Around four months back, I opted for this credit card since they were giving a 5% cash back offer. On every spend of 1000 Rs, you get a 25 Rs cashback after negating the service tax applicable to the credit card industry. On other transactions, the spend is not worth it as the 1 % barely offsets anything else. So I use this purely for the cashback on fuel and hotel bills.
Now they called me up and offered me a free medical waiver of outstanding as long as I clear my balances within the repayment period. (The 30-42 day period) Wow! All I required was a medical certificate and express my inability to repay my bills under medical circumstances. I was still looking for loopholes when he stated that there would be a confirmation call from them verifying this. I confirmed the call, since then I would be able to verify the same with the confirmation call.
Having heard gut wrenching stories about standard chartered, I was cynical that they would be able to come up with a good scheme and my intuition paid off when I received the confirmation call. On verifying the details, I came to know that regardless of the purchases made within the month, you would need to pay from the 1st to 11th of every month for balances. And if you do not pay the entire balance, they would charge you .85 paise surcharge in addition to the interest on the first of every month. That means if you have made a purchase of 10000 on the 31st (or the last day of the month), you are charged a .85 paise surcharge on the very next day!?! (The surcharge cycle is different from the billing cycle - Surcharge cycle is 1st of every month while the billing cycle is on the 20th of every month. The last date for payment is on the 11th of the month). So in effect, you are being charged a surcharge even within the 30/42 day period. Watch out!
Vinayak - 24 to go...