Should I do HDFC DCF (LTF) to Infinia?

[CVR]

Hi,

Wanted some opinion from people on forum here on my question:

I have LTF Diners Black (alumni offer) and evaluating whether I should upgrade to Infinia which will be mostly paid I guess. I also have Magnus and Amex MRCC & Plat Travel, and giving below reasons to why I am thinking of Infinia despite above cards.

Reasons for thinking for upgrade from LTF DCB to paid Infinia
1) 5x on smartbuy gyftr for Infinia vs 3x for DCB
2) Higher daily (7500 vs 2500) and monthly limit (15000 vs 7500) of points earning on Infinia
3) Higher monthly limit of 150k points redemption in Infinia vs 75 for DCB

Reasons for thinking of getting LTF DCB despite having Magnus
1) I have (genuine) rent payment every month which was helping me achieve 1 lakh milestone every month. Now with rent not being counted for milestone I might reach milestone maybe only 3 times in a month (if I plan well)
2) Even if I don't get points on Rent in Infinia it will be atleast counted towards annual 10 lakh milestone for fee waiver. In Magnus rent won't be counted even for fee waiver 15 lakh spends.
3) Really tired of tracking points in Axis with all this crap of waiting for 90-120 days for grabdeals, gyftr, monthly milestone. HDFC and Amex are much better in this regard.
4) Both HDFC and Axis have gyftr for voucher and smartbuy & travel edge for travel bookings so no difference here.
5) Base reward of 3.33% in HDFC vs 2.4% in Magnus (6 ER per 100 = 4.8 air miles = 2.4 Rs., I always conservatively assume 50 paise value for airmiles)

Negatives
1) Taking one more paid card vs currently LTF DCB
2) Maybe taking short term call as Magnus could be more rewarding in long term (with lot of patience) ????

Other points
Overall my spends ex-rent can be 6-8 lakhs per annum. Amex MRCC used only for 1500x4 and Plat Travel to get to 4 lakh bonus which is also not easy task if I try to maximize other cards.

Any thoughts please? Thanks

 

[thanix]

Hi,

Wanted some opinion from people on forum here on my question:

I have LTF Diners Black (alumni offer) and evaluating whether I should upgrade to Infinia which will be mostly paid I guess. I also have Magnus and Amex MRCC & Plat Travel, and giving below reasons to why I am thinking of Infinia despite above cards.

Reasons for thinking for upgrade from LTF DCB to paid Infinia
1) 5x on smartbuy gyftr for Infinia vs 3x for DCB
2) Higher daily (7500 vs 2500) and monthly limit (15000 vs 7500) of points earning on Infinia
3) Higher monthly limit of 150k points redemption in Infinia vs 75 for DCB

Reasons for thinking of getting LTF DCB despite having Magnus
1) I have (genuine) rent payment every month which was helping me achieve 1 lakh milestone every month. Now with rent not being counted for milestone I might reach milestone maybe only 3 times in a month (if I plan well)
2) Even if I don't get points on Rent in Infinia it will be atleast counted towards annual 10 lakh milestone for fee waiver. In Magnus rent won't be counted even for fee waiver 15 lakh spends.
3) Really tired of tracking points in Axis with all this crap of waiting for 90-120 days for grabdeals, gyftr, monthly milestone. HDFC and Amex are much better in this regard.
4) Both HDFC and Axis have gyftr for voucher and smartbuy & travel edge for travel bookings so no difference here.
5) Base reward of 3.33% in HDFC vs 2.4% in Magnus (6 ER per 100 = 4.8 air miles = 2.4 Rs., I always conservatively assume 50 paise value for airmiles)

Negatives
1) Taking one more paid card vs currently LTF DCB
2) Maybe taking short term call as Magnus could be more rewarding in long term (with lot of patience) ????

Other points
Overall my spends ex-rent can be 6-8 lakhs per annum. Amex MRCC used only for 1500x4 and Plat Travel to get to 4 lakh bonus which is also not easy task if I try to maximize other cards.

Any thoughts please? Thanks

If you have genuine rent and can register with Pan card in red giraffe, you can still get reward points in both DCB and Infinia. No difference between them.

Unless your non Magnus spend is in Flipkart and Insta vouchers or Flights/Bus which is 5x and hit the daily and monthly cap, paid Infinia doesn't make sense as secondary card instead of LTF DCB. So decide based on your spend pattern.

