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Time to consolidate and actually move to just one card (with backup) with a focus on my lifestyle needs

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kaykayporty

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My regular expenses are the following - amount to about 40K CC monthly expenses in a tier-1 city.

  1. Uber - 3-4K per month
  2. Bigbasket - 4K per month
  3. Swiggy - 3000 per month
  4. Amazon (very minimal and have APay CC)
  5. Offline dining twice a month - Total 5K
  6. All bill payments - Electricity, Internet - Total on average 5500
  7. Once/Twice a month - a movie - 1000 per month
  8. Yearly subscriptions (Spotify, Google One)
  9. Once a year insurance spend - 20K
  10. Other miscellaneous expenses mostly offline.
I take a trip once or twice a year. Total of that would be 1.5 lakhs. And of course, other big purchases once a year of 60-100K

Total yearly expenses - close to 8 lakhs.

---
Cards I currently have:
  1. Regalia (LTF) -
    1. I don't use it anymore and only kept it for Priority Pass.
  2. Tata Neu Infinity (FYF) -
    1. Bill payments - electricity and internet
    2. Groceries from BigBasket
    3. I don't understand how 1.5% works for each transaction. That's not clear in the statement. I think it's cumulative.
    4. I ideally want to move away from this card since most merchant transactions are done via CC and most merchants don't use CC on UPI.
  3. Amazon ICICI (LTF) -
    1. I use it for offline transactions.
    2. Amazon, obviously.
  4. Scapia (LTF) -
    1. For 0 forex charges only
    2. Want to keep it for international travel and also not paying forex charges for international transactions.

Most expenses are on Amazon ICICI (amazon and offline), Tata Neu Infinity (bigbasket and all international transactions are on Scapia (1K a month)

---
What I want and what is my expectation:
I don't want to manage so many cards and want to simplify my life. Rewards are lovely but my mental peace is far more rewarding to me.

  1. I want to move to just one card for most things. Since most expenses are online, acceptance (like AMEX) isn't in an issue.
    1. Tracking transactions amongst so many cards is difficult, and I want to make life simple.
    2. A backup card, should be LTF, would be great.
  2. A simple reward rate of 2% is good enough for me for offline. Online can be managed with gift cards from Gyftr so sky is the limit.
    1. Tracking so many cards and their transactions and rewards is time consuming.
  3. What have I been redeeming my rewards on till date:
    1. I have been redeeming my points in Regalia for flights and hotels - which has worked well for me, but the value is too low. Only done twice with flights and once with a hotel.
    2. AmazonPay has been extremely rewarding but is, of course, limited to Amazon. But 5% is really great. Not stopping this card.
    3. Tata Neu has helped cut down on grocery bills so that's pretty good as well. I don't use other Tata brands at all.
    4. Scapia is useless for me since I travel rarely and the prices on their app are high. Zero forex for when I travel.
  4. I have no problem with reward points as I'm patient for them to accumulate over time. But it shouldn't devalue quickly.
    1. I'll consume them on a flight or a hotel booking.
    2. I don't stay in Marriot or such. Something mid-range like Ibis or Lemon tree (max).
I want a long-term card - something I should not be thinking about. I want to get out of the card game but stay with one primary card (with one or two more as backup).
 
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kaykayporty said:
Is this where you spend mostly? What is your monthly/yearly expenditure and is cashback your preferred form of reward?
Click to expand...
Yes, these are my spends. I have added a summary table in this post at the bottom.

So far, cashback have been the preferred option - mainly because of 10% swiggy groceries, 5% Amazon spends, and 2% on bill payments using Amazon gift card using Amazon pay card. These form a big chunk of my expenses. (Apart from fuel, that is a separate big one).
I haven't preferred rewards yet, either as hotel points or airmiles, mainly because I don't fly or stay in hotels frequently (Maybe once in 3-4 months, not more than that).
 
cardio_guy said:
Yes, these are my spends. I have added a summary table in this post at the bottom.

So far, cashback have been the preferred option - mainly because of 10% swiggy groceries, 5% Amazon spends, and 2% on bill payments using Amazon gift card using Amazon pay card. These form a big chunk of my expenses. (Apart from fuel, that is a separate big one).
I haven't preferred rewards yet, either as hotel points or airmiles, mainly because I don't fly or stay in hotels frequently (Maybe once in 3-4 months, not more than that).
Click to expand...
This looks good then. The Swiggy card is being offered LTF now to some people. Maybe you can email HDFC and get that converted to LTF when you're close to a year of it being with you.
 
kaykayporty said:
My regular expenses are the following - amount to about 40K CC monthly expenses in a tier-1 city.

  1. Uber - 3-4K per month
  2. Bigbasket - 4K per month
  3. Swiggy - 3000 per month
  4. Amazon (very minimal and have APay CC)
  5. Offline dining twice a month - Total 5K
  6. All bill payments - Electricity, Internet - Total on average 5500
  7. Once/Twice a month - a movie - 1000 per month
  8. Yearly subscriptions (Spotify, Google One)
  9. Once a year insurance spend - 20K
  10. Other miscellaneous expenses mostly offline.
I take a trip once or twice a year. Total of that would be 1.5 lakhs. And of course, other big purchases once a year of 60-100K

Total yearly expenses - close to 8 lakhs.

