How to make the best use of HDFC Bank Diners Club Black Credit Card?

HDFC Bank Diners Club Black is one of the best super premium credit card available in India. I’m using this credit card for more than a year now. This article is my hands-on experience in milking the credit card for getting maximum reward points.

10X Rewards

The best thing about the Diners Club is the 10X reward points. I personally think the team behind the Diners Club does an awesome job of shortlisting the partners from day-to-day needs and offer 10X rewards.

I live in Bangalore, I have now started using Zoomcar for weekend getaways, order food on Swiggy, book tickets on BookMyShow, do e-commerce shopping on Myntra, Flipkart or Amazon and make my bill payments using PayZapp Wallet. With these partners, I’m able to cover almost 80% of my monthly needs.

These 10X reward partners are updated on quaterly basis.

I also make use of SmartBuy to book my Flights and Hotels as there is no convenience fee. https://offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com/

By being loyal to the 10X rewards partners I usually end up earning at least 5,000 reward points every month. In a year I make at least 1,00,000 reward points. That is more than enough for my international trip.

The partner’s list get updated every Month. You can find the latest list at https://www.hdfcbankdinersclub.com/privilege

Other general usages

Hospital bill

Recently one of my family members had to undergo a costly heart surgery which costed few lakhs. The hospital was already accepting credit card payment for the bill settlement. Because I used the credit card to pay the reward points collected from the bill payment was useful to book air ticket for both the patient and caretaker.

Insurance

Mostly everyone will have some insurance premium to be paid on a yearly basis, make the payment via this credit card. I started to pay for all my insurance premiums online.

Car down payment

One of my friends used a credit card to make payment for his car booking and down payment. Imagine you buy a car and get an air ticket from your reward points collected.

Rent

You can pay the rent using a credit card too. If you are wondering how and why then you should definitely read this article. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/spend/now-pay-rent-using-your-credit-card/articleshow/59079668.cms

To be avoided

EMIs

If any online or offline purchase is converted into EMI then the reward points will also be reversed, so avoid using this card for EMI shopping. There are two types of EMI allowed in HDFC Bank such as SmartEMI and Easy EMI.

eWallets

Money added to wallet services such as PayTM will not receive any reward points. So, it’s better to avoid adding money to wallet from this credit card.

Fuel

When the credit card is used in fuel stations there will be any reward points received. So, it’s always better to use any other credit card which is supported by Banks

Caution

Some of the most important factors to be considered while making use of the diners club HDFC credit card are,

• Whenever you make a payment on the partner website please make sure you pay directly using the payment gateway not via wallet services such as PayTM or Lazypay. Only if the payment is made via the HDFC payment gateway then it will be considered for the reward points.
• The minimum amount for any payment has to be 150 to get the reward points and only in multiples of 150 the reward points will be calculated.
  • Eg: If you order food on Swiggy for 99 INR you won’t get any reward points. Likewise, if your Uber will is 299 INR, you will get only 50 reward points as it has to be in multiples of 150 to get 100 reward points.
• The milestone target is to spend 5L on this card to get the next year renewal fee waived off, so try to use this card where ever possible until the milestone is reached.

How to check reward points?

HDFC makes it very tricky to check or validate the reward points. There are four ways to know the reward points.

1. You can log in to HDFC net banking and navigate to Cards >> Credit Card >> Enquire >> Redeem Reward Points
2. Wait for the statement to generate and reward point s will be mentioned at the bottom of the statement
3. You may also call the customer care center to know the current reward points
4. While trying to book the air ticket or hotel using https://www.hdfcbankdinersclub.in/ before generating the voucher you may get to know the reward points accumulated

Conclusion

Simply put, when you use the Diners Club Black card only on the 10X reward partners, then you will get the best use of this credit card. I’m not sure how long the offer of this 10X reward will last until then this is THE best credit card available in the market.