Smartbuy is generally costlier travel website for flights, and computation of reward rate is wrong (Excluded Infinia/DCB)

[card-shard]

Lots of discussion on this forum & youtube focuses on 1:1 redemption of smartbuy for flights/hotels, and this is used to compute reward rate.
However, based on my experience, SMARTBUY based purchases aren't cost effective, and your end paying more than other online portals (EMT, Paytm, MMT).
So your reward rate effectively becomes lower than generic computation.

Smartbuy shows slighly higher price for flights in most cases, and then you can't apply any additional coupon codes/direct cashback offers from website.
If you could've purchased flight ticket from paytm for 10k (with additional card based offers), you often end up paying 12-13k on smartbuy (70% reward point + 30% pay & 99+ redemption charge for few card variants)
So if you get 25k rewards on spending 5L, you may think that rewards rate is 5%, but since you purchase a ticket by paying extra amount than paytm/MMT direct booking. Effective rate of rewards goes down to 2-4%.
(Additional headache, if you've to reschedule/cancel smartbuy based bookings)

Same goes for Apple products. On flipkart/Amazon you can get lower list price + card based discount. However list price of same products on smartbuy is higher, & no option to get diff card based discounts.
(No experience with travel bookings as compared to direct MMT/Yatra bookings.)
I guess same holds true for reward redemption portals of Amex & others.
If we ignore Infinia+smartbuy returns, I guess for any other HDFC card, EFFECTIVE returns are absymally low on smartbuy.

In my limited knowledge, SBI cashback / Millenia are best value for money cards (or any combination of Amazon + Ace + Airtel + Flipkart) for middle class people.

 

[COSMOCRAT]

Axis Select + Axis Privilege is a really good combo too. Using Multi Brand Vouchers you get 4% on retail spends through Axis Select and 2% on everything else.

This is what I set up my parents with and they are happy with the rewards. They redeem it for Apollo Pharmacy and it is a great deal considering that prices on Apollo Pharmacy are also lower than the competition.

So like Select as the main spender and later 2.5L on Privilege to double everything?

 

[Riya Sharma]

So like Select as the main spender and later 2.5L on Privilege to double everything?

Yeah that works.

 

[card-shard]

Its all hit and miss - Mumbai to Kochi 1 passenger

12% discount on EMT today for your ticket is available.






@sourpai you can also check on MMT, there will be bank offers, which will significantly bring down the cost on MMT.

 

[JimCarrey]

1. Bank Coupon or offers on most flight / hotel booking sites like MMT/ Yatra have very low limits nowadays. So if I am buying flight tickets for multiple persons, costing 60k, the 1.5k bank discount is too low.

2. Smartbuy again gives 16.66% RP to infinia while booking flight tickets, along with 70% RP usage. On my previous example of 60k flight ticket, it’s 10k RP back if the payment is done without RP using DCB / Infinia.

So I guess redeeming RP on smartbuy on flights is not that loss making for all. If one doesn’t have infinia / dcb. Then the basic 5% CB is still wonderful for GV buying (except AGV). And if infinia is in hand smartbuy kills every card out there.

 

[card-shard]

1. Bank Coupon or offers on most flight / hotel booking sites like MMT/ Yatra have very low limits nowadays. So if I am buying flight tickets for multiple persons, costing 60k, the 1.5k bank discount is too low.

2. Smartbuy again gives 16.66% RP to infinia while booking flight tickets, along with 70% RP usage. On my previous example of 60k flight ticket, it’s 10k RP back if the payment is done without RP using DCB / Infinia.

So I guess redeeming RP on smartbuy on flights is not that loss making for all. If one doesn’t have infinia / dcb. Then the basic 5% CB is still wonderful for GV buying (except AGV). And if infinia is in hand smartbuy kills every card out there.

The post targets "MOST" people, who like me are middle class but chase the "assumed" rewards of 3.3% or upto 16%. (You perhaps missed few parts of the original post)
For people like me, international trips are out of horizon that too a trip that costs 60k. 😑 😑

But anyways, just going by above screenshot I shared, you also can get 5000 discount on MMT for 60k flight booking. I am sure there will be even better bank offers for international flights on MMT/EMT/Paytm.

 

[anilkrsh]

Discount at aggregators are always capped and if you are booking for more than 2 passengers, you'll not be able to get Max discount.
Smartbuy looks bad if you are sitting on low points. If you're sitting on a point bank and you're booking a costly ticket, no aggregator can beat the discount!
This is the bitter truth, if you're not able to get Max value out of a redemption, then you're not the intended target customer for this card!!

 

[bonheur]

It all depends on the context, the ticket price and the number of points you have available to redeem.

A few months back I had to book some rather last minute international flights for my parents. The total cost was around 132k. But I had ~50k Infinia points and because 50k < 70% of 132k, I was able to redeem all those points for buying the tickets. On top of that, I also made some 13.5k reward points from the 82k transaction, effectively bringing down my cost to just 68.5k. That's nearly 50% less on a super high expense. No online discount can beat that.

