harshitperiwal

Thanks to the Air India 50% bonus and the fact that it’s the only miles partner for ICICI Bank cards, I’m going all in and moving my entire points balance to Air India. That should mint roughly 1.1 lakh bonus miles. Or, if you think like some #ccgeeks, that’s about 9 one-way Thailand tickets just from the additional bonus 🤓 Last month, my default spend card was HDFC Infinia, largely because of the Visa x FIFA offer. This month, I’m switching gears to EPM. Here’s the game plan. Current EPM balance is 1,97,468, which already puts me in the 50% bonus tier. The idea is simple. Route all high-return GV spends, which are around 18%, along with regular base spends to EPM and push the balance closer to 2.2 lakh. I’ll transfer everything towards the end of the month to squeeze out the maximum bonus, which should land me around 1.1 lakh bonus miles. (Usually I swipe HSBC Premier for the base spends) The bonus effectively bumps Gift card returns from 18% to 27%, and base rewards from 3% to 4.5% for the EPM holders, and for the Times Black holders, the reward rate converts to EPM at 50% bonus tier. (2% → 3%, 12% → 18%) That’s the plan on paper. Let’s see how it actually plays out towards the end of the month 😄 There’s also a conundrum in the first comment 👇