Tracking spend has become tough in HDFC itself. They now credit grocery spend in calendar month basis. Some time back they lost points in Gyftr.

 

[caabhi]

Hi,

Wanted some opinion from people on forum here on my question:

I have LTF Diners Black (alumni offer) and evaluating whether I should upgrade to Infinia which will be mostly paid I guess. I also have Magnus and Amex MRCC & Plat Travel, and giving below reasons to why I am thinking of Infinia despite above cards.

Reasons for thinking for upgrade from LTF DCB to paid Infinia
1) 5x on smartbuy gyftr for Infinia vs 3x for DCB
2) Higher daily (7500 vs 2500) and monthly limit (15000 vs 7500) of points earning on Infinia
3) Higher monthly limit of 150k points redemption in Infinia vs 75 for DCB

Reasons for thinking of getting LTF DCB despite having Magnus
1) I have (genuine) rent payment every month which was helping me achieve 1 lakh milestone every month. Now with rent not being counted for milestone I might reach milestone maybe only 3 times in a month (if I plan well)
2) Even if I don't get points on Rent in Infinia it will be atleast counted towards annual 10 lakh milestone for fee waiver. In Magnus rent won't be counted even for fee waiver 15 lakh spends.
3) Really tired of tracking points in Axis with all this crap of waiting for 90-120 days for grabdeals, gyftr, monthly milestone. HDFC and Amex are much better in this regard.
4) Both HDFC and Axis have gyftr for voucher and smartbuy & travel edge for travel bookings so no difference here.
5) Base reward of 3.33% in HDFC vs 2.4% in Magnus (6 ER per 100 = 4.8 air miles = 2.4 Rs., I always conservatively assume 50 paise value for airmiles)

Negatives
1) Taking one more paid card vs currently LTF DCB
2) Maybe taking short term call as Magnus could be more rewarding in long term (with lot of patience) ????

Other points
Overall my spends ex-rent can be 6-8 lakhs per annum. Amex MRCC used only for 1500x4 and Plat Travel to get to 4 lakh bonus which is also not easy task if I try to maximize other cards.

Any thoughts please? Thanks

You have got yourself a pros and cons worked out. It boils down to the question, whether the benefits listed by you outweighs the charges for the Infinia. Your spends excluding rent are 6L excluding rent. If you are fine with the charges, you can pay rent using redgiraffe you can have Infinia fees waived. You get the ER on the welcome and renewal, gst being cost every year on Infinia. Considering all this, you will have to decide if this works out for you or not.

I did not have LTF DCB, I moved from LTF Regalia to paid Infinia.

 

[LT1]

Hi,

Wanted some opinion from people on forum here on my question:

I have LTF Diners Black (alumni offer) and evaluating whether I should upgrade to Infinia which will be mostly paid I guess. I also have Magnus and Amex MRCC & Plat Travel, and giving below reasons to why I am thinking of Infinia despite above cards.

Reasons for thinking for upgrade from LTF DCB to paid Infinia
1) 5x on smartbuy gyftr for Infinia vs 3x for DCB
2) Higher daily (7500 vs 2500) and monthly limit (15000 vs 7500) of points earning on Infinia
3) Higher monthly limit of 150k points redemption in Infinia vs 75 for DCB

Reasons for thinking of getting LTF DCB despite having Magnus
1) I have (genuine) rent payment every month which was helping me achieve 1 lakh milestone every month. Now with rent not being counted for milestone I might reach milestone maybe only 3 times in a month (if I plan well)
2) Even if I don't get points on Rent in Infinia it will be atleast counted towards annual 10 lakh milestone for fee waiver. In Magnus rent won't be counted even for fee waiver 15 lakh spends.
3) Really tired of tracking points in Axis with all this crap of waiting for 90-120 days for grabdeals, gyftr, monthly milestone. HDFC and Amex are much better in this regard.
4) Both HDFC and Axis have gyftr for voucher and smartbuy & travel edge for travel bookings so no difference here.
5) Base reward of 3.33% in HDFC vs 2.4% in Magnus (6 ER per 100 = 4.8 air miles = 2.4 Rs., I always conservatively assume 50 paise value for airmiles)

Negatives
1) Taking one more paid card vs currently LTF DCB
2) Maybe taking short term call as Magnus could be more rewarding in long term (with lot of patience) ????

