Credit Card Top Spender Offers are not rewarding – An Experiment

By | January 18, 2021

If you’re following the blog for a while you would know that Top spender offers are not something I like because of the way they work.

So I did an experiment recently to re-confirm this and won the Yesbank Credit Card Top spender 2020 Diwali campaign (daily). But its not worth it and here’s why, in detail.

Before we jump into it, let’s have a quick look at the offer. Below are the offers and the details are here.

Yesbank Credit Card top spender offers

So there will be so many winners for hourly and daily campaigns, while the weekly and monthly winners would be way too low and so are the probability to win them.

Hence, banks will design it in such a way that in most cases you will win the smaller ones over the bigger prizes but well our mind would assume we would make it for the big ones.

Why I participated?

I was hoping to get Amex Diwali offer and was holding the festive spends but then I was not targeted. So Yesbank offers appeared to be decent if I make it to weekly winner.

But I do know its a hit or miss, as even during the 2018 SBICards top spender offer, many have reported that they did not get anything even on spending 5 Lakhs during the offer period.

So I very well knew that these top spender offers are either not fulfilled as promised (or) maybe too many are competing for it. Yet, these are assumptions. 

So I finally decided to experiment the top spender program, for the first time ever. And Yesbank is good to test it, as I assumed not many would be active.

Why its not worth it?

Yesbank Credit Card top spender - winner

I won the JBL Bluetooth speaker that retails for ~Rs.2400 on Amazon. That means if I spend 1.5L, I would get a decent 3.1% return, which also includes regular rewards.

However, as I was hoping for the one plus smart phone, I stretched the spends but it went useless as my net return on spend fell much below 3%.

That’s a lot of opportunity cost.. well opportunity rewards if I had put that spends on HDFC Infinia. 

Final Thoughts

I never used to like the top spender offer and this experience proves me right, finally. So if you find such top spender offers from any issuer, its time to re-think.

Its generally better to go for it if and only if the regular rewards are good on the card compared to other cards you own so you don’t loose anything in the attempt.

Yet, of-course you can play the game if you enjoy the suspense, without forgetting that bank’s may have unpleasant suspense too for you as well 😀

Have you ever participated in a top spender offer and won something? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

Author: Siddharth

Helping Indians to choose right credit cards, pick right offers and enjoy luxury vacations for less. Day & night exploring the spiritual reality of our human existence.

60 thoughts on “Credit Card Top Spender Offers are not rewarding – An Experiment

  1. Shimul

    A few years back i received 2 cars of value about 10 Lac on a daily Debit card top spender offer.

    Reply
          1. Shimul

            My offer was valid for debit and credit cards.
            Daily 1 car for debit and 1 car for credit card. Total 62 cars.
            Here is the link icicibank.com/Personal-Banking/offers/missed-deals-detail.page?id=offer-5000-cashback-offer-20141106160414777

        1. AG

          Would be great. 5L return on 3L spend. But one would never know if they won based on the spends, and it went all the way up to 45L. So, just luck I believe.

          Reply
          1. Nipun

            I lost it with few thousand……… On my Transaction of 7 Lacs… Pure destiny

            But I got to be second winner of Samsung TV

        2. Shivi

          Spending 2.1 and 1.95 million is just 1.25-1.5 million more than price of the prized car! Those figures though!

          Reply
          1. Amar

            How can one even spend that kinda amount in a day on debit cards? Which ICICI debit card allows that kind of daily spend limit?
            My wealth card allows only 7.5 Lacs per day.

      1. Shimul

        Mine was debit card offer. 2 of them are mine on the list icicibank.com/managed-assets/docs/offers/daily-dc.pdf

        I was eligible for a total of 4 cars but 1 per person condition kick my 2 cars 😱

        Reply
        1. Shimul

          The offer was account level i think. So joint account with more than one debit card 7.5L*2 or 7.5L*3 limit a day!

          Reply
      2. Nipun

        Here is the winner list icicibank.com/managed-assets/docs/personal/cards/credit-cards/credit-cards-daily-renault-kwid-winners-list.pdf

        Reply
  2. Pramtesh

    Shimul,
    Till today I had just heard about such luxury gifts offers. But never saw someone winning.
    You were so lucky to get 2.

    Reply
    1. Shimul

      Timing, little luck and time of mine.
      I was not sure I will get a single one. If I would know that time, the number would have 4 instead of 2 :).
      Got 15k worth point also.

      Paid about 3Lac of not refundable TDS also :(.

      Reply
      1. Praveen Katiyar

        Elated that these schemes are for real, atleast for ICICI.
        As per the result page link shared by @Sid you spent two of either 45L, 21L or 19L.
        These are huge spends.
        Max 3 cars were on offer, but I get your sense.
        Wish u best in future as well.

