Diwali Offer: Get Upto 1% Cashback on Spends with Standard Chartered Credit Cards

By | October 1, 2019

Standard Chartered Bank used to be one of the yet another amazing bank that used to run very lucrative Diwali spend based promotions on their credit cards but now the returns are going down year on year. SC 2019 Diwali promo is similar to that of 2018 promo with slightly lower return on spend, as below,

Standard Chartered Diwali Cashback Offer Details

  1. Offer period: 1st Oct to 31st Dec, 2019
  2. Target: Spend X Amount (monthly, for 3 months) to Get 1% Cashback
  3. Upper Cap: Limited to Credit Limit per stmt cycle.
  4. Customer cannot make payments in excess of their credit limit and utilize the same for making purchases using his/her credit card
  5. Excluded Spend Types: E-Wallet, Recharges, insurance spends
  6. Fulfilment: 31 March 2020
  7. To Enroll: Please check your email/mobile (or) send SMS as UNLIMITED to 57575
  8. Offer T&C

Remember, you need to spend the Rs.X amount every month for 3 months to be eligible for the offer. See the illustration below. Check out Offer T&C for illustration.

Speaking about the target, one of my friend received Rs.5000 as monthly target on his SC credit card which has very low spends.

Bottomline

Its a decent promo as you can save about 1%+3.3% on all your spends done during Oct-Dec 2019 if you hold Standard Chartered Ultimate credit card, the redemption ability at that rate remains questionable again. But for Non-Ultimate card holders, its not a great offer.

While that’s all fine, if you notice the trend of SC Diwali offers in past 3 yrs, you would see that the returns dropped from 3.3% to 1.5% and now 1% and it’s clear that these promos are not going in right direction.

Anyway, something is better than nothing! What’s the monthly target you’ve received? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

40 thoughts on “Diwali Offer: Get Upto 1% Cashback on Spends with Standard Chartered Credit Cards

  1. Prem Taparia

    The monthly target on my Ultimate card is Rs30000. These Diwali offers are getting less lucrative year-on-year….sigh…

    Reply
  2. Mouli

    Sid,

    Yes your observation is spot on,every year the value keeps going down but still they are offering to all and no max cap on the cashback and its far better than the Market leaders HDFC

    Last year after Diwali offer,SC rolled out another cashback offer also

    Reply
  3. Varun arya

    Hi siddharth
    I received the same promo as an sms, to which i registered.
    I have received the monthly target as 30000 for the next three months. But i am not happy that they are calling it an unlimited cashback and still not letting you cross your month credit limit. I dont think this can be called as an unlimited cashback offer. But still as you said, something is better than nothing.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      It’s just for marketing. Hope they get enough complaints about it so that they can’t use it next time.

      Reply
  4. Prashant Gupta

    With Paytm and wallets out looks difficult to achieve the threshold every month for 3 months.

    Reply
  5. MAA-traveler

    I got offer to spend Rs 10,000 on my Ultimate card which is easy as I do RedGiraffe rent payment anyway post SBI Prime devaluation. I feel this is a better than last year promotion since this is 1% for three months rather than 1.5% for one month. Though we cannot make payments in excess of credit limit, we can very well spend and keep paying back immediately in case we need to effect more spends on the card.

    1% cashback plus 3.3% reward rate is simple and good offer than getting some Fire TV Stick, MMT Vouchers, Paytm Movie Voucher or even Amex Domestic Travel Voucher.

    Reply
  6. Gaurav Khurana

    My target is Rs 5000 per month on my SuperValue Titanium card as I hardly use it (for fuel only)

    Interested in upgrading to Ultimate card. Can anyone let me know the vouchers which are available to Ultimate card holders

    Reply
    1. MAA-traveler

      @ Gaurav Khurana,

      The most common vouchers are: Shoppers Stop, Nike, Titan, Samsonite, Hidesign, Arrow, Raymond, The Bombay Store, Fabindia, United Colors of Benetton, Mainland China, Westside, Croma, Lifestyle

      Somewhat difficult to find: Yatra, Big Bazaar, Makemytrip, Cleartrip

      Rare: Amazon, Flipkart

      In about 7-8 months, I’ve not seen any Flipkart, Amazon one time and seen Big Bazaar 2-3 times. Amazon voucher also sold out in in less than 24 hours.

