New SBI Landmark credit cards launched

SBI Card in the runup to its IPO has launched new co-branded credit cards with Landmark group. While SBI Card and Landmark has launched 9 credit cards in all, actually they are just 3 cards (Prime, Select and Base variant). What SBI and Landmark have done is launched 3 credit cards under each of their brands Lifestyle Home Centre, Max and Spar. Landmark group owns the Lifestyle, Home Centre, Max and Spar brands in India. The features and offers on the cards are all the same for a given variant. Let’s have a look at these cards variant wise.

Snapshot of SBI Landmark credit cards:

SBI Landmark Prime Credit Card

Under the Prime variant, there are 3 cards one for each of Landmark’s brand – Lifestyle, Home Centre, Max and Spar.

Fees

• Annual fees of 2999 + taxes. Against the fee payment, one receives 12000 reward points, worth INR3000. Not to forget that you end up paying 18% taxes. J
• On payment of annual fees of 2999+ taxes, one gets 12000 RPs.

Rewards and Benefits

• Spends on Landmark stores: 15 RPs for every 100 spent. (3.75% earn rate)
• Dining and Movies: 10 RPs for every 100 spent (2.5% earn rate)
• Standard Reward Rate: 2 reward points (RPs) for every 100 spent (0.5% earn rate) on all other categories except fuel transactions.
• 1% fuel surcharge waiver (max. 250/month) on all fuel outlets across the nation
• Milestone Benefits
  • Total annual spend of INR500,000 – 20000 reward points (1% earn rate)
  • INR40,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 6000 RPs (worth INR1500)
  • INR100,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 12,000 RPs (worth INR3000)
  • INR180,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 20,000 RPs (worth INR5000)
  • These are over and above the accelerated reward points. Thus one can earn a total of 65,000 RPs by spending INR180,000 across Landmark stores, an earn rate of a cool 9%
• Lounge Access:
  • Domestic Lounges: 8/year ( max 2 per quarter)
  • International Lounges: 4/ year via Priority Pass ( max 2 per quarter)

Takeaway

The Prime variant of SBI Landmark Rewards card is targeted towards affluent high spenders. If you are among people who end up buying apparels from Lifestyle/Max or furniture from Home Centre, then the Prime variant is best suited for you. Under this variant, on spends done at Landmark stores, one can get points worth up to 9% of total spends.

Overall, if one spends a total of INR5lakhs on the Prime variant, including INR1.8Lakhs at Landmark stores (Lifestyle, Home Centre, Max or Spar), reward rate comes at cool 4.5%. Further, if used wisely to take benefit of higher reward points on dining and movies spend, the reward rate can cross 5%.

SBI Landmark Select Credit Card

Under the Select variant too, there are 3 cards one for each of Landmark’s brand – Lifestyle, Max and Spar.

Fees

• Annual fees of 1499 + taxes. Against the fee payment, one receives 6000 reward points, worth INR1500. On payment of annual fees of 1499+ taxes, one gets 6000 RPs.

Rewards and Benefits

• Spends on Landmark stores: 10 RPs for every 100 spent. (2.5% earn rate)
• Dining and Movies: 10 RPs for every 100 spent (2.5% earn rate)
• Standard Reward Rate: 2 reward points (RPs) for every 100 spent (0.5% earn rate) on all other categories except fuel transactions.
• 1% fuel surcharge waiver (max. 250/month) on all fuel outlets across the nation
• Milestone Benefits
  • Total annual spend of INR300,000 – 12000 reward points (1% earn rate)
  • INR25,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 2400 RPs (worth INR600)
  • INR75,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 8,000 RPs (worth INR2000)
  • INR150,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 12,000 RPs (worth INR3000)
  • Cumulative 37,400 RPs on Landmark spends of INR150,000, earn rate of 6.2%
• Lounge Access:
  • NA

 Takeaway

I believe this is a better card in terms of rewards compared to SBI Landmark Prime. Reason being, if not taking any benefits of spends on Landmark stores, the default reward rate of 1.4% is similar to Prime variant. Nonetheless, one misses out lounge access that the Prime variant offers (One can read about here about Best Lounge Access credit cards).

SBI Landmark Base Variant Credit Card

Fees

• Annual fees of 499 + taxes. Against the fee payment, one receives 2000 reward points, worth INR500. On payment of annual fees of 499+ taxes, one gets 2000 RPs.

Rewards and Benefits

• Spends on Landmark stores: 5 RPs for every 100 spent. (1.25% earn rate)
• Dining and Movies: 5 RPs for every 100 spent (1.25% earn rate)
• Standard Reward Rate: 1 reward points (RPs) for every 100 spent (0.25% earn rate) on all other categories except fuel transactions.
• 1% fuel surcharge waiver (max. 100/month) on all fuel outlets across the nation
• Milestone Benefits
  • Total annual spend of INR200,000 – 8000 reward points (1% earn rate)
  • INR20,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 1000 RPs (worth INR250)
  • INR45,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 2,000 RPs (worth INR500)
  • INR95,000 annual spends across Landmark stores – 5,000 RPs (worth INR1250)
  • Cumulative 12,750 RPs on Landmark spends of INR95,000, earn rate of 3.4%
• Lounge Access
  • NA

 Takeaway

Given this is the base variant, the reward rates on Landmark spends and otherwise is very meagre. However, if one doesn’t take any benefits of Landmark spends but still achieves annual spend of INR200,000, the reward rate comes at 1.2%, which is pretty decent for an entry-level card. However,it pales in comparison with other entry level cards already discussed such as Amex Smart Earn, HDFC Millennia, ICICI AmazonPay  and StanChart Digismart credit cards. Beyond this given that redemption option is only via conversion to Landmark Rewards, the proposition may not be exciting for many.

Conclusion

There are a couple of ways to look at these cards, one with taking benefits of spending on Landmark stores and the other is looking at reward options without taking any accelerated reward points on Landmark spends.

By taking benefits of spending on Landmark stores

In this scenario, there is no doubt that SBI Landmark cards offer higher benefits. However, it is very unlikely that one would be spending ~100,000 only on apparels every year. Thus to maximise the benefits from these cards one has to do spends at Spar outlets. Spar outlets are concentrated in Southern India, with 8 in Bangalore, 5 in Hyderabad and 3 in Chennai (List of Spar outlets here; List of Landmark stores is available here). For the ones like me in Mumbai or for that matter in other cities where the presence of Lifestyle, Max or Spar is limited taking full benefits from these cards would be very difficult.

Without taking benefits of spends on Landmark stores

If one looks at these cards as standalone cards and doesn’t take into account the benefits of Landmark stores, these cards appear to decent cards. With Prime and Select variant offering reward rate of 1.4% adjusted for fees. However, the Base variant seems to be even better at 1.2% reward rate at lower spend levels.

Nonetheless, since the only method to redeem reward points is via Landmark Rewards i.e. spending them on Landmark stores (that is the whole intention of co-branded cards either which ways), makes me lose interest in these cards.

Do you plan to apply for any SBI Landmark credit cards? Do let me know, would love to hear your thoughts.