Infinia What's the big deal about the Infinia?

[d3rvish]

I'm not trying to be provocative, just genuinely puzzled about why this card is held in such high regard and so many people seem to think it's some kind of endgame card.

Just to break the benefits down:

1. 3.3% reward rate on regular spends (with a whole bunch of exclusion categories). This is hardly best in class, even if you take the Magnus party to be over.

2. Unlimited Priority Pass. Meh. Been there, got that.

3. Get one night's stay free on a two-night paid stay (at best available rate, I assume). Decent, but limited to ITC hotels. Ditto for the buy one-get one on buffets. Also, few five-star buffets are all that great, and I don't think most ITC restaurants make that cut. I'd rather take the Magnus Eazydiner 40% off up to Rs 1000 at a large number of restaurants (of which a large number are very good) once a month instead.

4. Club Marriott membership. Overrated and you end up spending a fair amount if you try to optimise this membership. And its for just the first year.

5. "Global Personal Concierge". Yeah, right. Bollocks. I think just about every so-called credit card concierge available in India below the level of the Amex Centurion one, probably, is rubbish.

6. "Metallic card". Ergo, a heavier wallet. A truly stunning benefit.

7. Forex mark-up of just 2%. Cancelled out by the lack of a points accelerator on forex spends.

8. Good Food Trail Programme. I do not know what this is and don't care enough to find out.

9. Overseas travel insurance. Appreciated, but you need to yell at them to actually get a valid policy document

10. Smartbuy travel portal for accelerated rewards. I'd rather book directly with airlines and hotels because when things go wrong, you're most likely screwed if you've booked with an OTA, particularly those like Yatra and whoever, who are Smartbuy's vendors. But yeah, I can see this is a solid benefit for those who don't mind booking via OTAs. Though with the caps on points earning per day/transaction, the rewards are not as good as they used to be.

11. Gyftr vouchers whatever blah. Okay. A valuable benefit.

I don't know if I've missed something major, but if you look at that list, it's wildly disproportionate to the awestruck talk this card inspires. Truly a marketing case study of demand created by artificial scarcity and social media buzz. If the restrictions about how many points you can earn a day did not apply and the terms and conditions were the same as they were some 3 years ago, this card would be a clear winner, but the way it is now, I don't think it is quite that?

 

[SSV]

I think it's hard to get and that's where the value is 🙂

that is exactly OP's doubt... is this value created by artificial scarcity or the actaul value it gives to the holder..

 

[navam]

Does this effectively mean it is good for frequent flyers?

Ofcourse that's the best part, even though the 1rp =1rs is great for conversion to cash(compared to other reward points systems out there) but the real gain is when you transfer to partners, atleast that's been my use case which no other card (except magnus old ) came close to solving.

Frankly, with what the cash conversion rates of other card is, not sure if there are a lot of cards which provide more value, but Im sure some cc expert will probably join in and share their wisdom here.

 

[govigov]

who are the transfer partners and what ratio are the points getting transferred. For 1000 Rs spend, after the transfer to say krisflyer, how many miles do you end up with in case of Infinia?

 

[svs_23]

who are the transfer partners and what ratio are the points getting transferred. For 1000 Rs spend, after the transfer to say krisflyer, how many miles do you end up with in case of Infinia?

Krisflyer, Accor etc are available at 1:1 giving 3.3% miles for the 1x spends.
So we get even more at 5x/10x spends!

 

[cks]

I get a feeling that hdfc has created the hype just by artificially restricting supply. Infinia doesn't seem to be all that great.

 

[CC-Muncher]

I get a feeling that hdfc has created the hype just by artificially restricting supply. Infinia doesn't seem to be all that great.

So, which card is best now?

 

[d3rvish]

Ofcourse that's the best part, even though the 1rp =1rs is great for conversion to cash(compared to other reward points systems out there) but the real gain is when you transfer to partners, atleast that's been my use case which no other card (except magnus old ) came close to solving.

