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.

 

[pranavcool]

Bro, i always book first checking from google flights rate thn go to smartbuy and check the rates, with points it cost me 1400-1500 only.

 

[D₹V]

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.

Yes brother you've spit out the fact.

I prefer having the cash redemption for cards like millennia.

 

[Pavan]

Every coin has two faces
There equal amount of people who support smartbuy

 

[D₹V]

Every coin has two faces
There equal amount of people who support smartbuy

And other face 😈 is 5% cashback upto 1000 on all HDFC credit/debit* card except Tata neu.

Or 5x for premium cards 🔥

Which one can't deny.

 

[lhgeek]

I totally agree... The 16.6% return I get with with DCB on smartbuy is effectively only 3-5% as other platforms give anywhere between 10-15% instant discount with bank offers

 

[Pavan]

So it means 16% off on flights and hotel is just for name ?
Actula return is near to ACE and SBI Cashback of 5% ?

 

[D₹V]

So it means 16% off on flights and hotel is just for name ?
Actula return is near to ACE and SBI Cashback of 5% ?

Y e s

 

[Pavan]

Y e s

If any infinia card holder sees this thread they might report
@vaibhav111

 

[D₹V]

If any infinia card holder sees this thread they might report
@vaibhav111

But for redemption of points, they have to use it 💀

 

[pranavcool]

ok a flight ticket of 5000 of how much less i can get?

 

[vaibhav111]

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.

I do agreed, for redemption in 2022 I went with Amazon pay and this year with Apple AirPod 2nd gen. And yes in bbd sale it was around 17k I think the lighting cable one. If someone have infinia then buy Amazon voucher for example you buy Amazon pay voucher and 6k get you 1k reward point - 150 convenience, fees till 850 reward point and same for sbi cb would be 300. And you can get 5k Amazon voucher for 10k infinia point.

 

[sv004]

Yes amazon is best way to earn rewards. I was searching for a flight it costed 3300 on smart buy but on cleartrip it was 2900 only so i booked it from cleartrip using apay wallet . Bought amazon pay gv and loaded walllet

 

[iNokia]

 

[Riya Sharma]

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.

 

[redcarpet]

whats CMV? (words)

 

[sloth2805]

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.

I guess this is true if you have credit cards from all banks to make use of bank specific offers.

Till a year ago or so I used to always compare smartbuy prices with mmt (never bothered with other portals) and when using just the generic non-bank specific codes, I have never ever seen the kind of difference you talk of (10k vs 12k-13k). More often than not the offers would be for less preferred payment modes- emi, mobikwik/airtel wallets, kotak/idfc card. And unless you have cards from all banks and accounts in all wallets (vast majority certainly don’t), you won’t be able to always utilize these offers. I certainly was not able to.

Maybe I should be checking other portals too. But in my experience smartbuy has always proven to be superior when compared to mmt.

 

[sv004]

I guess this is true if you have credit cards from all banks to make use of bank specific offers.

Till a year ago or so I used to always compare smartbuy prices with mmt (never bothered with other portals) and when using just the generic non-bank specific codes, I have never ever seen the kind of difference you talk of (10k vs 12k-13k). More often than not the offers would be for less preferred payment modes- emi, mobikwik/airtel wallets, kotak/idfc card. And unless you have cards from all banks and accounts in all wallets (vast majority certainly don’t), you won’t be able to always utilize these offers. I certainly was not able to.

Maybe I should be checking other portals too. But in my experience smartbuy has always proven to be superior when compared to mmt.

check with skyscanner it wl compare all the sites and give u best price compared to smartbuy i always found aroung 10 per less price

 

[Rahul Gupta]

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.

its still good for someone who is redeeming in tanishq vouchers.

 

[phagocyte536]

Never seen smartbuy price drastically higher than any OTAs.

I buy tickets on smartbuy only if I have 70% points to redeem. If you don't have points, cleartrip/yatra always have some credit card or the other that give 10-12% discount