And yes, before someone asks, I chose Cleartrip as the booking partner on Smartbuy, and the base prices exactly matched that on cleartrip.com.

 

[card-shard]

It all depends on the context, the ticket price and the number of points you have available to redeem.

A few months back I had to book some rather last minute international flights for my parents. The total cost was around 132k. But I had ~50k Infinia points and because 50k < 70% of 132k, I was able to redeem all those points for buying the tickets. On top of that, I also made some 13.5k reward points from the 82k transaction, effectively bringing down my cost to just 68.5k. That's nearly 50% less on a super high expense. No online discount can beat that.

And yes, before someone asks, I chose Cleartrip as the booking partner on Smartbuy, and the base prices exactly matched that on cleartrip.com.

seems like you haven't thoroughly read the original post.

 

[bonheur]

seems like you haven't thoroughly read the original post.

You mean this single line towards the end that's like a fine print disclaimer to your otherwise long post which is entirely contrary to the experience I just shared:

If we ignore Infinia+smartbuy returns, I guess for any other HDFC card, EFFECTIVE returns are absymally low on smartbuy.

Then yeah sure, I missed it! But you also missed the very first line in my post which was my polite rebuttal to your main argument

It all depends on the context, the ticket price and the number of points you have available to redeem.

No hard feelings, cheers!

 

[card-shard]

You mean this single line towards the end that's like a fine print disclaimer to your otherwise long post which is entirely contrary to the experience I just shared:


Then yeah sure, I missed it! But you also missed the very first line in my post which was my polite rebuttal to your main argument


No hard feelings, cheers!

re-read the post few more times slowly, and you will uncover few more "fine-prints".
People like you who can book 132K worth flight tickets are not the "norm", but rather anomaly in Indian population.
Your point was not rebuttal of any argument, but rather a callous generalisation of your privilege & sign of your lack of attention to detail.

peace out. ✌️

 

[bonheur]

rather a callous generalisation of your privilege & sign of your lack of attention to detail

Heh, super smart of you to see through my "privilege" and using that as an argument against my perfectly valid counter experience, but I'm afraid not smart enough yet to realise you're the one generalising in the first place.

I hope you're enjoying your 2 seconds of fame on this site. But there's a lot more to see here still, happy learning!

 

[lucifer1728]

@Slayer @anotheruser
My point is not abt convenience (please re-read the post, if needed).

It's just about "computed" reward rate of reward point like 1.5% (regalia), 3.3%(DCB/Infinia), upto 16% (DCB/Infinia+Gyftr) claimed by ppl here or on YouTube.
I am saying people in actual terms don't get that much returns.

I think you are not able to properly understand the calculation. 1 RP on dcb/infinia do carry the 100% value equivalent to 1 Rs. if you are for eg. booking a flight.
Let's say a flight ticket costs you Rs 10000 on smart buy which you can get around 9000 on other platforms (assuming around 10% bank/ other discounts).
On smartbuy, let's say you book using Rs. 6000+ 4000 RP, here on cash spend of 6000 you will get around 1000 RP again. In effect you have consumed only 3000 RPs which is equivalent to additional Rs. 3000 spent on other platforms.

 

[card-shard]

I think you are not able to properly understand the calculation. 1 RP on dcb/infinia do carry the 100% value equivalent to 1 Rs. if you are for eg. booking a flight.
Let's say a flight ticket costs you Rs 10000 on smart buy which you can get around 9000 on other platforms (assuming around 10% bank/ other discounts).
On smartbuy, let's say you book using Rs. 6000+ 4000 RP, here on cash spend of 6000 you will get around 1000 RP again. In effect you have consumed only 3000 RPs which is equivalent to additional Rs. 3000 spent on other platforms.

A lot of people aren't getting the point, so I will explain a bit for you guys.
The Post is NOT ABOUT YOUR ABILITY TO USE 70% in a booking, FORGET THAT.
(Goes on to show, how banks be making money by selling premium cards, as lots of people can't do reward rate maths.)

It's about how much money you've to SPEND to EARN those reward points in the first place.
Assuming a base reward of 1.5% of Regalia, In order to first have 3000 rewards points, you first need to spend 2L rupees.
That's how rate of reward is computed -> 1.5% on spend of 2L = 3000.
If you end up using these 3000 points on an inflated priced ticket on Smartbuy, your actual reward rate on spend of 2L, goes down way below 1.5%.

People just be thinking about the end result, think of how you reach there.

(Re-read the original post maybe, post this explanation)

 

[anilkrsh]

H

re-read the post few more times slowly, and you will uncover few more "fine-prints".
People like you who can book 132K worth flight tickets are not the "norm", but rather anomaly in Indian population.
Your point was not rebuttal of any argument, but rather a callous generalisation of your privilege & sign of your lack of attention to detail.

peace out. ✌️

Hope you understand smartbuy is targeted towards those anomaly of customers and only they can use the max reward point efficiently.
For the norm people, there is mmt etc. and they have done a splendid job giving discount for norm people!!!
No hard feelings again.