Yes, of course, transferring to airline/hotel partners is the way to go. It is only from earlier this year onwards that Infinia has had a decent list of transfer partners. They used to only have SQ and UK (added BA for a while, took it away, and now have brought it back), so in terms of airlines you were massively limited on redemption options. Citi has been the leader here, with about 15 transfer partners consistently right through.

Also, Infinia's 1RP = 0.5 mile for United, Aeroplan, Etihad and BA, four of the most popular transfer partners, is sub-par.

 

[navam]

Yes, of course, transferring to airline/hotel partners is the way to go. It is only from earlier this year onwards that Infinia has had a decent list of transfer partners. They used to only have SQ and UK (added BA for a while, took it away, and now have brought it back), so in terms of airlines you were massively limited on redemption options. Citi has been the leader here, with about 15 transfer partners consistently right through.

Also, Infinia's 1RP = 0.5 mile for United, Aeroplan, Etihad and BA, four of the most popular transfer partners, is sub-par.

I wonder what's gonna happen with citi, let's see. Which card in the citi lineup are you referring to? I never owned one so don't have first hand knowledge about the same (was using amex primarily before )

The four you mentioned are obviously not of great value, just use any of the ones giving 1:1.
Hint: instead of these 4 look at Avianca lifemiles it has been of super duper value for me. Just avoid booking with them if you are unsure of your trip, cancellation or modification is very very very hard with them.

 

[d3rvish]

Which card in the citi lineup are you referring to?

Hint: instead of these 4 look at Avianca lifemiles it has been of super duper value for me. Just avoid booking with them if you are unsure of your trip, cancellation or modification is very very very hard with them.

The Prestige mainly, which I've had for about eight years now. In the early years it offered superb value, with complimentary Etihad Gold membership for a year among other things. I must have got value worth about Rs 100k on the free twice yearly airport car service in the Asia Pacific alone. They withdrew this a couple of years ago. Also, the fourth night free when booking a three-night paid stay was a decent perk; that has been limited to twice a year now as well.

Lifemiles, yeah, I haven't dipped my toes in there yet - mainly because of all the horror stories I hear about how service is close to non-existent.

And yes, my point about the 1 : 0.5 transfer ratio is the those same partners (Aeroplan, United) have/had better transfer ratios on Axis/Citi.

 

[navam]

The Prestige mainly, which I've had for about eight years now. In the early years it offered superb value, with complimentary Etihad Gold membership for a year among other things. I must have got value worth about Rs 100k on the free twice yearly airport car service in the Asia Pacific alone. They withdrew this a couple of years ago. Also, the fourth night free when booking a three-night paid stay was a decent perk; that has been limited to twice a year now as well.

Lifemiles, yeah, I haven't dipped my toes in there yet - mainly because of all the horror stories I hear about how service is close to non-existent.

And yes, my point about the 1 : 0.5 transfer ratio is the those same partners (Aeroplan, United) have/had better transfer ratios on Axis/Citi.

Wah 100k worth value sounds amazing.
Unfortunately with all the devaluation it's hard to find a card giving that much value 🙁
Question for you since you are a long time prestige user, is there a concept of 3x, 5x , 10x points there as well (gyftr vouchers etc)?

Magnus +burgundy is still good value but I'm just not interested in opening another account and having to manage that hence sticking with Infinia. Gets the job done without having to plan much.

 

[d3rvish]

Question for you since you are a long time prestige user, is there a concept of 3x, 5x , 10x points there as well (gyftr vouchers etc)?

No, apart from some infrequent promotions where they used to have something like "spend X amount in forex and get y points" and stuff along those lines, almost none. But there is and always has been a 2X on all forex spends, which makes it good for travel (though, of course, the mark-up nearly cancels the benefit out).

If you had a Citigold banking account, there was a hefty points multiplier applied. I forget exactly how much, but I think you could get over 20% of your yearly points accrual as a bonus.

