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Axis Magnus Recent devaluation of Axis Magnus and Reserve. Further action for TF community?

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rahulsethi

rahulsethi

TF Ace
Update with the revised official devaluation, this call for action makes no sense now 🙏 Axis has played fair this time crediting all pending ER by Aug 10 including those from July month, giving everyone a chance to transfer at 5:4 one last time. My suggestion, go all in for Accor.

___________________

Hello TF family,

We all are now aware of the recent devaluation of the Axis Magnus and Reserve cards. I am writing to you as a concerned Axis customer and member of the TF community, regarding what could be our next course of action. As we know the bank changed the transfer partner ratios significantly from 5:4 to 5:1, among other unfavorable alterations. I took the initiative to personally contact Axis priority customer care, and they confirmed that an official communication regarding these changes is scheduled for release on July 11.

While I understand that product features and terms are subject to change within the purview of the bank, I firmly believe that it is our right as customers to be adequately notified well in advance. In the case of Axis Magnus, for instance, the one-month notice provided is insufficient. According to the bank's process, points earned today are credited after a period of three months. Therefore, if I have made purchases today under the assumption that the earned points would be redeemable at a 5:4 transfer rate based on the existing contract, it is only reasonable and legally justified to expect a three-month advance notice for any policy changes, as the points are credited with a three-month delay. Failure to provide such notice constitutes a malpractice on Axis's part, and I am confident that Axis will be unable to justify this oversight if brought to the attention of the RBI Ombudsman.

Considering the above circumstances, I propose the following course of action to address this malpractice. First, it is essential to raise awareness about this issue within the TF community and other credit card forums. We should utilize platforms such as Twitter and other social media channels, tagging Axis and bringing attention to this matter. Secondly, once the official communication is received on July 11, I suggest writing an email to the customer care department, highlighting the procedural lapse and malpractice that has occurred. I anticipate that the response received will likely be a standard answer. Therefore, it is crucial to escalate the matter to the Principal Nodal Officer (PNO) of the bank and after one month, subsequently, if necessary, to the RBI Ombudsman. I firmly believe that either the Ombudsman will rule in our favor and ensure the transfer of our pending points at the rightful exchange rate, or the bank itself will be compelled to settle the matter. This negotiation process also presents an excellent opportunity to discuss the possibility of converting the Magnus card to a Lifetime Free (LTF) option.

In conclusion, I believe that united action and diligent pursuit of this matter will be instrumental in resolving the issues faced by customers affected by the devaluation of Axis Magnus and Reserve cards.

Rahul
 
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neogen said:
I am telling again, we have axis moles in our forum who are continuously reading posts on this forum and then maroing such googlies.
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what I'm thinking now: they may not change the 5:4 ratio for Magnus any more. Let me explain:

at this point except for the 5:4 conversion, with the devaluation of gyftr and grabdeals, and restrictions put on portals like bharatnxt (who were showing transactions as utility payments) and taxes (govt transactions) along with prior restrictions on rents etc. - they have made it very hard for people to honestly expend 1lakh a month on the card. It is not easy to do that every month without these major expenses for a family of 4 plus grandparents. I have so far not used any of these tricks, and since the rent payments went away, it has been hard to get to 1lakh without wasting money (though so far I have managed).

In fact the way it works - in the months when it isn't hard to hit 1lakh, I end up hitting a lot higher (this month will be over 1.5lakhs; Last November I hit over 2 lakhs). And then there are months where I have to plan quite a bit to get ahead of 80k

Gyftr was helping quite significantly in those months, but now that's not a great route. Also I had a situation last month when I ended up taking a lot of gyftr vouchers for flipkart, amazon and swiggy, and then I figured it will take me a lot longer than 2 months to actually spend the money in normal course (wife got some medical issue, so supplies for that helped spend quite a bit, otherwise I would have over 50% of the money right now) - this voucher route is not scalable in any reasonable long run

bottomline is - there will be very few people who will be able to consistently hit the milestone *without then consistently going way over it* - and if you go over the milestone, the reward rate falls precipitously.

on top of that - even if you hit milestone every month, with the latest devaluation, the best non-travel reward rate you can get out of this card is still good (or may be ok), but nothing phenomenal. Infinia does about the same on travel without any planning (and quite a bit better with some planning). And my guess is so will Amex cards.

