Having owned both the ICICI Amazon Pay and HDFC Pixel Play credit cards, I decided to compare them both because I think, in the grand scheme of things, they both have one thing in common, and that is they are LTF cards.
I'm just going to say my experience using both these cards, and if anyone wants to correct me here, you are more than welcome.
My first unsecured credit card from ICICI is Amazon Pay, having it from almost the end of last year. When I first used it, I thought that all the transactions would be viewed from the Amazon Pay app, but apparently those that I used outside of Amazon could only be viewed on iMobile, which I found weird, but I got used to it.
After paying the bill for my Amazon Pay credit card, I got the gift balance instantly. But what got me frustrated is that I only discovered later on that there is a difference between Amazon Pay balance and the gift balance. I can't use gift balance to make purchases via UPI, unlike the pay balance that I add to the wallet. This got me angry and made me look into how best I can use the gift balance.
Before I was willing to close the credit card, I then checked whether I can use it on Swiggy and Zomato and I was surprised that I can use th balance on both of them. In addition, I can also use the gift balance to pay some bills like postpaid which is really handy in such cases. And the best of it all, the cashback regardless of what percentage it is..is unlimited and I don't think there is any card that can top that for a LTF I think I'm going to use this card for a very long time and that I'm very fortunate of being an ICICI bank customer!
Now as for Pixel Play....its mixed.
When I first got it, the first thing that I noticed is that the cashback wasn't credited right when I did few transactions which then made me raise ticket for each and everytime I raise a ticket the response is very slow.
First good things is the cashback choice as I think its better distributed compared to the current Jupiter card I have(which I'm planning to close it as its useless compared to Pixel) 5% cashback on Zomato&Bookmyshow, Makemytrip&Uber, Croma&RelianceDigital, Blinkit&RelianceSmart, Nykaa&Myntra and 3% cashback on either Amazon, Flipkart or Payzapp
Unlike Amazon Pay, I can't add even the visa network of this card to either google pay or Samsung Pay. This including the incorrect cashback and the slow response after dealing with this for two months made me to really want to close the pixel card and I was almost going to do it but then after getting a second opinion from other users on Reddit and some here, I decided to cancel my closure and keep using the cards(VISA and Rupay) I even got the 10% cashback corrected on some of my transactions after the customer support finally reached out to me.
But experience aside, how do I find these cards useful in the end is what matters to me and you incase you reading this might want a second opinion on whether you should get these cards.
When going for the Amazon Pay Credit card, as mentioned, the balance can't be credited to your bank account or even the card account, so it comes down to how frequently you use amazon to get 5 and 2% cashbacks. But one thing to note is that you can use the gift balance to not just buy stuff on amazon but also on so many other apps like Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit etc. And you can use it to pay most of your utility bills.
But the Pixel Credit card is different because unlike Amazon Pay CC, you get pixel cashpoints that are capped at 500 per month. To redeem the cashpoints, you need to earn 1000 Pixel cashpoints and once that's done, then you can redeem them to the payzapp wallet. Right now there is no way to transfer this to your bank account as the Payzapp team are working on a fix for this but you can use the prepaid card to make any transactions that support prepaid cards so its as useful as Amazon Pay CC all things considered.
So for myself I selected the best way to maximize the pixel cashpoints is that I selected the following
1. Zomato/Bookmyshow
2. Uber/Makemytrip
3.Payzapp
I'm going to change the uber/makemytrip to Blinkit/Reliance Smart simply because I don't do much of travel nowadays and it was a mistake selecting it when I started.
In this setup, I get 5% cashback for Zomato, Bookmyshow, Uber and makemytrip. 3% cashback for Payzapp transactions. Now what are the transactions in Payzapp that are eligible for 3%? Most of the utility payments which is really great as it is 1% higher than amazon pay which offers 2% cashback for the same. Since I already have the amazon pay card that gives me 5% cashback, selecting it here on pixel is pointless and I don't shop on flipkart at all so Payzapp is the one that makes the most sense to me.
If you're someone who takes trains or goes to places where prepaid cards are supported, then the pixel card is very handy here and even if not, then the option of transferring it to your bank account helps too.
But if you're expecting a decent customer support, set that bar low for now. Because based on my experience and at the time of this topic, its more or less an experiment, and you need a lot of patience for the customer support and for things to improve as its a card that just started a year ago unlike Amazon Pay which I believe is around 2015 when it first launched.
Not to mention that to redeem the cashback, you have to spend two times of 50000 per month if you opt for just 1% cashback, 10000 per month for the 5% cashback and 16690 for 3% of the cashback option because you can only get 500 points per month. Obviously you won't do this everytime but I just thought of putting it there in anycase.
