HDFC Bank has tied-up with Swiggy to launch the HDFC Swiggy co-brand credit card. As the name suggests this credit card offers special discounts on your Swiggy orders. However, should you apply for this card and how does this card stack up against the other credit cards? Read to find out.
HDFC Swiggy Credit Card
Fees
- Joining and Annual fees of 500+ taxes.
- Annual fee waived on spending 200,000 or more in an anniversary year
Rewards and Benefits:
- Reward Points:
- 10% cashback on Swiggy orders, capped at 1500 per month (i.e. max orders of 15,000 per month). Includes food delivery, Instamart, Genie and Dineout. Excludes transactions on Swiggy Money wallet, Swiggy Liquor, Swiggy Minis etc
- 5% cashback on online spending, capped at 1500 per month. Mostly includes shopping merchants such as Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Ajio, Online Pharmacies, Ola, Uber etc.
- 1% cash on all other spends, capped at 500 per month
- Exclusions – No cashbacks on following spends – Wallet, Rent, government payments, fuel, jewellery, EMI etc.
- Cashback is posted as Swiggy Money under the Swiggy Money section. Swiggy Money is valid for 1 year. Cashback will reflect in the Swiggy app within 10 days of statement generation.
- Welcome Benefit: 3 months complimentary Swiggy One Membership
- No renewal benefits
- No lounge access
My thoughts on the HDFC Swiggy credit card
The HDFC Swiggy credit card was in talks for many months now. I remember when the HDFC Bank came out of the credit card ban sometime in early 2022, the management indicated this credit card. Nonetheless, seems like HDFC Bank has learnt from the mistakes of the Zomato RBL credit card and designed the card in a manner that people don’t abuse it. 😀
How to apply?
One big question that everyone has, is whether one can own multiple HDFC credit cards? The answer is, Yes. HDFC is definitely issuing new credit cards to an existing cardholder. In fact, I have seen many people getting the HDFC Swiggy credit card as their third HDFC credit card.
You can apply for the HDFC Swiggy credit card using any of the below 3 ways:
- Click here to apply directly on HDFC Bank’s website or simply click the button below
Apply for HDFC Swiggy Card Now!
- Check the Swiggy app. In the app click the profile button at the top left. There you should be able to see the option to apply for the HDFC Swiggy credit card. you can apply from here if there is an offer for you.
- Head to this HDFC Swiggy microsite.
Positives of the HDFC Swiggy Credit Card
10% cashback on Swiggy applicable on Instamart too: The good thing is about the HDFC Swiggy credit card is the 10% cashback offer also extends to Instamart. That means that one can order groceries from Swiggy and get 10% cashback over and above any offer on the platform. That’s nice.
5% on many online merchants: This is a la SBI Cashback credit card. The HDFC Swiggy credit card also offers 5% cashback on many online merchants subject to a monthly cap of 1500. These merchants include any website that falls under the below MCCs
However, the problem is that neither the websites nor the credit card statement tell us what the MCC is for the merchant. One can only make educated guesses about the same. Nonetheless, HDFC Bank has clearly mentioned that Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho and Ajio are included for 5% cashback.
Separate capping for Swiggy and Online merchants: The HDFC Swiggy credit card has a separate 1,500-per-month capping for Swiggy and online merchants. This means, theoretically, one can order food/groceries worth 15000 from Swiggy, also shop for 30,000 on Flipkart/Amazon, and get 3000 cashback.
Negatives of the HDFC Swiggy Credit Card
Cashback in the form of Swiggy Money: While I agree the whole intention of a co-brand credit card is to increase engagement for the co-brand partner. But from a customer’s perspective cashback straight in the card statement is much more friendly. Further, a small niggling issue is Swiggy Money is valid only for 1 year.
Swiggy One membership: The HDFC Swiggy credit card only offer 3-month complimentary Swiggy One membership as a welcome benefit. This means, next year on renewal you won’t get this membership again. This is disappointing. At the least, they should offer 1-year Swiggy One membership at say 50% discount to the cardholders.
No lounge access: There is no lounge access with this card.
Comparison with other credit cards
Given that the HDFC Swiggy credit card is an entry-level cashback credit card, I have compared it to 5 other popular cashback/quasi-cashback credit cards. They are Axis Airtel, SBI Cashback (Apply Now), HDFC Tata Neu Infinity (Apply Now), Axis Ace (Apply Now) and Amex MRCC (Apply Now) credit cards.
Below is the dynamic Excel sheet to calculate the reward rate based on your spending pattern. Based on sample spending you would notice that most credit cards offer around 2% cashback. Basically, very difficult to choose between most credit cards, however, the 2 cards that stand out are the Axis Airtel credit card and the Amex MRCC.
The USP of Axis Airtel credit card is 25% on Airtel bills, 10% on utility bills and 10% cashback on Swiggy/Zomato/Bigbasket. It is therefore more rewarding than the HDFC Swiggy credit card.
Further, the Amex MRCC credit card is a versatile card that tends to give to mediocre reward rate on spends, but the milestone benefits on 4*1500 transactions and the monthly 20k spends, sort of give this card an edge. In addition, do not forget that the MR points can be converted into statement credit, airmiles, hotel loyalty points or Amazon vouchers depending on your requirement. Further, it is worth mentioning that fuel spends on MRCC are counted towards the monthly spending threshold of 20k.
Another worthy mention here is the HDFC Tata Neu credit card. This is the only card on the Rupay platform in this comparison. This means that you can link the HDFC Tata Neu credit card to your UPI handle and pay for many transactions that otherwise don’t fetch you reward points and will also clutter your bank statement. Further, you can buy nearly everything you need from the Tata Neu app where you get an additional 5% reward rate. Thus, this is one card that you should definitely hold.
Do try out the dynamic calculator and share in the comment section, which card gives you the maximum benefits for your spending pattern. I would love to read your comments.
Conclusion
The HDFC Swiggy credit card is an overall decent credit card and sort of gives a good reward rate of close to 2%. However, I will not apply for this credit card. I would still say that if you have the Amex MRCC (Apply Now), Axis Airtel (Apply Now) and the SBI Cashback (Apply Now) credit card you would end up getting much higher rewards than the HDFC Swiggy credit card. Moreover, obviously, the HDFC Tata Neu credit card (Apply Now) is for all those UPI transactions. 😀
Do share your thoughts, views and feedback in the comments section below. I love reading them.
The post was published/updated on 12-Aug-2023. Image Courtesy: Photo by Lucian Alexe on Unsplash
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.
nice