        Reply
  3. Anruag

    Are spends on NPS payments counted towards total spends in such offers ?

    Reply
    1. Shivi

      Yes, but be careful. NPS spends can get your card cancelled & account closed

      Reply
      1. Tapish Khandelwal

        Why would NPS spend led to card cancellation or account closure, Please elaborate.

        Reply
    2. AG

      The ICICI offer was for forex spends. The Yes Bank one, most probably yes. But as Shivi mentioned, it comes with it’s own set of problems.

      Reply
  4. Kevin

    Any of the readers got the One plus Nord smartphone or the Samsung TV ?
    I got a JBL speaker too for daily top spender on the 21st of October, seems like hourly top spender is of better value (2k Amazon voucher)
    Does yes bank publish the winners like Icici?
    I wonder what’s the spend of those who got the phones and TVs

    Reply
    1. Jay

      Yes bank do not publish the results. Only winners get the notification.
      BTW – I won weekly prize One Plus phone, had targeted the Samsung TV. Overall, it doesn’t worth in my case as I spent as much as I could buy this phone from Ultimate rewards if I had spent the same on my Ultimate card.

      Reply
  5. Vivek

    Last year I have participated in Yes bank and spent a good amount but still no reply from customer care

    Reply
  6. Surya

    I did spend 16L+ on Yes Bank credit card and received a call from Yes Bank stating that I have won a Bluetooth speaker. Well I was thinking that I will either win Samsung TV or at least the One Plus Nerd. Yes bank should be transperant like ICICI and publish the winners list to build the customer confidence. In the top spenders campaign ICICI Bank is very transperant and they publish the winners list, and I did win a trip to Ferrari factory in Italy in ICICI top spender campaign. I really hope Yes Bank to be transperant.

    Reply
  7. ajay

    HDFC also had some hourly spend offer going on in Oct-Nov last year. Are the results out for that. They were giving ipad on hourly basis. I did some large spend but don’t know when results would be out. Did anybody got one of those ipads they promised?

    Reply
    1. Gaurav Tomar

      Same here, result should be out by Feb i think as fine print says 100days after contest is over, what was your spend range? I spent around 6 lac.

      Reply
        1. ajay

          I hope you guys spent in some other hour than mine! I spent only 1.5 lac in an hour. It says the website will be hosted with names and cities of the winners within 100 days of the end of offer, this would be 15 Feb. Ideally it should be up by now. Please do update in case you guys find the list somewhere. Good luck.

          Reply
  8. Bhavin Shah

    I once participated in SBI top spend offer and got Rs 1000 useless puma voucher on spending Rs 5 lac

    Reply
    1. manoj kumar singh

      Seriously you spent so much for 1000 puma voucher. I mean just for hope to win something.
      Hope you spent in something worthy.

      Reply
  9. Subham Pratap Singh

    Where/how do people spend so much for the top spender offers?

    Any lead would be great.

    Reply
  10. Nipun

    ICICI is transsparent on there Top spender content but RBL, SBI this people do not share the winners top spending so you are always in dark

    Reply
  11. Bhoom

    Anyone yet received the message or mail regarding winner of HDFC top spender iPad offer or has the winner list published by the bank anywhere?

    Reply
    1. ajay

      Called up customer care which said the winners were already informed by individual emails. When I pointed out the offer says the winners list be published on the website, she said we don’t have access to these offers. Meaning what she said initially was just for sake of saying. They have no clue. And as usual HDFC proves its worth in transparency and not fooling around with customers!!!
      Any winners please come fwd, so that at least there is solace that this was not a fake offer.

      Reply
      1. Bhoom

        It’s weird I haven’t won because I had spent 5.5L and 9L at 2 different instance. Anyways I was hoping HDFC was transparent with its winner list and stood in their T&C for publishing winner list. Anyone out here have won the IPAD?

        Reply
      2. Naved Akhtar

        I have recieved an email and a message stating that i won an ipad air for being one of the top spenders during the festive treat. Official statement of the same is supposedly to be declared today; 31st march. As of yet i can’t see any published list of the winners on the website.

        Reply
        1. Naved Akhtar

          The email is pasted below:

          Dear Naved,
          Congratulations! You’ve won a brand new Apple iPad Air (64 GB) on using HDFC Bank Debit Card.
          During HDFC Bank Festive Treats 2.0, Top Spender on HDFC Bank Debit Card could win an Apple IPad Air every hour from 12.00 pm to 10.00 pm IST. This offer was applicable from 10 October 2020 – 15 November 2020.
          You are one of the winner for this offer. We will confirm details on how you can claim your Apple iPad and the redemption process by 31 March’2021.

