HDFC Diners Club Black Credit Card Review
Well, I don’t know how to introduce the HDFC Diners Club Black Credit Card. Lets just say that if I was allowed to have just one credit card which could be used everywhere, I’d go for this card (Actually I’d go for HDFC Infinia 😜, but that is invite only). This Super Premium offering from HDFC is great in everything: reward points, airport lounge access, Forex markup fees and what not. To summarize this card in just 1 line, Diners Black Credit Card is the AB de Villiers of Credit Cards 😅😅.
Fees
Joining Fee
None
Annual Fee
Rs 10,000 + GST (18%), waived off on spending more than Rs 5 Lakhs in the previous year. I know it looks massive, like TEN THOUSAND RUPEEEEES!! But wait till you read the benefits….
Eligibility for HDFC Diners Club Black Credit Card
For Salaried people
Age: 21-60 years
Income: Net monthly salary 1.75 Lakhs (The amount after all deductions, which gets credit to your bank account)
For Self Employed people
Age: 21-65 years
Income: ITR > 21 Lakhs per year
The Income requirement is on the higher side for this card, but if you are an old and valuable customer of HDFC, you can get this card with less income too. (tip: Visit smaller branches, they are more likely to approve the card since they don’t have many Super Premium Credit cards issued from their branch)
Benefits
Monthly Milestone benefits
Spend 80K in a calendar month and select any 2 vouchers from the following:
- Ola Select Membership
- BookMyShow voucher worth Rs 500
- Tata Cliq voucher worth Rs 500
Annual Milestone benefits
Spend 8L in an year and get complementary Annual memberships of the following:
- Club Marriott
- Forbes India
- Zomato Gold
- Amazon Prime
- MMTDoubleBlack
- TimesPrime
Airport Lounge Access
Unlimited Domestic and International Lounge access for the primary as well as add-on card holders. There are more than 1000 lounges worldwide covered using this card. The list of lounges can be found on Diners club website.
Golf Access
6 Complementary Golf games per quarter in various golf courses across the world.
Low Foreign Currency Markup Fees
1.99% + GST (18%), one of the lowest in India. But, you get a sweet 3.3% reward points on international spends too. Also, using the HDFC Global Value program, you can earn 1% extra rewards on Foreign transactions which takes the reward rate to 4.3%, so effectively you gain approx. 2% on international spending)
Reward points
5 Reward points every Rs 150 spent,, which translates to 3.3% (1 reward point = Re 1).
You can redeem these reward points for Hotel and flight bookings or convert the points to various Airline Miles (1 reward point = Re 1). You can also redeem them against cash credit to the card, but this reduces the conversion rate drastically (1 reward point = Rs 0.30). If you don’t travel that much, you have an option to redeem the points for Amazon vouchers too (1 reward point = Rs 0.50)
10X rewards
- Smartbuy
Here comes the best part of HDFC Credit Cards. On select merchants, you get up to 10X reward points on purchasing through the HDFC Smartbuy website, which takes the total reward rate up to 33% (10X = 50 reward points per Rs 150 spent). This includes websites such as Flipkart, Amazon and many more. The upper limit of 10X rewards in this category is 7,500 points per month. The merchant wise reward points can be found here. - Partner Merchants (discontinued currently)
On select partner merchants, you can earn 10X reward points when you do the payment using your HDFC Diners Club Black Credit Card, which takes the total reward rate to 33% (10X = 50 reward points per Rs 150 spent). The current partner merchants are Ola, Myntra, FirstCry, Zoomcar and Uber. The upper limit of accelerated rewards in this category is 25,000 points per month.
Ever since the time I got the HDFC Diners Club Black Credit card, I never had to pay a single rupee for any flight or hotel I booked. Isn’t that great!!!! The annual fee suddenly doesn’t seem too much now, right? 😛
Drawbacks
The only drawback of this credit card is that it is a Diners Club Card (Diners Club is a network just like Visa or MasterCard), which is not that popular in India. Some of the offline stores don’t accept Diners Credit cards. However, most of the online merchants accept Diners Club, so not too big of an issue.
Starting July 25, 2020, while booking flight and hotels, only 70% of the booking amount can be paid using reward points and the rest 30% should be paid using the card.
Should you get it?
If you can get this card, you should DEFINITELY get it! The high annual fees (or not so high) is too less compared to the benefits you get with this card, and you can consider that as an investment. 😛
I upgraded to the Diners Black Credit Card from the Regalia Credit Card which is a Premium offering from HDFC. Ever since I started using this card, I have saved thousands of rupees on hotel/flight bookings.
Let me know your thoughts or queries on the HDFC Diners Club Black credit card in comments below. Want me to review any other cards? Let me know in the comments below or using the Contact Me section of this website.
Hi! I’m Gaurav, a Software Engineer by profession and a credit card enthusiast by heart. I love earning reward points and cashbacks from credit cards and giving ‘gyaan’ on credit cards and personal finance.