HDFC Millennia credit card is a popular card in HDFC Bank’s portfolio. As the name suggests the HDFC Millennia credit card is targeted towards first-time users. The Millennia credit card falls in the cashback category of credit cards and was quite a solid product when it was launched. However, how does it fare now with other cashback cards? Let’s do a deep dive review of the HDFC Millennia credit card and see if it suits your needs.
HDFC Millennia Credit Card
Fees
- Joining and renewal fees of 1000+GST.
- Fee is waived off on spending 100,000 or more in the year.
- Pro-tip: HDFC Millennia credit card is offered as LTF many times. So, look out for such offers. Further, you may try to get this card as LTF on a C2C basis i.e. Card-to-card.
Rewards and Benefits
- Reward points:
- 5% Cashback: On select merchants (Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, Myntra, Tata Cliq, BookMyShow, Cult.fit, and Sony LIV). Capped at INR 1,000 per month.
- 1% Cashback: On all other spends, excluding fuel, rent, and government payments. Capped at INR 1,000 per month.
- Wallet Loads and EMI Spending: Earn 1% cashback.
- Cashback Conversion: Rewards are in the form of CashPoints, which need to be converted into statement credit.
- Milestone Benefits:
- Quarterly Spend Milestone: INR 1,000 voucher on spending INR 1 lakh in a calendar quarter. Amazon gift vouchers are available.
- Lounge Access: One lounge visit per quarter on spending INR 1 lakh, substituting the INR 1,000 voucher.
Thoughts about the HDFC Millennia Credit Card
Positives of the HDFC Millennia Credit Card
A decent 5% cashback rate
The HDFC Millennia credit card offers a decent 5% cashback on the 10 merchants mentioned above. Many popular merchants such as Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and Zomato are included in the list. The max cashback is 1000 per month, which translates into a max monthly spend of 20k on these merchants. Good enough for normal use.
Milestone benefit adds a 1% reward rate
The HDFC Millennia credit card also offers an INR 1000 voucher on spending 1lk in a calendar quarter. The good thing here is there are no exclusions in the milestone. Even the EMI principal is counted toward the milestone. Only SmartEMI/Dial An EMI is not counted. Further, Amazon GVs are currently available for redemption under this offer.
Thus, the quarterly milestone adds 1% to your reward rate. Hypothetically, if you spend 60k every quarter towards 5% merchants and the rest 40k towards 1% cashback, with the milestone benefit you end with up a 4.4% reward rate. Impressive!
Additional 5% cashback on SmartBuy
The HDFC SmartBuy portal gives an additional 5% cashback of up to 1000 per month on every product/service bought through the portal. Thus, this adds another 5% reward rate on the purchases done through SmartBuy.
However, note that you cannot double dip with the 5% cashback on Smartbuy with 5% merchants of the HDFC Millennia credit card. For example, if you buy a product on Amazon through SmartBuy you will only get 5% SmartBuy cashback + 1% cashback on the HDFC Millennia credit card. This is mentioned in the T&Cs here. Here is the snapshot for easy reference.
Negatives of the HDFC Millennia Credit Card
No lounge access
The HDFC Millennia credit card as such charges 1000+GST as an annual fee but doesn’t offer free lounge access. The lounge access program is now part of the quarterly milestone program. That is if you spend 1lk in a calendar quarter, then you can opt for 1 lounge visit voucher instead of some other vouchers say Amazon GV. Invariably, you are paying 1000 for the lounge visit.
HDFC Bank could have very well given 1 lounge access in addition to the 1k voucher on spending 1lk a quarter.
No statement credit for cashback
The HDFC Millennia credit card doesn’t credit cashback directly into the statement. You get what the bank calls CashPoints. These CashPoints are then converted into statement credit. The bank’s logic could be that CashPoints can be converted into airmiles and also be used to redeem from the rewards catalogue. But have a look at the conversion ratios. Hardly anyone would redeem the points for anything but statement credit.
There are further limits on these CashPoints. You need a minimum of 500 CashPoints for redemption against the statement balance. Further, CashPoints redemption for cashback redemption is capped per calendar month at 3000 CashPoints.
Comparison with other cashback credit cards
As mentioned earlier when the HDFC Millennia credit card was launched it was a solid product. However, now we have many better cashback credit cards available such as Axis Airtel, HDFC Swiggy, SBI Cashback and the ever-popular ICICI Amazon credit card. Below is the dynamic calculator to see how the HDFC Millennia credit card fares in comparison with these credit cards. You would notice that for most categories the HDFC Swiggy and the SBI Cashback card end up giving a better reward rate. Plus, the cashback on these 2 cards comes as a statement credit automatically.
Do use the dynamic calculator and see which card suits your spending needs.
Conclusion
The HDFC Millennia credit card is a decent cashback credit card. However, it loses out when compared to the other cashback cards. However, this is one of the very few cards that still gives 1% cashback on wallet load. Thus, if that’s your use case then you should consider the HDFC Millennia credit card.
Do share your thoughts on the HDFC Millennia credit card. Do you use this credit card? Whats your primary use of this card? Do share in the comments below.
Photo by Vitor Monteiro on Unsplash The article was last published/updated on 7th July 2024
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