---
Cards I currently have:
  1. Regalia (LTF) -
    1. I don't use it anymore and only kept it for Priority Pass.
  2. Tata Neu Infinity (FYF) -
    1. Bill payments - electricity and internet
    2. Groceries from BigBasket
    3. I don't understand how 1.5% works for each transaction. That's not clear in the statement. I think it's cumulative.
    4. I ideally want to move away from this card since most merchant transactions are done via CC and most merchants don't use CC on UPI.
  3. Amazon ICICI (LTF) -
    1. I use it for offline transactions.
    2. Amazon, obviously.
  4. Scapia (LTF) -
    1. For 0 forex charges only
    2. Want to keep it for international travel and also not paying forex charges for international transactions.

Most expenses are on Amazon ICICI (amazon and offline), Tata Neu Infinity (bigbasket and all international transactions are on Scapia (1K a month)

---
What I want and what is my expectation:
I don't want to manage so many cards and want to simplify my life. Rewards are lovely but my mental peace is far more rewarding to me.

  1. I want to move to just one card for most things. Since most expenses are online, acceptance (like AMEX) isn't in an issue.
    1. Tracking transactions amongst so many cards is difficult, and I want to make life simple.
    2. A backup card, should be LTF, would be great.
  2. A simple reward rate of 2% is good enough for me for offline. Online can be managed with gift cards from Gyftr so sky is the limit.
    1. Tracking so many cards and their transactions and rewards is time consuming.
    2. I have been redeeming my points in Regalia for flights and hotels - which has worked well for me, but the value is too low. Only done twice with flights and once with a hotel.
    3. AmazonPay has been extremely rewarding but is, of course, limited to Amazon. But 5% is really great. Not stopping this card.
    4. Tata Neu has helped cut down on grocery bills so that's pretty good as well. I don't use other Tata brands at all.
    5. Scapia is useless for me since I travel rarely and the prices on their app are high. Zero forex for when I travel.
  3. I have no problem with reward points as I'm patient for them to accumulate over time. But it shouldn't devalue quickly.
    1. I'll consume them on a flight or a hotel booking.
    2. I don't stay in Marriot or such. Something mid-range like Ibis or Lemon tree (max).
I want a long-term card - something I should not be thinking about. I want to get out of the card game but stay with one primary card (with one or two more as backup).
Click to expand...
If I was you I would move all my spends to Axis Atlas. (buy Amazon GV using Amazon for ineligible categories).
 
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dexter_greycells said:
It is one of the biggest myths that DCB has acceptance issues. May be it used to some years ago but not now. I got mine in 2023 and have swiped at standalone (i.e. no MNC chain) restaurants in Telangana, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh without a single offline acceptance issue. I did have online acceptance issues at on some small DTH / mobile recharges of a few hundred rupees and La Pino's Pizza and a couple of other websites I don't remember.

My recommendation is to upgrade your Regalia to DCB Plastic or Infinia, even they are paid. DCB plastic has fee waiver on annual spends of 5L which is ideal for your total expenses of "close to 8L". For DCB Metal and Infinia it is 8L. Infinia will at least refund you 10k pts but not the DCBs. I was offered Inifinia Metal but I declined in favour of DCB since it fit my use case better. I think it fits your use case better too. DCB will give you 500+500 vouchers of Ola & BMS on monthly spends of 80k and 2X RPs (6.66% returns if you consider 1 RP = Rs 1) on weekend dining at standalone restaurants. This is a plus for pts 1, 5 and 7 in your list. Infinia won't give you that. However, Infinia will give you 5X (16.67% returns) on BB, Swiggy, Amazon Pay vouchers via SmartBuy + Gyftr unlike DCB which will give you 3X (10% returns).
Click to expand...
DCB Plastic isn't available anymore, right? Just Metal if I'm not wrong.

I have the Plat Travel + MRCC + ICICIAMZ. Regalia is in the drawer (only because it has priority pass)

My CL on regalia is 8.5L and I do qualify for DCB salary wise. But they're not even giving me Regalia Gold LTF since I've basically stopped using Regalia (fair point to HDFC)

I'm somewhat sure (please correct me) that Bangalore merchants have wised up and disabled Diner's network since that is also expensive (and rupay isn't worth it for them)
 
kaykayporty said:
DCB Plastic isn't available anymore, right? Just Metal if I'm not wrong.

I have the Plat Travel + MRCC + ICICIAMZ. Regalia is in the drawer (only because it has priority pass)

My CL on regalia is 8.5L and I do qualify for DCB salary wise. But they're not even giving me Regalia Gold LTF since I've basically stopped using Regalia (fair point to HDFC)

I'm somewhat sure (please correct me) that Bangalore merchants have wised up and disabled Diner's network since that is also expensive (and rupay isn't worth it for them)
Click to expand...
You are probably right that DCB Plastic isn't available anymore. DCB Metal has higher annual-spends-based-waiver criteria of 8L.
I have no experience with Diners network in Bangalore but in Mumbai so far I had it declined only in a budget restaurant where the restaurant owner said they don't accept Diners. I also had a bad experience with Diners at an HPCL petrol pump where I was charged not the usual 1% surcharge + GST but between 3-4%. I never used it again at a petrol pump. Otherwise I have had a fantastic experience with it.
 
dexter_greycells said:
You are probably right that DCB Plastic isn't available anymore. DCB Metal has higher annual-spends-based-waiver criteria of 8L.
I have no experience with Diners network in Bangalore but in Mumbai so far I had it declined only in a budget restaurant where the restaurant owner said they don't accept Diners. I also had a bad experience with Diners at an HPCL petrol pump where I was charged not the usual 1% surcharge + GST but between 3-4%. I never used it again at a petrol pump. Otherwise I have had a fantastic experience with it.
Click to expand...
Let me see if they can still issue DCB Plastic. It would be perfect for me then.
 
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