But being that its an experiement card, things can change so I guess I have to wait and see how it goes. Hopefully the upgrade would end up being even better.
I'm just going to say my experience using both these cards, and if anyone wants to correct me here, you are more than welcome.
My first unsecured credit card from ICICI is Amazon Pay, having it from almost the end of last year. When I first used it, I thought that all the transactions would be viewed from the Amazon Pay app, but apparently those that I used outside of Amazon could only be viewed on iMobile, which I found weird, but I got used to it.
After paying the bill for my Amazon Pay credit card, I got the gift balance instantly. But what got me frustrated is that I only discovered later on that there is a difference between Amazon Pay balance and the gift balance. I can't use gift balance to make purchases via UPI, unlike the pay balance that I add to the wallet. This got me angry and made me look into how best I can use the gift balance.
Before I was willing to close the credit card, I then checked whether I can use it on Swiggy and Zomato and I was surprised that I can use th balance on both of them. In addition, I can also use the gift balance to pay some bills like postpaid which is really handy in such cases. And the best of it all, the cashback regardless of what percentage it is..is unlimited and I don't think there is any card that can top that for a LTF I think I'm going to use this card for a very long time and that I'm very fortunate of being an ICICI bank customer!
Now as for Pixel Play....its mixed.
When I first got it, the first thing that I noticed is that the cashback wasn't credited right when I did few transactions which then made me raise ticket for each and everytime I raise a ticket the response is very slow.
First good things is the cashback choice as I think its better distributed compared to the current Jupiter card I have(which I'm planning to close it as its useless compared to Pixel) 5% cashback on Zomato&Bookmyshow, Makemytrip&Uber, Croma&RelianceDigital, Blinkit&RelianceSmart, Nykaa&Myntra and 3% cashback on either Amazon, Flipkart or Payzapp
Unlike Amazon Pay, I can't add even the visa network of this card to either google pay or Samsung Pay. This including the incorrect cashback and the slow response after dealing with this for two months made me to really want to close the pixel card and I was almost going to do it but then after getting a second opinion from other users on Reddit and some here, I decided to cancel my closure and keep using the cards(VISA and Rupay) I even got the 10% cashback corrected on some of my transactions after the customer support finally reached out to me.
But experience aside, how do I find these cards useful in the end is what matters to me and you incase you reading this might want a second opinion on whether you should get these cards.
When going for the Amazon Pay Credit card, as mentioned, the balance can't be credited to your bank account or even the card account, so it comes down to how frequently you use amazon to get 5 and 2% cashbacks. But one thing to note is that you can use the gift balance to not just buy stuff on amazon but also on so many other apps like Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit etc. And you can use it to pay most of your utility bills.
But the Pixel Credit card is different because unlike Amazon Pay CC, you get pixel cashpoints that are capped at 500 per month. To redeem the cashpoints, you need to earn 1000 Pixel cashpoints and once that's done, then you can redeem them to the payzapp wallet. Right now there is no way to transfer this to your bank account as the Payzapp team are working on a fix for this but you can use the prepaid card to make any transactions that support prepaid cards so its as useful as Amazon Pay CC all things considered.
So for myself I selected the best way to maximize the pixel cashpoints is that I selected the following
1. Zomato/Bookmyshow
2. Uber/Makemytrip
3.Payzapp
I'm going to change the uber/makemytrip to Blinkit/Reliance Smart simply because I don't do much of travel nowadays and it was a mistake selecting it when I started.
In this setup, I get 5% cashback for Zomato, Bookmyshow, Uber and makemytrip. 3% cashback for Payzapp transactions. Now what are the transactions in Payzapp that are eligible for 3%? Most of the utility payments which is really great as it is 1% higher than amazon pay which offers 2% cashback for the same. Since I already have the amazon pay card that gives me 5% cashback, selecting it here on pixel is pointless and I don't shop on flipkart at all so Payzapp is the one that makes the most sense to me.
If you're someone who takes trains or goes to places where prepaid cards are supported, then the pixel card is very handy here and even if not, then the option of transferring it to your bank account helps too.
But if you're expecting a decent customer support, set that bar low for now. Because based on my experience and at the time of this topic, its more or less an experiment, and you need a lot of patience for the customer support and for things to improve as its a card that just started a year ago unlike Amazon Pay which I believe is around 2015 when it first launched.
Not to mention that to redeem the cashback, you have to spend two times of 50000 per month if you opt for just 1% cashback, 10000 per month for the 5% cashback and 16690 for 3% of the cashback option because you can only get 500 points per month. Obviously you won't do this everytime but I just thought of putting it there in anycase.
But being that its an experiement card, things can change so I guess I have to wait and see how it goes. Hopefully the upgrade would end up being even better.
