HDFC Tata Neu Credit Card Review

HDFC Bank and Tata have recently launched co-branded credit cards HDFC Tata Neu credit cards. HDFC Tata Neu credit card comes in 2 variants “Plus” & “Infinity” and is available on the Visa & the Rupay platform.

With the launch of these co-branded cards, HDFC Bank now allows you to own 2 HDFC Bank credit cards at the same. That is you can very well own an HDFC Regalia along with a Tata Neu card or say HDFC Infinia along with this card.  Just that credit limit is shared between the cards. This is a big thing from HDFC Bank and I believe many customers of HDFC Bank wanted this for a very long time. Better late than never. 😃

Should you apply for any of these credit cards? How do these cards compare with other credit cards? Read on to find out.

HDFC Tata Neu Credit Cards

HDFC Tata Neu Infinity Credit Card

Fees and Eligibility

• Joining/Annual fee of 1499+ taxes. Waived off on annual spending of 300,000.
• Monthly salary requirement – 100,000 per month. Self-Employed – ITR of 12lk/annum

Reward and Benefits

• Base Reward Rate: 1.5% in form of Neu Coins on all spends except fuel, wallet load, and smart EMI.
• Accelerated Reward Rate: 5% in form of Neu coins on Tata Neu and partner Tata brands.
• Rent payment reward capped at 1000 Neu coins per month, i.e. max spend of ~66,000 per month.
• Neu points have a validity of 1 year.
• Lounge Access:
  • Domestic: 8 domestic lounge access. Max 2/ quarter.
  • International: 4 per year. Max 1/quarter.

HDFC Tata Neu Plus Credit Card

Fees and Eligibility

• Joining/Annual fee of 499+ taxes. Waived off on annual spending of 100,000.
• Monthly salary requirement – 25k per month. Self-employed: ITR of 6lk/annum

Reward and Benefits

• Base Reward Rate: 1% in form of Neu Coins on all spends except fuel, wallet load, and smart EMI.
• Accelerated Reward Rate: 1% in form of Neu coins on Tata Neu and partner Tata brands.
• Rent payment reward capped at 500 Neu coins per month, i.e. max spend of ~50,000 per month.
• Neu points have a validity of 1 year.
• Lounge Access:
  • Domestic: 4 domestic lounge access. Max 1/ quarter.
  • International: None.

Thoughts on HDFC Tata Neu Credit Cards

Positives:

Double dip on Tata Neu app: HDFC Tata Neu credit cards allow double dip on the Tata Neu app. The Tata Neu app offers 5% cashback in form of Neu coins on nearly all purchases done thru the app. Thus you can earn a 7% (5% app feature + 2% card feature) on the HDFC Tata Neu Plus credit card and a whopping 10% (5% app feature + 5% card feature) on the HDFC Tata Neu Infinity credit card. These will be over and above the offers running on brands in Tata Neu. Thus, if you happen to use the Tata Neu app very frequently then these credit cards are a no-brainer.

5% on utility bill payment: The accelerated rewards i.e. 2% on Plus card and 5% on Infinity card are also applicable on payments done thru Tata Pay. Thus, my assumption here is if you pay your utility bills using HDFC Tata Neu credit cards on the Tata Neu app, you will get 2-5% off. Anyone using this card please confirm.

This feature sort of takes away some sheen from the current favourite SBI Cashback card (Apply Now), as the SBI Cashback card only offers 1% on utility payments. Unless you do payments using Amazon vouchers.

Rupay variant: HDFC Tata Neu credit cards are also available on the Rupay platform. The good thing is that the reward rate and features of this card are the same for Visa and Rupay variants. In addition, don’t forget that Rupay credit cards now work on UPI too. Further, HDFC Bank’s Rupay credit cards will be on-boarded soon on the UPI platform. Thus, another reason to apply for the Rupay variant of this card.

You can now have 2 cards from HDFC Bank: HDFC Bank for a very long time followed the 1-customer-1-credit-card policy. However, with the launch of this credit card, the bank now allows you to have 2 HDFC credit cards. Thus you need not close your existing HDFC card, in case you want to apply for this one.

Negatives:

Popular Tata brands missing: HDFC Tata Neu credit card has a list of decent partner Tata brands. Such as 1Mg, BigBasket, Croma, Air Asia, Tata Cliq, IHCL, Westside, Qmin, Tata Play and Cult. However, what is surprising is that many other popular Tata brands are missing. These include Air India, Vistara (~20% aviation market share in India), and Titan brands such as Titan, Fasttrack, Eyeplus and Tanishq. Further, Tata’s insurance ventures Tata AIA Life and Tata AIG General are also missing. What it means is that spending on these excluded brands will only fetch base reward points on these credit cards. Let’s hope that these brands will be included in future. However, as of now, we all have to live with this disappointment.

Point Calculations are not in the customer’s favour: Reward point calculations though appear to be simple but it is not. Two issues here. Firstly, the reward points are rounded down to the nearest integer. Secondly, accelerated reward points are calculated separately from the base reward points.

Illustration: Say you spend 250 on a partner Tata brand using the Infinity credit card. This spend will be eligible for a 5% reward rate. You would think you will get 5%*250 = 12.5 reward points, rounded down to 12 points. Nopes.

You will get 11 points. A 4.4% reward rate and not 5%. The way the calculation works is base reward points of 1.5%250 = 3.75 points. Rounded down to 3. Accelerated reward points of 3.5%250 = 8.75, rounded down to 8. A total of 11 points. Well, this is not a big turnoff as such, but sort of leaves a bad taste.

Neu coins are valid only for 1 year: Tata Neu coins are only valid for 1 year and can be used only in the Tata Neu app or paying thru the Neu app. Thus, you need to be in a constant earn-and-burn mode. You really can’t hoard them for a couple of years and then redeem them in one go.😒

Fair usage policy: While is not a negative per se and in fact a good thing. As this improves the product’s longevity and prevents product features from abuse. Nevertheless, this is something the users have to keep in mind when using their credit cards. There are monthly and annual spending caps on all partner Tata brands for both Plus and Infinity credit cards (Plus: link; Infinity: link).

Comparison with SBI Cashback credit card

It’s quite logical that HDFC Tata Neu credit cards get compared to everyone’s current favourite the SBI Cashback credit card(Apply Now). Below is the dynamic calculator to do just that.

The HDFC Tata Neu Infinity credit card is slightly ahead of the SBI Cashback credit card on sample spends. That’s only because I have assumed utilities will give 5% on payment thru Tata Pay. If that assumption doesn’t hold then the reward rate on Tata Neu Infinity declines from 2.1% to 1.6% against 1.9% on the SBI Cashback card. By the way, on the sample spends, the best rewarding credit card is Amex MRCC with a 2.7% reward rate. 😃

You can input your monthly spending in the calculator to check which card gives you the highest reward rate.

Conclusion

Tata HDFC Neu credit cards are no brainer for someone who does regular spending in the Tata ecosystem. For eg: BigBasket, 1mg, Croma, Cliq, Westside etc. If you are one of those then go for the Tata Neu Infinity credit card without thinking twice. However, if you are someone who likes simple cash back, and is a bargain hunter with low brand affinity then the SBI Cashback credit card suits you the most. The combination of SBI Cashback(Apply Now) + Amex MRCC(Apply Now) (assuming you hit the monthly milestone target of 2k points) or SBI Cashback + Axis Ace will be more rewarding than Tata HDFC Neu credit cards.

Do let me know thoughts and experience about HDFC Tata Neu credit cards? Have you applied for it? Are you getting accelerated rewards on bill payment with this card? 

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.