RBL World Safari Credit Card – Review

RBL World Safari credit card is marketed as India’s first credit card with 0% markup fees on forex transactions. In a way, it tries to club the benefits of a prepaid forex card and the convenience a credit card into one offering. Read on to find out whether it makes sense to opt for this credit card.

RBL World Safari Credit Card

Fees and Eligibility:

• Joining fees and annual fees INR3,000 + GST. No fee waiver based on spends

Rewards and Benefit:

• Joining Benefit:
  • Welcome gift voucher of INR3000 from MMT, on swiping the card within 30 days. Gift voucher is valid only on flights, hotel and holiday bookings.
• Recurring Benefits:
  • 10,000 travel points on spending 250,000 per year
  • Another 15,000 travel points on spending 500,000 per year
  • Taj Experience gift card worth 10k on spending 750,000 per year
• Reward Points:
  • Standard Reward Rate: 2 reward points on every INR100 spent. 1 Reward point = 0.25 paisa (0.50% reward rate).
  • Accelerated Reward Rate: 5 reward points on every INR100 spent on travel spends (1.25% reward rate).
  • No reward points on international spends
  • Fuel surcharge waiver
• Lounge Access:
  • Domestic: 2 complimentary domestic lounge access every quarter.
  • International: 2 international lounge access via PP. One additional complimentary lounge access via PP on spending 50k in a calendar quarter

How to evaluate the RBL World Safari credit card?

While it is always difficult to evaluate credit cards that have many moving parts in terms of reward rates. However, I have tried to do a scenario analysis for this credit card. What I have done is an attempt to calculate the reward rate for RBL World Safari credit card at different spends level and within that at the varying amount of international spends.

A sample working is shown below.

I have also tried to incorporate the impact of the interest-free period that a credit card gives. Thus, I assumed that on international spends one would earn 30 days interest at saving accounts rate (3% per annum).

The outcome of the scenario analysis is that RBL World Safari credit card gets rewarding only at higher spends level of INR750,000 or above.

Spending up to INR500,000

For annual spending of up to INR500,000 the reward rate at best is only 1%. Which I think is very mediocre. However, if one uses this credit card exclusively as forex card then the reward rate is 0.8%, which I would say is good, considering that for nearly all other credit cards one gets a negative reward on international transactions. Further, even when compared to Niyo global (detailed review here), this card is more rewarding by 0.8%.

Spending of INR750,000

At INR750,000 spend level, the reward rate on RBL World Safari credit card more than doubles to 2.2%. For international transactions only, the reward rate on annual spending of INR750,000 comes at 2%, which is excellent. This is even better than HDFC Diners Black, which offers a net reward rate of 1.3% on international transactions.

The caveat here is that dramatic improvement in reward rate comes thanks to Taj Experience gift voucher. Thus, if one feels that Taj Experience gift vouchers are of no use, then the reward rate is just 0.6%.

Recent devaluation in reward points a cause of concern

As per this article on cardinfo.in, RBL has recently devalued credit card reward points by up to 32%. While the travel points are spared, for now, but one can’t rule out future devaluation. Thus, the same could affect RBL World Safari credit card’s reward rate too. This is something one needs to keep in mind when applying for this card.

Conclusion

RBL World Safari credit card tries to bring in the convenience of a credit card and the benefits of a forex card into one and to be honest, it does that work quite well. However, it is rewarding only at higher spending levels of 500,000 and above. Therefore, for most people who travel abroad for a vacation at most once in a year, for them it pays off to stick with Niyo Global or other prepaid cards.

However, for someone who travels frequently abroad or has to spend in foreign currency quite often (read annual spending of INR500,000 or above in foreign currency), this card can work as a replacement for forex cards.

Further, for someone looking to replace existing credit card with RBL World Safari credit card would be tall ask as the card gets rewarding sufficiently enough only at annual spends of INR750,000 or above. As for someone who spends less than that the reward rate is quite pathetic for the fees this card charges.

In case you need the excel sheet used for scenario analysis, do let me know, will be happy to share.

Feature image photo by Wei Pan on Unsplash