Other points
Overall my spends ex-rent can be 6-8 lakhs per annum. Amex MRCC used only for 1500x4 and Plat Travel to get to 4 lakh bonus which is also not easy task if I try to maximize other cards.

Any thoughts please? Thanks

I was in a similar position as yours and I went for the paid Infinia upgrade. As mentioned above, you are literally paying only the GST on Infinia. While HDFC has been slipping up a bit on RP credits, it is not usually as bad as Axis. In my case, for months where I know in advance that I wouldn't be hitting the Magnus monthly milestone, I plan to use Infinia for my vouchers etc. Also, would be putting more than 1L in a month spending selectively on Infinia, especially vouchers and Smartbuy etc. Am also eying a few transfer partners that HDFC has like Accor.

Also, you need to value the Axis points depending on your redemption needs. You might get outsized value in biz class airmiles, 1 Rupee in ITC and lesser with other partners like MB. Most MB redemptions that I have been looking at are more in the range of 0.6-0.7 in the best case. With HDFC, you know that you can get 1 Rupee with domestic flight redemptions and even more with partners like Accor.

 

[WhoU]

I was in a similar position as yours and I went for the paid Infinia upgrade. As mentioned above, you are literally paying only the GST on Infinia. While HDFC has been slipping up a bit on RP credits, it is not usually as bad as Axis. In my case, for months where I know in advance that I wouldn't be hitting the Magnus monthly milestone, I plan to use Infinia for my vouchers etc. Also, would be putting more than 1L in a month spending selectively on Infinia, especially vouchers and Smartbuy etc. Am also eying a few transfer partners that HDFC has like Accor.

Also, you need to value the Axis points depending on your redemption needs. You might get outsized value in biz class airmiles, 1 Rupee in ITC and lesser with other partners like MB. Most MB redemptions that I have been looking at are more in the range of 0.6-0.7 in the best case. With HDFC, you know that you can get 1 Rupee with domestic flight redemptions and even more with partners like Accor.

HDFC points are not truly 1 rupee. You don’t get any discounts on flight bookings when done via HDFC smartbuy. So would value it at around 0.9. Also Apple purchases are on mrp right? And you easily get discount on that too, so not more than 0.9 even for infinia.

 

[WhoU]

Hi,

Wanted some opinion from people on forum here on my question:

I have LTF Diners Black (alumni offer) and evaluating whether I should upgrade to Infinia which will be mostly paid I guess. I also have Magnus and Amex MRCC & Plat Travel, and giving below reasons to why I am thinking of Infinia despite above cards.

Reasons for thinking for upgrade from LTF DCB to paid Infinia
1) 5x on smartbuy gyftr for Infinia vs 3x for DCB
2) Higher daily (7500 vs 2500) and monthly limit (15000 vs 7500) of points earning on Infinia
3) Higher monthly limit of 150k points redemption in Infinia vs 75 for DCB

Reasons for thinking of getting LTF DCB despite having Magnus
1) I have (genuine) rent payment every month which was helping me achieve 1 lakh milestone every month. Now with rent not being counted for milestone I might reach milestone maybe only 3 times in a month (if I plan well)
2) Even if I don't get points on Rent in Infinia it will be atleast counted towards annual 10 lakh milestone for fee waiver. In Magnus rent won't be counted even for fee waiver 15 lakh spends.
3) Really tired of tracking points in Axis with all this crap of waiting for 90-120 days for grabdeals, gyftr, monthly milestone. HDFC and Amex are much better in this regard.
4) Both HDFC and Axis have gyftr for voucher and smartbuy & travel edge for travel bookings so no difference here.
5) Base reward of 3.33% in HDFC vs 2.4% in Magnus (6 ER per 100 = 4.8 air miles = 2.4 Rs., I always conservatively assume 50 paise value for airmiles)

Negatives
1) Taking one more paid card vs currently LTF DCB
2) Maybe taking short term call as Magnus could be more rewarding in long term (with lot of patience) ????

Other points
Overall my spends ex-rent can be 6-8 lakhs per annum. Amex MRCC used only for 1500x4 and Plat Travel to get to 4 lakh bonus which is also not easy task if I try to maximize other cards.

Any thoughts please? Thanks

You can use BharatNXT for rent not being counted as rent right? Ping me if you want a referral.

 

[CVR]

You can use BharatNXT for rent not being counted as rent right? Ping me if you want a referral.

