Dear All,
Sharing an achievement that you may find inspiring. At the closure of FY25 (April 2024 - March 2025), I figured out that I paid around 68 lakhs in taxes and earned back 4.65 lakhs. No need to raise eyebrows at the 68 lakh tax liability—most of it comes from capital gains on equities. Being a fund manager, managing an AIF and running an equity advisory business, I set an internal target of generating 1 crore/year tax liability from personal equity investments (separate from company). The 1 crore target fell short in FY25 due to market corrections in H2FY25. Nevertheless, the tax liability amount remains satisfactory.
Here are the credit cards used for the payment of around ₹68 lakhs in taxes, along with the earnings bifurcation:
HDFC Biz Black - 48 Lakh tax payment (approx)
Regular reward (5 RP for 150) = 1.60 Lakh RP
5X rewards with monthly caping of 7500 = 7500*12 =90,000 RP
Smart Buy Flight voucher 5000*4 for 20L annual spend = Rs.20,000
So total earning = 1,60,000+90,000+20,000 = 2.70 Lakh (used for Flight & Hotel booking)
IDFC Club Vistara - 12.5 Lakh tax payment
Regular Air India points (6 for 200 spend) - 36,000 points for 12L. Considering 1RP at 50p for Air India ticket, comes Rs.18,000
6 Premium Economy Air India ticket vouchers, approx value 7500 each = Rs. 45,000
So total earning = 18,000+45,000 = Rs.63,000 (used for Air India)
Amex Platinum Travel around 4.1 Lakhs tax payment
Zero regular RP for tax payment
Milestone 40,000 RP converted to Rs.20,000 Taj Voucher & another milestone of 10k Taj voucher
Total monetary value = Rs. 30,000 (used for Taj stay)
Also used the SBI Aurum for a few months to fulfil the monthly 1 lakh spend milestone, but excluding rewards for that portion since I don’t have the exact figure.
Card wise monetary benefit summary
Bizblack - Rs. 2.7 Lakhs
IDFC Vistara - Rs. 63,000
Amex Platinum Travel - Rs.30,000
Gross monetary benefit is at 3,63,000 for 68 Lakhs tax payment. Deduct payment gateway charge of Rs. 68,000 (considering 1% for ease of calculation, actual 0.95%)
Net monetary benefit = 3,63,000 - 68,000 = Rs. 2,95,000 on 68L tax payment from credit cards.
Now comes the bonus part, credit card bill payment using debit card!
Thanks to this platform, I first learnt about this hack around July 2024, then procured IDFC First Private Banking Debit Card because most other debit cards have a monthly capping, whereas the IDFC Private card has a higher monthly points capping of 5 lakh RP. This means I can pay credit card bills of up to 50 lakh/month and earn benefits of up to 2.5%!
From July 2024 to March 2025, earned around 9.5 lakh points through IDFC platform. Considering a total tax payment of ₹68 lakh, the reward points earned solely from tax payments amount is approximately 6.8 lakh RP. With a conversion rate of 1 for every 4 RP, the monetary value of 6.8 lakh RP comes to 1.7 lakh.
Thus total monetary value for 68 Lakhs tax payment comes at = 2.95L+1.7L = Rs.4.65 Lakhs a value back of 6.83%
End Usage of Reward Points
Amex rewards used for Taj stay, IDFC Vistara for Air India flights & Bizblack for all other hotel & flights.
Redeeming IDFC debit card points was a bit tricky. I had a balance of a few lakh points, with an option to redeem them for vouchers. However, each brand's vouchers could only be purchased in sets of up to 5 at a time. Most e-commerce vouchers had a maximum denomination of 2,000, meaning I could redeem 10,000 worth (2,000 × 5) for 40,000 points at a time. To redeem 2 lakh points, I would need to place five separate orders, with 99 + GST deducted each time. So, I was looking for higher denomination vouchers and found that only jewellery vouchers were available in 10k denominations. This allowed me to redeem Rs.50k worth vouchers (10,000 × 5) for 2 lakh points in a single go. So, I went ahead with Reliance Jewellery voucher redemptions and gifted jewellery to family members!
Note - After April 2025, the IDFC DC reward redemption platform turned worst with few selected brands.
How did I qualify for IDFC private banking debit card?
IDFC requires a relationship value of 1 crore to qualify for private banking. However, I’m not someone who would park 1 crore in a savings account or FD. I invest 100% of my savings into direct equities, ruling out mutual fund purchases through them.
Exploring other options, discovered that IDFC facilitates purchase of unlisted stocks and they were offering discounted rate on bulk purchase (1 crore+) of NSE unlisted shares. This turned out to be the jackpot—investing 1 crore in NSE shares at preferential rate, while unlocking private banking benefits. Very few banks offer unlisted shares investment to qualify for their private banking. So, I grabbed that opportunity, a nice private banking kit (video frame tablet) arrived within few days with the debit card!
Key Insights
Generally, I don’t spend much time in such long write-up but as this platform helped me so with the help of voice to text AI, posting this so that fellow members can get some inspiration. Again, don't get motivated to spend time on rewards earning; rather spend time on skill development and contribute more to nation building; automatically, rewards will grow.
Sharing an achievement that you may find inspiring. At the closure of FY25 (April 2024 - March 2025), I figured out that I paid around 68 lakhs in taxes and earned back 4.65 lakhs. No need to raise eyebrows at the 68 lakh tax liability—most of it comes from capital gains on equities. Being a fund manager, managing an AIF and running an equity advisory business, I set an internal target of generating 1 crore/year tax liability from personal equity investments (separate from company). The 1 crore target fell short in FY25 due to market corrections in H2FY25. Nevertheless, the tax liability amount remains satisfactory.