          Reply
          1. Raj

            Hi Naved,

            Did you receive the instruction to claim the reward? The deadline mentioned on the page was March 31, 2021. I got the winning notification as well but no communication after that. Let me know.

  12. Sanket

    Yes I’m wondering same. Has the list published by the HDFC Bank as promised it will be in 100 days i.e today. Any help?

    Reply
    1. chanambam jamson singh

      reply from hdfc when asked for result

      “Hi,
      We are in the process of making the announcement and fulfilling of iPad contest. We would like to confirm that the process will be completed by next month-end. We request your patience in the interim. -Nadia”

      Reply
  13. Abhishek

    The 100 days for the HDFC Bank iPad offer were over on 23rd February 2021 and today is 27th February 2021. There is yet no news/information about the winners. I think, it was either a fake offer or they will give away the prizes to their own people through the backdoor. By the way, I spent Rs. 6 Lakhs in one swipe during the offer days!

    Reply
  14. Arun

    It’s really sad to know that HDFC is not like ICICI. ICICI customer service & transparency is far better than HDFC. More than 110 days finished and till now no winner list is published. It’s showing that they have no plan to give any gift to anyone. Either they distributed inside his family member or they want to save money. It’ look like scam.

    ICICI published winner list with name, amount, card number with XXX .. very transparent.

    Reply
    1. Jay

      You can post to HDFC’s offer page.
      facebook.com/HDFC.bank/photos/a.136646876378893/3601243456585867/?type=3

      Reply
  15. Abhishek Gupta

    Let’s start tweeting to wake HDFC Bank up. I have already started the following hashtag:

    #HDFC_Bank_Top_Spender_Offer.

    Please create a Twitter flurry so that HDFC Bank is forced to declare the names of winners. Please also tag their following 2 official Twitter handles:

    @HDFCBank_Cares
    @HDFC_Bank

    Reply
  16. Gaurav

    I won a Renault Duster in 2014 and a Renault Pulse in 2015 through ICICI Bank’s top spender offers.

    They were offering the base variant but I insisted on taking the top variant by paying the difference myself. Registration/Insurance etc was also not covered by the bank. So ended up paying 8Lacs for a car that costed 14Lacs. Not bad.

    While the Duster is faithfully serving me to this day, I sold off the Pulse within a week as I did not like the ergonomics.

    Reply
  17. Abhishek Gupta

    Can you believe it? Someone on HDFC Bank’s Twitter handle just asked me:

    “Hi Abhishek, we request you to kindly share the complete contest details to enable us to assist you further. -Nadia”

    Imagine, HDFC Bank is itself not aware of its own contest and asking a customer for the details!! This clearly means that they have no intention of giving away free iPads. It was a fake contest or they will give away these iPads to their own people through the back door.

    Reply
    1. Bhoom

      I received same reply a week ago when I commented on past post of Top Spender IPad post published by Officla HDFC page on Instagram. It’s so weird and disappointing to see HDFC being unknown and not being transparent about offer

      Reply
  18. Abhishek Gupta

    I think, we should report these unethical practices of HDFC Bank to the RBI ASAP.

    Reply
  19. Abhishek Gupta

    In reply to my query on their Twitter Handle as to when they will make the list of iPad winners public, I received the following epic reply from HDFC Bank Care:

    “Hi Abhishek, ps per bank policy if you will close the loan with other sources not from your own money, then foreclosure charges will be applicable in that. -Nadia”.

    Can you believe it? It’s like I am asking them the name of Sita’s father and they are telling me the reason for Battle of Plassey !!

    Even if we see their opinion on standalone basis, it is hilarious!! How will they come to know that the money I am using to foreclose a loan belongs to me or not and how does it matter so as the loan is foreclosed. Does money from own or other sources have different colour? Does any bank even ask you the source of money for foreclosure of a loan?

    Unbelievable from a brand like HDFC Bank. This is their standard of customer care !! What can be expected from them?

    I think, the iPad contest was fake. We should stop being hopeful now.

    Reply
  20. ajay

    Finally the winners list is out. offers.smartbuy.hdfcbank.com/offer_details/16955 high spenders above please tell if you won or not.

    Reply
    1. Ramesh

      I had won it but I can’t redeem the voucher it says that the email ID is not available but the email is always updated in my account I don’t know y it showing like it I tried the customer care also they are not helping in this issue I think it’s an fake

      Reply
  21. ajay

    I think Jiten won. Could you share the spend amount to help everybody? Some of other large spenders seem to have lost out. I didn’t win on my 1.5lakh spend which was me being wishful given the amount you guys spent. One thing is clear and goes with Siddharth’s finding that individual retail guys tend to not win in these offers and they should not chase. Only business people win. This is also clear from the winners list where there is one entry in name of ultra tech cement!

    Reply

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