Thanks. Already have BharatNXT account, but never used it.

 

[LT1]

HDFC points are not truly 1 rupee. You don’t get any discounts on flight bookings when done via HDFC smartbuy. So would value it at around 0.9. Also Apple purchases are on mrp right? And you easily get discount on that too, so not more than 0.9 even for infinia.

Agree 0.9 might be fair value for flight bookings but places like Accor give much more than 1 as well. Just want to highlight that the assumption of being able to redeem those Magnus points at 1 or more might be difficult for many unless going for specific airlines or biz class etc …

 

[WhoU]

Agree 0.9 might be fair value for flight bookings but places like Accor give much more than 1 as well. Just want to highlight that the assumption of being able to redeem those Magnus points at 1 or more might be difficult for many unless going for specific airlines or biz class etc …

Yeah magnus rp is nowhere close to infinia’s rp. Even flight redemption of magnus is bad. But the true value of magnus is its milestone. If we can’t get more than 3 milestones in a year then not a good card, unless a heavy user of eazydiner and bms.

 

[Avatar Aang]

Here after the recent Axis devaluation. Got DCB as LTF in Feb 2023. Got magnus in April 2023. was lucky to get milestone benefits for May, June and July. Now after the Magnus devaluation I am thinking of getting paid infinia. But it wont be easy. First I have to get credit limit of 8L on either DCB or Magnus. Presently both have limit of 5.5L. After that I will apply for HDFC Rupay card and upgrade it to paid infinia as I dont want to lose my LTF DCB.

Please suggest if this will be correct and also where can I get 8L limit easily? My last year ITR is 28L

 

[WhoU]

Here after the recent Axis devaluation. Got DCB as LTF in Feb 2023. Got magnus in April 2023. was lucky to get milestone benefits for May, June and July. Now after the Magnus devaluation I am thinking of getting paid infinia. But it wont be easy. First I have to get credit limit of 8L on either DCB or Magnus. Presently both have limit of 5.5L. After that I will apply for HDFC Rupay card and upgrade it to paid infinia as I dont want to lose my LTF DCB.

Please suggest if this will be correct and also where can I get 8L limit easily? My last year ITR is 28L

You can’t upgrade Rupay to Infinia. They will look into upgrading DCB to Infinia, and that too is very difficult nowadays.

Don’t want to discourage you, but keep trying. You never know when you get lucky.

 

[CVR]

Here after the recent Axis devaluation. Got DCB as LTF in Feb 2023. Got magnus in April 2023. was lucky to get milestone benefits for May, June and July. Now after the Magnus devaluation I am thinking of getting paid infinia. But it wont be easy. First I have to get credit limit of 8L on either DCB or Magnus. Presently both have limit of 5.5L. After that I will apply for HDFC Rupay card and upgrade it to paid infinia as I dont want to lose my LTF DCB.

Please suggest if this will be correct and also where can I get 8L limit easily? My last year ITR is 28L

i was in similar situation. Upgraded my LTF DCB to Infinia. I was meeting the credit limit criteria. Don’t think too much about Infinia fees. On upgrade they anyways give FYF and if you spend 10 lakh next yr fees is waived. Even if you are charged fees of 12.5k you get same as points, only gst lost. In just one month of upgrade from dcb to infinia i have more than earned points in terms of higher gyftr multiplier (5x vs 3x), higher daily limit (15000 vs 2500). Post magnus deval taking infinia (if you getting it) is no brainer.

 

[Avatar Aang]

Here after the recent Axis devaluation. Got DCB as LTF in Feb 2023. Got magnus in April 2023. was lucky to get milestone benefits for May, June and July. Now after the Magnus devaluation I am thinking of getting paid infinia. But it wont be easy. First I have to get credit limit of 8L on either DCB or Magnus. Presently both have limit of 5.5L. After that I will apply for HDFC Rupay card and upgrade it to paid infinia as I dont want to lose my LTF DCB.

Please suggest if this will be correct and also where can I get 8L limit easily? My last year ITR is 28L

Here after almost a year. Finally HDFC is giving upgrade from DCB LTF to Infinia FYF with spend based waiver on attending 10L in 12 months.
This fee waiver is difficult for me.
Hence, I want to keep my DCB LTF and want to upgrade my Marriott Bonvoy card to FYF Infinia. How do I push them to upgrade the Marriott Bonvoy card to Infinia.