BoB Financial, the credit card arm of Bank of Baroda has launched a new co-branded fuel credit card with HPCL. The rewards and benefits are in line with other fuel credit cards in the market. Here is a review of the HPCL Bank of Baroda ENERGIE credit card and everything you need to know about it.
Fees and Charges
| Joining and Annual Fee | Rs 499 plus taxes |
| Welcome Benefit | 2000 Reward Points on Rs 5000 spend within 60 days |
| Annual Fee Waiver | Rs 50000 spend in an anniversary year |
The BoB HPCL ENERGIE ticks many of the ‘checkboxes’ for a good fuel credit card with its fees and benefits. The welcome benefit is worth Rs 500. This makes the card FYF with only GST charges as out-of-pocket expenses. The annual fee waiver is set at Rs 50000 which is possible to achieve with only fuel expenses.
Rewards
- Fuel and other HP spends: 24 RP/Rs 150 ~4% Return
- Utility, Groceries, and Departmental Stores: 10 RP/Rs 150 ~1.7% Return
- All Other Spends: 2 RP/Rs 150 ~0.3% Return
- Extra 1.5% cashback (as PayBack points) on using HP Pay
The accelerated 10 RP and 24RP for the first two categories are capped at 1000 RP per statement. This means we can spend up to Rs 6800 on fuel and Rs 18750 on utilities, groceries, and dept. stores per month to hit these caps. With the annual fee waiver at Rs 50000, we can use this card only for fuel expenses and earn 4% rewards all along.
HP Pay is another scan-and-pay app through which we can pay for fuel and gas cylinders. This is possible if the fuel pump has an HP Pay QR code. But, there is an extra charge of 1% for using credit cards on HP Pay. So, the 1.5% benefit is not of much use.
Rewards Redemption
Each reward point is equal to 25 paise and can be redeemed as a statement credit. This is one of the best benefits of this card. There is no restriction that we need to redeem the rewards for fuel or vouchers. Statement credit is always better and makes more sense than those options.
Key Benefits
- 1% fuel surcharge waiver. Max Rs 100 per statement. This takes the total rewards on fuel purchases to 5%.
- 25% off up to Rs 100 on booking minimum 2 tickets on Paytm Movies
- 1 complimentary domestic lounge access per quarter with Rupay
Final Thoughts
Bank of Baroda has a winner in the HPCL ENERGIE credit card. There are many things to like about this card:
- The annual fee waiver spend is set to Rs 50000 which is easy to achieve.
- This spend can be met with only fuel spending which makes this a 5% return credit card.
- Welcome benefits make this card FYF.
So, what are the cons of this card? As with other BoB credit cards, it is customer support. It is non-existent when we will need it the most.
The HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card is also better than the ICICI Bank HPCL Super Saver. This one has higher caps when it comes to fuel rewards.
