Quick Look At The Best Entry-Level Credit Cards For Gadget Shopping: ICICI, American Express And More
There is no perfect credit card. But if you look carefully before making a purchase, you can take advantage of some rather interesting rewards and cashback offers that could not only get you back some of the money you paid, but also allow you to redeem those later for tickets, vouchers and more.
Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card: This is a no-brainer if most of your gadget shopping, and indeed the other shopping splurges, end up with you spending your money on Amazon.in. The co-branded Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card is particularly beneficial for Amazon Prime subscribers, who can take the advantage of extra reward points by making payments using this credit card. Those reward points end up as direct balance in your Amazon Pay wallet at the end of every billing cycle. For every single purchase made on Amazon.in, you get 5% of the final checkout amount with no maximum capping or minimum purchase requirements. If you make bill payments, settle utility bills or add money to the Amazon Pay wallet, you get flat 2% reward points. If you use the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card anywhere else for shopping, except for paying for fuel or buying gold, you get a flat 1% cashback in your Amazon Pay wallet. There is no annual fee for this card and the reward rate between 1% to 5% should work well for regular Amazon.in users.
Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card: This is for Flipkart users what the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card if for those who use Amazon.in more. You’ll get unlimited 5% cashback credited to your Flipkart account for any and all shopping done on Flipkart and Myntra. Though, the Flipkart Axis Bank does have a strong second tier of offers—if you use the Flipkart Axis Bank card for payments at PVR, Uber, Swiggy, Makemytrip, Cure.fit and Goibibo, you’ll get a flat 4% cashback. For any other online and offline purchases, there’s a flat 1.5% cashback that will come your way. This card has no annual fee and there are onboarding offers that keep running from time to time, such as flat discounts and complementary bundles.
American Express Membership Rewards Credit Card: This entry-level credit card from American Express ends up giving better rewards than what a lot of other premium credit cards may often not be able to match. You get 1 membership reward for every Rs 50 spent using this card. If you make 4 transactions very month equal to or more Rs 1000 each, you get bonus 1000 rewards points for that month. American Express also keeps launching offers regularly, such as the up to 5X reward multiplier scheme, that includes shopping on the Apple India Online Store, Amazon.in, Flipkart, Croma, Lenovo online store as well as the OnePlus India online store, to name a few. If you are shopping with an American Express Membership Rewards credit card, you’ll be eligible for 2X membership rewards under the Reward Multiplier offer.
IDFC FIRST Millenia Credit Card: Quite an interesting pick. The IDFC FIRST Millenia is an entry level credit card which is lifetime free. What you get is reward point per Rs 100 spent on the card and these points have a reward redemption rate of Rs 0.25 per point. What adds value is that you get 6X points on any shopping that you do online and 3X reward points for any shopping done at offline stores. For any purchases you make on your birthday, the rewards points for that day’s shopping get the 10X boost. Also, if you can do spends more than Rs 20,000 on the card every month, any reward points above the Rs 20,000 spend baseline also get the 10X boost. The IDFC FIRST Millenia card also bundles 4 complementary railway lounge visits.