They don't have a voucher platform like Gyftr, as far as I'm aware, and their promotions are kind of like Amex's - spend a minimum of X on such and such brand and get 10-15% off. And the same kinds of brands that Amex runs promotions for. Which is pretty pedestrian.

For the longest time, they also had 15% off at Mumbai Duty Free (and Delhi as well, if I'm not wrong) on minimum spends of Rs 5k. Don't know if that's still running.

Note that the 100k value for airport transfers was a loose estimate of value over the lifetime of holding the card, in case that was misleading. They used to offer two complimentary transfers per year per card, and if you used it in places like Hong Kong, Tokyo or Sydney, you got a lot of mileage out of it.

For a 20k fee card, it was pretty solid. Not so much anymore, but I'm waiting to see what card in their portfolio Axis moves Prestige holders to.

 

[deepcards]

I have been using infinia since a month. Theee are the things i loved about it:
1. 3.3% rewards on almost all spends. I know some cards like apay, flipkart axis, sbi cb offer better rates- so i have apay and flipkart axis as well.
2. Gyftyr vouchers- you can easily get 15- 16.67% reward rate on almost anything, within a decent spending limit. Already lots has been discussed about the caps, etc.
3. Smartbuy: now if u are concerned about the rare probablity of a glitch, then obv u shud not use it, and as u said directly book from airlines and forgo 16.67% rewards and book directly from hotel, and forgo 33% rewards- now as they say everything comes with a price, and one has to weigh the trade offs, so if someone is concerned with that small chance of glitches, thats probably irrational fear.

Rest all the things- i dont even bother, i know; it somebody spends around 14 lacs using infinia, intelligently, in a year, can save around 1.8-2 lacs easily in reward points with 1:1 transfer rate to many good things.

 

[SM24]

No, apart from some infrequent promotions where they used to have something like "spend X amount in forex and get y points" and stuff along those lines, almost none. But there is and always has been a 2X on all forex spends, which makes it good for travel (though, of course, the mark-up nearly cancels the benefit out).

If you had a Citigold banking account, there was a hefty points multiplier applied. I forget exactly how much, but I think you could get over 20% of your yearly points accrual as a bonus.

They don't have a voucher platform like Gyftr, as far as I'm aware, and their promotions are kind of like Amex's - spend a minimum of X on such and such brand and get 10-15% off. And the same kinds of brands that Amex runs promotions for. Which is pretty pedestrian.

For the longest time, they also had 15% off at Mumbai Duty Free (and Delhi as well, if I'm not wrong) on minimum spends of Rs 5k. Don't know if that's still running.

Note that the 100k value for airport transfers was a loose estimate of value over the lifetime of holding the card, in case that was misleading. They used to offer two complimentary transfers per year per card, and if you used it in places like Hong Kong, Tokyo or Sydney, you got a lot of mileage out of it.

For a 20k fee card, it was pretty solid. Not so much anymore, but I'm waiting to see what card in their portfolio Axis moves Prestige holders to.

The best part is with 10K Taj/ITC Vouchers + 2500 points that translate to 10K points, annually, the card pays for itself.

But for the absence of bonus RP platform, a killer card.

 

[d3rvish]

would like to know which credit card is big deal to you?

Maybe it helps to compare.

Also, if they offer you this card, will you take it or reject with same points?

Have had it for three years. Seriously considering giving it up. Shall I ask them to issue you one in lieu of it? You seem to be a keen fan.

 

[deepcards]

Have had it for three years. Seriously considering giving it up. Shall I ask them to issue you one in lieu of it? You seem to be a keen fan.

Try bro, ask them to issue it for all of us. I am happy with a 2nd infinia. But why would they listen to you? 😀

 

[PavanPavan is verified member.]