as for travel expense - with 5:4 yes the travel will beat anything any everything. But if you think about it, other than Accor, rest of them are not really totally out of bounds. Vast majority of cardholders would actually be making use of Vistara (on which lately it had become a lot harder to get CV flights - was not a problem back in Jan, and was a big problem in May). On ITC you can actually use the green points to pay for food alone in a few hotels, but every other program (including Accor) requires you to stay with them - now that's not small but (i) how many vacation days can you take to actually go stay (and I'm talking about people who can in fact consistently hit 1lakh per month - those people are busy and usually have school going kids; else they have arthritis) in hotels? (2) if you travel for stays, you end up staying more and very few can do so much math that they'll spend a bit on magnus and a bit on other cards (3) going to ITC for food-only is absolutely idiotic, the rates in Bangalore are nearly 3k per head, and while the food is great you can get similar food in independent restaurants at less than half that much - so the value is automatically much lower
I don't think Axis would be paying nearly as much to non-Accor, non-Vistara partners as it is to these two.

so - unless Infinia is devaluing in short order (or Axis negotiators and planners are complete fools) I don't see any further major devaluations happening now
 
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vina said:
what I'm thinking now: they may not change the 5:4 ratio for Magnus any more. Let me explain:

at this point except for the 5:4 conversion, with the devaluation of gyftr and grabdeals, and restrictions put on portals like bharatnxt (who were showing transactions as utility payments) and taxes (govt transactions) along with prior restrictions on rents etc. - they have made it very hard for people to honestly expend 1lakh a month on the card. It is not easy to do that every month without these major expenses for a family of 4 plus grandparents. I have so far not used any of these tricks, and since the rent payments went away, it has been hard to get to 1lakh without wasting money (though so far I have managed).

In fact the way it works - in the months when it isn't hard to hit 1lakh, I end up hitting a lot higher (this month will be over 1.5lakhs; Last November I hit over 2 lakhs). And then there are months where I have to plan quite a bit to get ahead of 80k

Gyftr was helping quite significantly in those months, but now that's not a great route. Also I had a situation last month when I ended up taking a lot of gyftr vouchers for flipkart, amazon and swiggy, and then I figured it will take me a lot longer than 2 months to actually spend the money in normal course (wife got some medical issue, so supplies for that helped spend quite a bit, otherwise I would have over 50% of the money right now) - this voucher route is not scalable in any reasonable long run

bottomline is - there will be very few people who will be able to consistently hit the milestone *without then consistently going way over it* - and if you go over the milestone, the reward rate falls precipitously.

on top of that - even if you hit milestone every month, with the latest devaluation, the best non-travel reward rate you can get out of this card is still good (or may be ok), but nothing phenomenal. Infinia does about the same on travel without any planning (and quite a bit better with some planning). And my guess is so will Amex cards.

as for travel expense - with 5:4 yes the travel will beat anything any everything. But if you think about it, other than Accor, rest of them are not really totally out of bounds. Vast majority of cardholders would actually be making use of Vistara (on which lately it had become a lot harder to get CV flights - was not a problem back in Jan, and was a big problem in May). On ITC you can actually use the green points to pay for food alone in a few hotels, but every other program (including Accor) requires you to stay with them - now that's not small but (i) how many vacation days can you take to actually go stay (and I'm talking about people who can in fact consistently hit 1lakh per month - those people are busy and usually have school going kids; else they have arthritis) in hotels? (2) if you travel for stays, you end up staying more and very few can do so much math that they'll spend a bit on magnus and a bit on other cards (3) going to ITC for food-only is absolutely idiotic, the rates in Bangalore are nearly 3k per head, and while the food is great you can get similar food in independent restaurants at less than half that much - so the value is automatically much lower
I don't think Axis would be paying nearly as much to non-Accor, non-Vistara partners as it is to these two.

so - unless Infinia is devaluing in short order (or Axis negotiators and planners are complete fools) I don't see any further major devaluations happening now
Click to expand...
to clarify a bit more on travel - I'm already at a point where (assuming the 5:4 stays) I don't see how I can utilize the airmiles or hotel points in any meaningful way from what I alraedy have used up (about 150k Vistara miles in last 12months)

In fact, rather than changing the 5:4 ratio, Magnus can just as easily put an upper cap on conversions, and that'll kill any abuse of the system.
 
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vina said:
what I'm thinking now: they may not change the 5:4 ratio for Magnus any more. Let me explain:

at this point except for the 5:4 conversion, with the devaluation of gyftr and grabdeals, and restrictions put on portals like bharatnxt (who were showing transactions as utility payments) and taxes (govt transactions) along with prior restrictions on rents etc. - they have made it very hard for people to honestly expend 1lakh a month on the card. It is not easy to do that every month without these major expenses for a family of 4 plus grandparents. I have so far not used any of these tricks, and since the rent payments went away, it has been hard to get to 1lakh without wasting money (though so far I have managed).

