Bank of Baroda Select Credit Card Review

Bank of Baroda Select or BoB Select credit card is an entry-level credit card from Bank of Baroda stable. I didn’t know that this card exists until a friend of mine applied for it recently. It was then I checked out the features of this credit card and was quite impressed.

Update August 2021 – From September 2021 onwards BoB is discontinuing the benefit of 1000 reward points per month. This would mean a drastic devaluation for this card. 

Bank of Baroda Select credit card

Fees

• Joining fee of INR 750 + GST. Waived on spending 7,500 in first 60 days
• Annual fee INR 750 + GST. Waived on spending INR70,000 in a year.

Rewards and Benefit:

• Joining Benefit: NA
• Recurring Benefits:NA
• Reward Points:
  • 1 reward points on every 100 spent. 1 reward point = 0.25p. 0.25% base reward rate.
  • Accelerated Reward Points:
    • 5 reward points (5x) on every 100 spent on Online Shopping/Dining/Utility. 1.25% reward rate. My assumption is wallet load does not offer any reward points.
    • Accelerated reward points capped at 1000 per month.
  • Bonus Reward Points:
    • 1000 bonus reward points on doing 5×1000 transactions every month. 5% reward rate
  • 1% fuel surcharge waiver on transactions between INR400 and INR5,000

Why BoB Select impressed me?

Let’s agree that the base reward rate of 0.25% and accelerated reward rate of 1.25% on BoB Select is not something to write about. In fact, this would be one of the lowest reward rate offered by any credit card out there.

However, 1000 bonus points on 5×1000 transactions give you a 5% reward rate; and this makes the card worthy enough to be compared to the likes of Amex MRCC, Axis Ace and AmazonPay (my preferred entry-level credit cards).

In addition, given the bonus reward points and low threshold for annual fee waiver BoB Select can be an ideal secondary credit card for many. You can reap maximum benefits on this card by just spending 72k in a year (i.e. just 6k per month). On spending 72k a year and assuming you take 1000 reward points every month, the effective reward rate on this card comes at 4.4%, which is very very good.

Further, you can use this card as a secondary fuel card in conjunction with MRCC to get maximum benefits.

How does BoB Select compare with other credit cards?

Below is the comparative table for BoB Select, Amex MRCC and Axis Ace. On spends of 75k per year, BoB Select is as good as Amex MRCC and way better than Axis Ace. Have made a simple assumption that 25% of spends are towards utilities on all cards.

However, as spends increase the reward rate on BoB Select declines and that on Amex MRCC remains more or less constant at 4.5% while that of Axis Ace increases thanks to 5% reward rate on utilities. Click here to see the reward rate of these cards on higher spending.

BoB Select can be your secondary fuel card

A reader of this blog, who uses BoB Select along with SC SVT credit card, shared this thought in the best fuel card blog post. For someone who spends around 12k on fuel every month, the ideal combination would be to spend 4×1500 on Amex and then 5×1000 on BoB Select. This way one can get 1000 reward points each on Amex and BoB. Resulting in effective savings of INR 630 (1000*0.38=380 on Amex and 1000*0.25=250 on BoB). This INR 630 translates to 5.25% savings on fuel every month, which is just awesome.

Conclusion

BoB Select is an excellent credit card for those who know how to make use of it. However, given the PSU setup, I am not sure, if BoB brings in good offers and if customer care is of any use. One of my readers did point out in my BoB Eterna review that the bank is coming up with very good offers nowadays. While on the other hand, other credit card review blogs do talk about poor customer service. So, apply for this card, only if you have a specific use case, like a secondary fuel credit card.

What are your views on BoB Select credit card? You have any experience as to how good or bad BoB customer care is? Do you plan to apply for this card? Do share in comments below.

Image courtesy: Conscious Design on Unsplash