*Simple logic* (@S S V correct me)
If you travel only once a year in flight for vacation then you can't extract value from infinia or magnus or any other premium card
If you are in to Marriott Amex cards are best for now and some time plat travel + MRCC gives better retrun
If you are in to cashback Axis Airtel,ACE,SBI cashbcak, SC Smart ++ Co braded cards like amazon flikart gives better return ++ You can add mRCC ti list

Down the line we need mutiple cards to manage 🙂 inseatd we can take inifinia and be peacful

I have use inifinia concierge service they are best in the milkyway galaxy they had booked a hotel for me for 18K whoch was costing 7K on mMT

 

[SSV]

*Simple logic* (@S S V correct me)
If you travel only once a year in flight for vacation then you can't extract value from infinia or magnus or any other premium card
If you are in to Marriott Amex cards are best for now and some time plat travel + MRCC gives better retrun
If you are in to cashback Axis Airtel,ACE,SBI cashbcak, SC Smart ++ Co braded cards like amazon flikart gives better return ++ You can add mRCC ti list

Down the line we need mutiple cards to manage 🙂 inseatd we can take inifinia and be peacful

I have use inifinia concierge service they are best in the milkyway galaxy they had booked a hotel for me for 18K whoch was costing 7K on mMT

+1 ,
correct as they say "horses for courses"...

Infinia is a life style CC suitable for high spenders and frequent air travellers.
Not that it won't suit others it is best suited for the above.. and could get maximum out of it if you are a high spender with air travel

 

[deepcards]

*Simple logic* (@S S V correct me)
If you travel only once a year in flight for vacation then you can't extract value from infinia or magnus or any other premium card
If you are in to Marriott Amex cards are best for now and some time plat travel + MRCC gives better retrun
If you are in to cashback Axis Airtel,ACE,SBI cashbcak, SC Smart ++ Co braded cards like amazon flikart gives better return ++ You can add mRCC ti list

Down the line we need mutiple cards to manage 🙂 inseatd we can take inifinia and be peacful

I have use inifinia concierge service they are best in the milkyway galaxy they had booked a hotel for me for 18K whoch was costing 7K on mMT

I hope you do buy groceries, do shopping from Amazon, buy some clothes/shoes from brands like fabindia, shopperstop, arrow, lifestyle, or even some of the more luxury brands like armani, etc- all give 16.67% (except amazon, which is 15%) via smartbuy's gyftyr. Many times, I have found that these GVs have some upfront discount- e.g. for Sketchers the normal GV of 10k was at 9k, and then add the 16.67% discount, so you basically get good value.

Thing is with infinia, atleast till now, you don't have to depend on travel bookings- like for magnus or reserve.

As for comparison with MMT, i agree, I have found the rates for hotels on the smartbuy portal to be higher as compared to MMT, but till now- after the 33% reward point discount, it comes out to be cheaper thn MMT + any credit card discounts.

As I said, there's an intelligent way to extract value from Infinia.

 

[navam]

As for comparison with MMT, i agree, I have found the rates for hotels on the smartbuy portal to be higher as compared to MMT, but till now- after the 33% reward point discount, it comes out to be cheaper thn MMT + any credit card discounts.

As I said, there's an intelligent way to extract value from Infinia.

True, the only caveat being is the max cap of 15k bonus points, if your total booking amount is more, then it gets complicated otherwise nothing beats the price on smartbuy minus points value math.

Also to be fair even on a single trip you can extract enough value out of infinia, sab kuch points se hi Karo na flight and hotel.

 

[PavanPavan is verified member.]

True, the only caveat being is the max cap of 15k bonus points, if your total booking amount is more, then it gets complicated otherwise nothing beats the price on smartbuy minus points value math.

Also to be fair even on a single trip you can extract enough value out of infinia, sab kuch points se hi Karo na flight and hotel.

That's the point uitlimately best use comes with travel 🙂 if you don't travel often infinia will be less useful
since we get only 1% cashbcak