In fact the way it works - in the months when it isn't hard to hit 1lakh, I end up hitting a lot higher (this month will be over 1.5lakhs; Last November I hit over 2 lakhs). And then there are months where I have to plan quite a bit to get ahead of 80k

Gyftr was helping quite significantly in those months, but now that's not a great route. Also I had a situation last month when I ended up taking a lot of gyftr vouchers for flipkart, amazon and swiggy, and then I figured it will take me a lot longer than 2 months to actually spend the money in normal course (wife got some medical issue, so supplies for that helped spend quite a bit, otherwise I would have over 50% of the money right now) - this voucher route is not scalable in any reasonable long run

bottomline is - there will be very few people who will be able to consistently hit the milestone *without then consistently going way over it* - and if you go over the milestone, the reward rate falls precipitously.

on top of that - even if you hit milestone every month, with the latest devaluation, the best non-travel reward rate you can get out of this card is still good (or may be ok), but nothing phenomenal. Infinia does about the same on travel without any planning (and quite a bit better with some planning). And my guess is so will Amex cards.

as for travel expense - with 5:4 yes the travel will beat anything any everything. But if you think about it, other than Accor, rest of them are not really totally out of bounds. Vast majority of cardholders would actually be making use of Vistara (on which lately it had become a lot harder to get CV flights - was not a problem back in Jan, and was a big problem in May). On ITC you can actually use the green points to pay for food alone in a few hotels, but every other program (including Accor) requires you to stay with them - now that's not small but (i) how many vacation days can you take to actually go stay (and I'm talking about people who can in fact consistently hit 1lakh per month - those people are busy and usually have school going kids; else they have arthritis) in hotels? (2) if you travel for stays, you end up staying more and very few can do so much math that they'll spend a bit on magnus and a bit on other cards (3) going to ITC for food-only is absolutely idiotic, the rates in Bangalore are nearly 3k per head, and while the food is great you can get similar food in independent restaurants at less than half that much - so the value is automatically much lower
I don't think Axis would be paying nearly as much to non-Accor, non-Vistara partners as it is to these two.

so - unless Infinia is devaluing in short order (or Axis negotiators and planners are complete fools) I don't see any further major devaluations happening now
Click to expand...
Accor let's u pay for food with points as afar as I know
 
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Sharjeelshaikh said:
Accor let's u pay for food with points as afar as I know
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they let you pay for food etc. with points. But based on what they wrote on their website - they'll let you do it only if it is part of a stay there (i.e. you charge the expense to your room and then pay the entire bill with points at checkout)

it is not clear whether they will accept accor points if you show up at Novotel only for lunch one day
 
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vina said:
they let you pay for food etc. with points. But based on what they wrote on their website - they'll let you do it only if it is part of a stay there (i.e. you charge the expense to your room and then pay the entire bill with points at checkout)

it is not clear whether they will accept accor points if you show up at Novotel only for lunch one day
Click to expand...
ITC lets you pay for food-only with green points. But only at their top hotels (you can see the list on their app). elsewhere, you book a room and settle the final bill with points.
 
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vina said:
they let you pay for food etc. with points. But based on what they wrote on their website - they'll let you do it only if it is part of a stay there (i.e. you charge the expense to your room and then pay the entire bill with points at checkout)

it is not clear whether they will accept accor points if you show up at Novotel only for lunch one day
Click to expand...
i have read people say they have had meals in ibis/novotel with points
 
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vina said:
they let you pay for food etc. with points. But based on what they wrote on their website - they'll let you do it only if it is part of a stay there (i.e. you charge the expense to your room and then pay the entire bill with points at checkout)

it is not clear whether they will accept accor points if you show up at Novotel only for lunch one day
Click to expand...
They do imo but it's 10€per 2000 pt
 
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The terms and conditions on your Axis Bank Credit Card no. XXZZZZ will be revised w.e.f. 1st September 2023. For details, visit Axbk.in/Uprb058501g.

Just in officially from Axis, Magnus T&C updated finally, but I am unable to download the updated T&C from the link in the SMS. Was someone able to check this out?
 
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Wealth is my birth right! said:
Yes got sms with link to pdf
Time to open burgundy 10lac balance account for getting 5:4 benefits
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Need to cancel for sure. No point in going for all this. Open this account, that account. Take your money where there are not so many restrictions.

So many terms and conditions. My god. If else if else if else. Few days down the line, the Burgundy stuff will also be cancelled. Anyway it is almost a waste of money to keep such amounts in a savings account anyway.

Question is, what is the devaluation of reserve? Does anyone know?
 
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sgoyal9 said:
Need to cancel for sure. No point in going for all this. Open this account, that account. Take your money where there are not so many restrictions.

So many terms and conditions. My god. If else if else if else. Few days down the line, the Burgundy stuff will also be cancelled. Anyway it is almost a waste of money to keep such amounts in a savings account anyway.

Question is, what is the devaluation of reserve? Does anyone know?
Click to expand...
With milestone benefit gone no use of having Reserve now unless you get it FYF.
 
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