Here are the credit cards used for the payment of around ₹68 lakhs in taxes, along with the earnings bifurcation:
HDFC Biz Black - 48 Lakh tax payment (approx)
Regular reward (5 RP for 150) = 1.60 Lakh RP
5X rewards with monthly caping of 7500 = 7500*12 =90,000 RP
Smart Buy Flight voucher 5000*4 for 20L annual spend = Rs.20,000
So total earning = 1,60,000+90,000+20,000 = 2.70 Lakh (used for Flight & Hotel booking)
IDFC Club Vistara - 12.5 Lakh tax payment
Regular Air India points (6 for 200 spend) - 36,000 points for 12L. Considering 1RP at 50p for Air India ticket, comes Rs.18,000
6 Premium Economy Air India ticket vouchers, approx value 7500 each = Rs. 45,000
So total earning = 18,000+45,000 = Rs.63,000 (used for Air India)
Amex Platinum Travel around 4.1 Lakhs tax payment
Zero regular RP for tax payment
Milestone 40,000 RP converted to Rs.20,000 Taj Voucher & another milestone of 10k Taj voucher
Total monetary value = Rs. 30,000 (used for Taj stay)
Also used the SBI Aurum for a few months to fulfil the monthly 1 lakh spend milestone, but excluding rewards for that portion since I don’t have the exact figure.
Card wise monetary benefit summary
Bizblack - Rs. 2.7 Lakhs
IDFC Vistara - Rs. 63,000
Amex Platinum Travel - Rs.30,000
Gross monetary benefit is at 3,63,000 for 68 Lakhs tax payment. Deduct payment gateway charge of Rs. 68,000 (considering 1% for ease of calculation, actual 0.95%)
Net monetary benefit = 3,63,000 - 68,000 = Rs. 2,95,000 on 68L tax payment from credit cards.
Now comes the bonus part, credit card bill payment using debit card!
Thanks to this platform, I first learnt about this hack around July 2024, then procured IDFC First Private Banking Debit Card because most other debit cards have a monthly capping, whereas the IDFC Private card has a higher monthly points capping of 5 lakh RP. This means I can pay credit card bills of up to 50 lakh/month and earn benefits of up to 2.5%!
From July 2024 to March 2025, earned around 9.5 lakh points through IDFC platform. Considering a total tax payment of ₹68 lakh, the reward points earned solely from tax payments amount is approximately 6.8 lakh RP. With a conversion rate of 1 for every 4 RP, the monetary value of 6.8 lakh RP comes to 1.7 lakh.
Thus total monetary value for 68 Lakhs tax payment comes at = 2.95L+1.7L = Rs.4.65 Lakhs a value back of 6.83%
End Usage of Reward Points
Amex rewards used for Taj stay, IDFC Vistara for Air India flights & Bizblack for all other hotel & flights.
Redeeming IDFC debit card points was a bit tricky. I had a balance of a few lakh points, with an option to redeem them for vouchers. However, each brand's vouchers could only be purchased in sets of up to 5 at a time. Most e-commerce vouchers had a maximum denomination of 2,000, meaning I could redeem 10,000 worth (2,000 × 5) for 40,000 points at a time. To redeem 2 lakh points, I would need to place five separate orders, with 99 + GST deducted each time. So, I was looking for higher denomination vouchers and found that only jewellery vouchers were available in 10k denominations. This allowed me to redeem Rs.50k worth vouchers (10,000 × 5) for 2 lakh points in a single go. So, I went ahead with Reliance Jewellery voucher redemptions and gifted jewellery to family members!
Note - After April 2025, the IDFC DC reward redemption platform turned worst with few selected brands.
How did I qualify for IDFC private banking debit card?
IDFC requires a relationship value of 1 crore to qualify for private banking. However, I’m not someone who would park 1 crore in a savings account or FD. I invest 100% of my savings into direct equities, ruling out mutual fund purchases through them.
Exploring other options, discovered that IDFC facilitates purchase of unlisted stocks and they were offering discounted rate on bulk purchase (1 crore+) of NSE unlisted shares. This turned out to be the jackpot—investing 1 crore in NSE shares at preferential rate, while unlocking private banking benefits. Very few banks offer unlisted shares investment to qualify for their private banking. So, I grabbed that opportunity, a nice private banking kit (video frame tablet) arrived within few days with the debit card!
Key Insights
- Reward Rate will fall - Debit card earning from CC bill payment will completely stop sooner or later. Moreover, I believe HDFC Biz Black too will limit or devalue their existing 5X reward system. So, although in FY25 my net cumulative earnings were 6.83%. Going forward, it should come down drastically.
- Don’t waste too much time on points & other stuff - Sometimes I myself spent a few hours in a stretch to optimise rewards but realised that instead of wasting time for 1%-2% extra, much more earning potential can be unlocked if we focus on skill development or spend more time on what we are doing. If someone is so much obsessed with reward optimisation, credit card etc then jump into content creation around credit cards. YouTubers, forum owners are earning more from content than from credit card rewards.
Generally, I don’t spend much time in such long write-up but as this platform helped me so with the help of voice to text AI, posting this so that fellow members can get some inspiration. Again, don't get motivated to spend time on rewards earning; rather spend time on skill development and contribute more to nation building; automatically, rewards will grow.