 

[lucifer1728]

A lot of people aren't getting the point, so I will explain a bit for you guys.
The Post is NOT ABOUT YOUR ABILITY TO USE 70% in a booking, FORGET THAT.
(Goes on to show, how banks be making money by selling premium cards, as lots of people can't do reward rate maths.)

It's about how much money you've to SPEND to EARN those reward points in the first place.
Assuming a base reward of 1.5% of Regalia, In order to first have 3000 rewards points, you first need to spend 2L rupees.
That's how rate of reward is computed -> 1.5% on spend of 2L = 3000.
If you end up using these 3000 points on an inflated priced ticket on Smartbuy, your actual reward rate on spend of 2L, goes down way below 1.5%.

People just be thinking about the end result, think of how you reach there.

(Re-read the original post maybe, post this explanation)

That's the point I am trying to explain... when you end up using 3000 points, you are actually getting back some points for the cash component you are paying with the card... So on the net you are using much less points.. this compensates for the inflated price ticket on smartbuy... I don't know about regalia but on dcb/ infinia you derive the value 1Rp= 1rs (it means one is getting 3.3% in real terms) until and unless the price differential on smartbuy and other platforms is greater than 15%.

 

[Deleted member 9785]

Lots of discussion on this forum & youtube focuses on 1:1 redemption of smartbuy for flights/hotels, and this is used to compute reward rate.
However, based on my experience, SMARTBUY based purchases aren't cost effective, and your end paying more than other online portals (EMT, Paytm, MMT).
So your reward rate effectively becomes lower than generic computation.

Smartbuy shows slighly higher price for flights in most cases, and then you can't apply any additional coupon codes/direct cashback offers from website.
If you could've purchased flight ticket from paytm for 10k (with additional card based offers), you often end up paying 12-13k on smartbuy (70% reward point + 30% pay & 99+ redemption charge for few card variants)
So if you get 25k rewards on spending 5L, you may think that rewards rate is 5%, but since you purchase a ticket by paying extra amount than paytm/MMT direct booking. Effective rate of rewards goes down to 2-4%.
(Additional headache, if you've to reschedule/cancel smartbuy based bookings)

Same goes for Apple products. On flipkart/Amazon you can get lower list price + card based discount. However list price of same products on smartbuy is higher, & no option to get diff card based discounts.
(No experience with travel bookings as compared to direct MMT/Yatra bookings.)
I guess same holds true for reward redemption portals of Amex & others.
If we ignore Infinia+smartbuy returns, I guess for any other HDFC card, EFFECTIVE returns are absymally low on smartbuy.

In my limited knowledge, SBI cashback / Millenia are best value for money cards (or any combination of Amazon + Ace + Airtel + Flipkart) for middle class people.

5k flat disount on icici net banking at paytm

 

[card-shard]

That's the point I am trying to explain... when you end up using 3000 points, you are actually getting back some points for the cash component you are paying with the card... So on the net you are using much less points.. this compensates for the inflated price ticket on smartbuy... I don't know about regalia but on dcb/ infinia you derive the value 1Rp= 1rs (it means one is getting 3.3% in real terms) until and unless the price differential on smartbuy and other platforms is greater than 15%.

Regarding reward points on 30% component, same holds true for cashback cards.

First you get platform/card based discounts on paytm/EMT/MMT, then whatever amount you pay using sbi/ace/other cards also gets you additional cashback

 

[sourpai]

Smartbuy reward rate has become matter of faith

There are enough hotels which will give you full rewards. Like in this post. And there are a lot of hotels which will not.

If you have enough bookings in the kind of hotels which give full rewards then take Infinia. If not then stick to Cashback cards. Simple!

 

[lucifer1728]

Regarding reward points on 30% component, same holds true for cashback cards.

First you get platform/card based discounts on paytm/EMT/MMT, then whatever amount you pay using sbi/ace/other cards also gets you additional cashback

So what? I am not saying flight booking on smartbuy is much cheaper as compared to other platforms, it is more or less similar. I am just disputing your statement that dcb/infinia doesn't deliver 3.3% reward rate on general spends.

 

[NeoOnWheels]

Also, Infinia offers accelerated RPs on spends through SmartBuy (Vouchers too) and every RP=1/-. For eg, Buy 10K Amazon voucher and you get 1650 RPs. Now reduce the GST you pay on voucher ie 195/-, still you get 1455 RPs which carry value of 1455/-.

I took Voucher example as its almost as good as cash in Amazon bank for shopping. Now how effectively you can make use of this 1455/- is upto you and most end up using it on Hotels/Flights.

I can say at least for Infinia users, making use of SmartBuy platform makes hell lot of sense. I get 5% cashback on my APay card but if I buy Amazon vouchers, I can maximize that to almost 14%.