BPCL SBI Octane vs HPCL BoB ENERGIE Credit Card: Which one offers lower fee & waiver benefit?

Fuel expenses form a large part of our monthly budgets especially in metro cities where the distance between residence & workplace is long. Owning a vehicle provides a lot of convenience but at the same time comes with a huge cost of fuel & maintenance.

With the ever rising prices of petrol & diesel along with huge cost of electric vehicles, a common man has to find ways to reduce the cost of travelling & get convenience at the same time.

There are a few credit cards available that can help you bring the cost of fuel down. These cards offer cashbacks & rewards for spending on fuel and these rewards are over & above the surcharge waiver offered on other credit cards.

We have already covered one of the most rewarding fuel card "BPCL SBI Octane Credit Card" in our last post. In this post, we are going to discuss HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card which has lower fees & waiver benefits than BPCL SBI Octane credit card. We have discussed the key points to be kept in mind while using a credit card in our earlier post.

Let's deep dive into the details of HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card:

Fuel rewards

HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card has a 5% reward rate on all HPCL spends. This includes your spending on purchase of fuel on BPCL pumps & booking of LPG cylinders from HP Pay app. The break-up of 5% is as follows:

• 24 reward points per Rs. 150 on fuel spends (1 reward point = Rs. 0.25) = 4%
• Fuel surcharge waiver = 1%. Maximum fuel surcharge waiver is capped at Rs. 100 per month.
• Maximum 1000 reward points can be earned through fuel spends in a single billing cycle. (Rs. 6,250 worth of fuel)
• Fuel surcharge waiver = 1% (This is applicable on the spends between Rs. 400 - Rs. 5000 in a single fuel transaction). Maximum fuel surcharge waiver is capped at Rs. 100 per month.
• Additional 1.5% cashback in terms of payback points on fuel purchases made through HP Pay App

The cap of 1000 points per cycle is to curb the misuse through commercial spending usage.

READ MORE: Key reasons why you should avoid paying the minimum amount due on credit cards

Other rewards

The HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card has a 1.67% reward rate on following categories:

- Departmental stores

- Groceries

- Utility bills

• 10 reward points per Rs. 150 on all the above mentioned spends (1 reward point = Rs. 0.25) = 1.67%
• Maximum 1000 reward points can be earned through the above mentioned spends in a single month. (Rs. 15000 worth of spending in total)

Other spends

Any other spends done via HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card will be eligible for 2 reward points per Rs. 150 (reward rate = 0.33%). This would cover your dining, insurance payment etc.

READ MORE: Credit Cards: Best enjoyed with discipline and not falling into the habit of thrift spending; Key points to remember

Other benefits

• 4 complimentary airport lounge visits per calendar year to domestic lounges in India for primary card holders. (1 visit per quarter)
• 3 Lifetime free add-on card for family members above the age of 18 years.
• Smart EMI Option: Convert purchase of > ₹ 2,500/- on your card into easy EMIs of 6/36 months.
• 25% off up to ₹100 on purchase of minimum 2 tickets per transaction on Paytm (2 times per month).

Fees & charges

HPCL BoB ENERGIE credit card is a charge card. Annual fee for this card is Rs. 499 plus GST at the rate of 18% is charged on these fees. Hence the final fee is Rs. 588 per annum.

This fee is charged in the first statement after getting the card.

This fee is offset by offering 2000 reward points (Cash value = Rs. 500) if Rs. 5,000 is spent on the card within the first 60 days. Hence the actual cost on the card is only the GST amount of Rs. 89.

There is also an annual fee waiver only spending Rs. 50,000 per membership year. In short, the fee is refunded to your statement on spending Rs. 50,000 in a membership year. So this makes the card free of cost if you can spend the required amount. This is quite easy to achieve for fees waiver.

Personal opinion: There are very few options of credit cards offering such benefits on fuel spending. Anyone who spends Rs. 6,250 per month on fuel can avail this card as the reward rate is quite decent.

Even on some other listed categories the reward rate is not bad. The fees are also reasonable & a milestone of Rs. 50,000 is not very difficult to achieve as this can be easily done by spending on fuel itself.

If you have equivalent groceries or departmental spending then this is a really good addition to one’s wallet.

Compared with BPCL SBI Octane card, this one has lower fees with lower waiver criteria & can be suitable for someone who can easily reach the spending milestone for fee waiver.

CA Rohit J. Gyanchandani is Managing Director, Nandi Nivesh Private Limited, A Pune based Wealth Management Company.