if you have Magnus, then you don't need Atlas and Infindia, and I agree with it to some extent. My challenge with Magnus (my personal thought) are :

1. Axis Magnus has been very inconsistent. If you look at other threads, even now, people are not sure if it is default with Burgundy, or is it paid or when the 5:4 will happen etc. The Axis portal is not updated yet and there is not enough clarity for users.
2. Axis had said that with Burgundy, the card is coming as an offer, so not sure if after 6 months or 1 year, they'll change it.
3. I can't put 10L in SB or 30L in FD for a few extra miles and unreliable service. Axis SB accounts are bad (not as bad as ICICI's though)
4. Magnus GYFTR return is bad and I have a lot of GYFTR use. For many months it's more than Flight+Hotel.
5. I have a lot of direct hotel spending, where Magnus tops at 4.8% and Atlas has 10%.

 

[drsel]

5) hotels spends get 35% discount on Cleartrip.
10% is too little

 

[raviemailid]

@drsel - I have direct spending, meaning I swipe my card directly at the hotel with corporate bookings, business lunches, hosting events etc. I can't do those vis SB, or Cleartrip.

Also, the 35% is a marketing term, not always and not on all hotels where you'll get those discounts. For example, right now, PNB credit card is running an offer of 35% till 30-Sep. ICICI has an offer of 20% but 2K is max discount. I regularly use a combination of MMT, CT and SB for my 2-3 days of budget stays and depending where I am getting the right price, I go with it.

 

[ccfan]

Now, to drsel's point, if you have Magnus, then you don't need Atlas and Infindia, and I agree with it to some extent. My challenge with Magnus (my personal thought) are :

As an outsider to the Axis world, I agree with all these points (besides the direct hotel spends, doesn't apply to me in the same way).
10L in SB for Burgundy at 3% in Axis where it could have been 6% at any smaller newage bank, is a straight 30K rupee per year difference, and then too any devaluation here and there on CC makes it worse. And I have a lot of GyFTR usage for sure - occasionally hitting the 15K per month cap and having to work around multiple months or ask friends with another Infinia. Atleast with Atlas I can get my feet wet. Though I'll always be oscillating between - (smartbuy+convenience fee)*15% off for infinia, or (direct airline)*10% with Atlas. It'll get interesting when I have to book international flights and more factors come in - flexible tickets and addons on direct bookings vs offers on aggregators. Will check how exhaustive Atlas's "direct travel" coverage is.

For cleartrip - I looked into it just now when drsel mentioned it - the offers either have low caps for the common cards (ICICI-2k) or are rare cards that I have no reason to have (PNB, Canara, IDBI) and they replace the inbuilt promos. An example 30k hotel for two nights was 26k with their inbuilt promo, and ~23k with the PNB 35% promo(7.5k). That's nice sure, but I can't consider that a general benefit of cleartrip (varies per hotel), nor do I have a PNB/IDBI card, nor do I want to be limited to cleartrip (who knows how their customer support etc is). I'd rather go with whatever aggregator has the best price (sometimes Agoda, sometimes MMT with Infinia GyFTR vouchers, sometimes something else after comparing on Google Hotels) for economical revenue stays.

Definitely fun to talk to you guys about this - have been scouring the whole forum for people in this situation. I'll probably get an Atlas and see how the next year fares in terms of spend mix. Also considering an Amex Plat Travel but that's a matter for a separate set of threads xD.

 

[raviemailid]

You know @ccfan, if I didn't have those direct hotel expense, I might have not taken Atlas and stayed with only Infinia. But then if you do have international travel once or twice in a year where you have bulk expenses of 2L plus, Atlas option may work well. In that month, you'll most likely have exhausted your 15k limit with vouchers and regulator SB expense. Aggregator give you discount of 2k-5k on such flights, may be till 10k and in those cases a direct booking will give you 10% with Atlas.

Not saying this will always work out well, but at least you do get another option to compare and evaluate. I do have a unique case of direct spend which many users may not have.

On Amex Plat travel or MRCC or Plat Charge, they don't give as much value as to Atlas. Like Plat travel and MRCC both give 2% return and the voucher conversation makes it even less.

 

[ccfan]

Not saying this will always work out well, but at least you do get another option to compare and evaluate. I do have a unique case of direct spend which many users may not have.

On Amex Plat travel or MRCC or Plat Charge, they don't give as much value as to Atlas. Like Plat travel and MRCC both give 2% return and the voucher conversation makes it even less.

True, I'm not fully convinced on Atlas's incremental benefit, but atleast I'll have the option to compare. The next time I make that 2L bulk travel spend and miss Atlas, is probably when I will finally apply for one.

Amex Plat Travel for spends of 4L for milestone, when counting annual fee, comes to about 2% as you say for flipkart vouchers, or 7% for all Taj vouchers. If I expect to use Taj vouchers, it'll be worth it for general+travel spends upto 4L which is not too far from what I would get on Atlas (7-8%) if the spend mix is about 1.5L general spend and 2.5L travel spend.

 

[drsel]

True, I'm not fully convinced on Atlas's incremental benefit, but atleast I'll have the option to compare. The next time I make that 2L bulk travel spend and miss Atlas, is probably when I will finally apply for one.

Amex Plat Travel for spends of 4L for milestone, when counting annual fee, comes to about 2% as you say for flipkart vouchers, or 7% for all Taj vouchers. If I expect to use Taj vouchers, it'll be worth it for general+travel spends upto 4L which is not too far from what I would get on Atlas (7-8%) if the spend mix is about 1.5L general spend and 2.5L travel spend.

The vouchers given by Amex for 5* hotels should be valued at 50%.
No way any Amex card can come even close to Atlas or Magnus burgundy