Cash Back Rewards – Debit Cards

Cards are in, but hey you said you are against credit cards. Did I hear you saying this? Right, but I am still against credit cards. All my friends who use credit cards never ever leave an option to tell me the advantages of credit cards; biggest of them is rewards system. But I never miss rewards options. You asked how? Continue reading...

I always mix use of debit card along with cash, for my monthly home expenses. I have a separate account, where in I always deposit the money that I intend to spend for this month. I take out some money as cash, and rest all is there in the account. Wherever possible, I pay through my debit card and earn reward points.

I have bank accounts in ICICI and ABN, but I use ABN’s debit card for this. I love their reward points. They give me 2 points for every Rs. 100 spent. And once I have 500 points accumulated, I can get back Rs. 399. Simple calculation reveals that this is 1.5% cash back. Not bad at all! The only thing I loose here is that at petrol pump I have to pay cash, because it has service charge to use card.

ICICI also has a debit card but I hardly use that when buying something. Reason it provides rewards through imint and you can only get stuff from there that too after accumulating for very huge numbers of rewards points. For example, last month I saw that so far, I have accumulated some 1400+ points there and when I tried redeeming them, I had very less options. Finally, to use them before they expire, I opted for a Shawl from them, and it was as bad I expected it to be. If I would have same points in ABN card, I would have got some 1000 bucks, much more then gift I got from imint.