      Reply
      1. Gaurav Khurana

        Thanks for the information.

        Is there any jewellery based vouchers like Tanishq or Joyalukkas

        Reply
        1. MAA-traveler

          There is no specific Tanishq or Joyalukkas voucher but I guess we can use Titan voucher at Tanishq.

          Reply
  7. Aman julka

    Mine is 20000 for sc ultimate card.i have one doubt..
    I spent 20000 in morning before receiving message from sc. Will i be entitle to get 1 % cashback on that spend

    Reply
    1. MAA-traveler

      I also did a sort of high value charge in the morning before registering but along with the charge intimation SMS, got to know about this Unlimited cashback. I send the SMS to 57575 but was not able to register until I got the official communication in afternoon. I called the bank and asked about this and they said any spends after registering only counts.

      I feel any charge that we do from today would anyway count (read from a comment on last year offer) but on a safer side you would want to meet your target without that before registering charge in mind. Nonetheless with or without my before registering charge, I will meet the spend criteria.

      Reply
  8. Atul

    The terms of this offer say that insurance spends are not counted. Does anyone have an idea if NPS contribution falls under insurance bucket? The CC executive was clueless.

    Reply
        1. Bhavin Shah

          Are u sure that NPS is categorised as insurance? Where can it be verified?

          Reply
  9. Sree

    I recently got an Ultimate card. I got message along with transaction alert saying I can register for unlimited cash back of 1% by sending SMS. There was no mention of any eligibility criteria. I went ahead and sent the SMS. All I got was a reply saying thanks for your response. Does that mean I’m enrolled for the cash back?

    Reply
  10. MT

    Will this technique work ?
    Max out the card till limit , then partly pay off the debt, then again use it for cashback ?

    Reply
  11. SAMEERTEZ

    Just got sms of this offer for a minimum monthly spend of Rs.5000 for next 3 months.

    Reply
  12. Shanky

    Curious to know about the spend patterns and points maximization techniques, any pointers. Thanks for the tips

    Reply
  13. Shaunak

    I received a spend target of Rs 5000 on my SC Platinum Rewards.

    I barely ever use this card, as it has poor return rate and a very low credit limit (1/10x of my Regalia). I hold this card only because its free and came with my salary account.

    Reply
  14. RamG

    Stan Chart is fast losing out to its more aggressive competitors and may soon need to pack up and leave. They have already modified rules for 5% cashback on phone/utility/gas/power bills on my card asking us to pay through their platform and register for autopay. Annoying! I switched autopay for all my bills to another CC. And 1% festive offer with rules is shamefully low.
    Now using this card just for my Fuel needs.

    Reply
  15. Somu

    Bullshit Diwali campaign, they should have used this money to add more Amazon vouchers for Ultimate point redemption.

    Reply
  16. jitendra saraogi

    if forex transactions will earn 3.3% rewards and 1% cashback against 2% mark up fees charged by ultimate card ?
    please confirm.
    thanks in advance.

    Reply
  17. Amann

    Sid

    Please check the source link for this and see exclusions:
    It says “e-wallet (Paytm, Mobikwik etc.) recharge &insurance spends).”
    So only loading wallet or insurance payment is excluded from this offer. Doing direct RECHARGE is not. Please remove comma between wallet and recharge in your list of exclusions.

    Also Big Bazaar vouchers are a great redemption option for SCU.

    Reply
  18. Vishal Masand

    Simply use Axis Flipkart Card and get 1.5% cashback on all spends on wallet loads like Paytm as well

    Reply
    1. Mayank

      Axis Flipkart Card don’t give any points for wallet reload. Please check terms and conditions.

      Reply
  19. Swapneil

    Can anyone tell me what’s the conversion rate of 1 reward point in sc platinum rewards cards points to krisflyer miles ?

    And conversion rate of sc ultimate rewards cards points to krisflyer miles ?

    TIA🙏🏻

    Reply

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