With recent changes, two great options for earning rewards on tax payments are the Amex Platinum Travel Card and the Amex MRCC (Membership Rewards Credit Card).
Important Notes:
The HDFC BizBlack Card, while being more rewarding, is exclusively available to business owners.
Tax payments can be made through the Canara Bank portal, which charges a 1% convenience fee for credit card transactions.
Amex does not give regular RPs for paying taxes, but does give milestone benefits
At Rs 0.50 per point, reward rate is 4% after accounting for convenience fee; Taj Voucher is a bonus
Welcome benefit of 12000 points against a reduced fee of Rs. 1000 if you apply using referral link (without referral, you get 10000 points against a fee of Rs. 5000)
1000 RP for spends of Rs. 20000 (Rs. 5000 * 4) every month
At Rs 0.50 per point, reward rate is 4% after accounting for convenience fee
Welcome benefit of 6000 points against a reduced fee of Rs. 1000 if you apply using referral link (without referral, you get 4000 points against a fee of Rs. 5000)
Both cards have healthy welcome offer currently through referrals. Platinum Travel is great for a 4L liability - it has a better welcome offer and a Taj voucher too. Else, MRCC can work out better (or both!)
There are a few other cards that can work okay (Emeralde Private Metal, HSBC Premier), but they are harder to get and have lower rewards.
Most cards out there have a very standard reward structure: something on the lines of 6 points for every ₹200 (called quantum henceforth) spent. While this might give an enticing rate of 3% returns, the actual return that we get can often be much lower. For instance, let's assume that we spend ₹250 on a transaction - the actual reward rate is 6/250 = 2.4% and not 3.0% . This loss of 0.6% is defined as slippage.
I compiled together all transactions I made on taxi apps over the last 4 years, and simulated the effective reward rate for a set of cards (ones that I own mostly)
Card
Quantum
Points per Quantum
Actual Reward Rate
Slippage
Diners Black
₹150
5
2.54%
0.79%
Axis Atlas
₹100
4
3.36%
0.64%
Magnus
₹200
9.6
2.92%
1.88%
Vistara Ultimate
₹200
6 + (4.8 towards milestone)
4.23%
1.17%
Max(above)
N/A
N/A
4.37%
N/A
Magnus (with monthly 1L spend)
₹150
9.6 + 20 towards milestone
22.92%
1.88%
From this analysis, there are a couple of major takeaways:
Cards with milestone benefits don't suffer from slippage, as any amount that is spent counts towards the milestone. This shows up in the great rate for Axis Vistara Infinite, but even more so on the Magnus assuming a monthly 1L spend. Amex Platinum travel is another great card with milestone bonuses that works well this way
The smaller the quantum, the better is the reward rate in general; this shows up in Axis Atlas, which doesn't suffer as much relatively due to a quantum of ₹ 100
Choosing the card depending on transaction value can get you a small gain in the overall efficiency.
Vouchers for a number of brands can be purchased online, that let you load up a wallet towards future purchases. Some of these include the Gyftr portal for HDFC, Axis, SBI, StanC etc. , direct vendor websites (eg: Uber), Amazon gift card store, MagicPin, NearBuy etc. vouchers are mostly immune to slippage - except for the initial transaction used to buy the card. Using our earlier example of 6 points for ₹200 - if we buy a voucher for ₹2500, we get an effective reward rate of 2.88%, which is a lot closer to the ideal 3%. Furthermore, a lot of these portals give out vouchers at an additional discount (eg: 5X points for SmartBuy Infinia / Magnus at the time of writing), which brings the overall reward rate even higher! Keep an eye on the Technofino community for good offers on cards
There are a couple of things to be careful with vouchers:
Ensure you read the terms and conditions - specifically around whether a voucher may be split across multiple transactions, and how many vouchers may be used for a single transaction.
Buy only what you need - vouchers have an expiration date; ensure that you buy what you need, and keep track of your vouchers
Vistara has the by far the most rewarding frequent flyer program in India, with great co-branded cards. This post listsf steps towards maximizing the value you can get with Vistara
Please see the destinations page to see if Vistara works for you
Vistara has co-branded credit cards with Axis, SBI and IndusInd banks. The main benefits from the cards are:
Free flight ticket vouchers on signing up, and hitting milestones
Club Vistara membership and tier upgrades
Card
CV Tier
Joining / Renewal Fees
Points /₹200
Ticket
Milestones
CV SBI
Basic
₹1500 / ₹1500
3
ECONOMY
₹1.25L,₹2.5L,₹5L
Axis Vistara
Basic
₹1500 / ₹1500
2
ECONOMY
₹1.25L,₹2.5L,₹6L
CV SBI Card PRIME
Silver
₹3000 / ₹3000
4
PREMIUM
₹1.5L,₹3L,₹4.5L,₹8L
Axis Vistara Signature
Silver
₹3000 / ₹3000
4
PREMIUM
₹1.5L,₹3L,₹4.5L,₹9L
Axis Vistara Infinite
Gold
₹10000 / ₹10000
6
BUSINESS
₹2.5L,₹5L,₹7.5L,₹12L
IndusInd Bank Explorer
Gold for 1st year
₹40000 / ₹10000
8 - Vistara, 6 - Hotel / travel. 2/1 - others
BUSINESS ( 1st yr only )
₹3L,₹6L,₹9L,₹12L,₹15L
Cards have offers for bonus CV points for spend milestones in 90 days in the first year. There are a few more benefits, that I have left out. In my personal opinion, Economy vs Premium doesn’t make a big difference on lower durations. Further, the high joining fee for IndusInd does not justify the returns in my opinion.
Taking these into account, below is a comparative analysis of the different co-branded cards (skipping IndusInd Explorer). For the analysis, we make the following assumptions:
Value of 1 CV Point = ₹1. Upgrade voucher = ₹1000. GST of 18%
1 economy/premium ticket = ₹5000, 1 business ticket = ₹6000. You may value it higher, but I don’t think its worth it
The chart below shows the rewards vs spends - the joining/renewal fees are accounted
From the chart, we can get the following inferences:
CV SBI / Axis Vistara give the best net returns until a spend of ₹3L, followed by CV SBI Premium / Axis Vistara Premium until spends of ₹7.5L
I also hold Axis Vistara Infinite - largely for priority checkin, boarding and baggage - I personally find it valuable
Looking at the strict reward rate (not taking joining fees, joining bonus and upgrade vouchers into account) below:
The 5.x % reward rates at milestones is better than what one can earn on most cards for general spends. This makes for a compelling case for using the CV cards as the default credit card for all spends except where multiplier offers give a better return. These multiplier offers form the final piece of the reward point jigsaw and are discussed in the next section. My personal recommendation would be to get a basic SBI ClubVistara card for the insane rewards, and the Axis Vistara Infinite card for Vistara gold benefits
This section gathers together some great offers on other cards for specific spends, which can give a huge number of CV points in return. It is important here not to spend for the sake of spending 🙂
Atlas has a base reward rate of 4 CV points for every ₹100 spend, and 10CV points for every ₹100 spent on travel (flights and hotels) on Axis Bank’s portal. The CV account further adds on 8 - 11 CV points (depending on tier) if the card is used to book a Vistara flight: giving a net 18 - 21 CV points on Vistara, and 10CV points for other airlines/hotels. Further, for a joining fee of ₹5000, 10000 (minimum 5000 from year 2) CV points are obtained as a welcome bonus, so it makes sense to get this card just for the first year bonus.
Atlas has a base reward rate of 4.8 CV points for every ₹100 spend, and 24CV points for every ₹100 spent on travel (flights and hotels) on Axis Bank’s portal, giving an insane 32-35CV per ₹100 spent on Vistara flights, and 24CV per ₹100 on hotels and other airlines. Further, Axis edge portal can have some great multiplier deals upto 8000 CV points per month, and the gift-edge portal may be used to purchase vouchers at 5X and 10X points - including vouchers from AmazonPay etc. On top of this, hitting a monthly spend of ₹100000 will net you 20000 CV miles on top of everything else, so if you’re anticipating a month with high spendings, Magnus should become the default card for all purchases hands down!
Both of these currently have a base reward rate of 3.33 points (1 HDFC point converts to 1 CV point) for every ₹100 spend, and 20 points for every ₹100 spent on travel. HDFC SmartBuy also has some nice deals on railway tickets (10CV points per ₹100), and gift vouchers (17.5 CV for Infinia, 10CV for Diners - for ₹100 spends). These can be a great complement to the Axis cards - SmartBuy points give you the flexibility to redeem on all airlines
Overall, I will recommend going for all of these - they can take your miles game to an insane new level. Infinia is generally hard to get, and Atlas may be used for the first year if you get a Magnus too
