We all collect reward points expecting to redeem them when needed. With HDFC reward points, however, redemption can sometimes be tricky. I’ve held the HDFC Business Regalia and Diners Black cards for some time, and here are my experiences.
My Experience with HDFC Concierge
Diners Black Concierge: The Diners Black concierge team is noticeably more knowledgeable and helpful than the general HDFC customer support helpline. When I call, the IVR asks whether I’m an Infinia or Diners Black customer, and I’m connected to staff who understand my requests rather than being confused. The concierge can access emails sent to the concierge mailbox while you are on the call, which often speeds up tasks such as flight bookings.
HDFC Regalia Concierge: My interactions with the Regalia concierge were mixed. On a couple of occasions service was underwhelming, but in a later interaction they delivered excellent support comparable to the Diners Black concierge.
Overall, HDFC’s concierge service has improved and now approaches the quality of premium providers like Amex in terms of knowledge and the friendly handling of queries.
Booking Flights and Recharges with HDFC Concierge
Recharges: I use the Diners and Regalia redemption portals frequently. The sites sometimes fail at the final page and return an error. When that happens, a call to concierge usually resolves the issue because they have access to a back-end system different from the public portal and can complete the recharge over the phone.
HDFC Diners Concierge
Booking Flights: One reason I’m writing this is to highlight quirks in flight redemptions. HDFC tends to discourage redemptions on low-cost carriers such as AirAsia. When booking through concierge you often have access to more airlines than are visible on the portal, especially on international routes. The concierge uses a third-party booking platform (Cleartrip) to make reservations, which allows booking on airlines listed there even if they don’t appear on HDFC’s portal.
My Example: I tried to redeem Regalia points for a Regalia voucher to book an international AirAsia flight. The portal accepted the details and voucher but failed with an error on the final page. When I called concierge I was told AirAsia was not supported and could not be booked via their back-end. I booked the ticket elsewhere.
- HDFC uses Cleartrip for flight bookings.
- Low-cost carriers like AirAsia are often not supported.
- Airlines not shown on the portal can sometimes be booked if they appear on Cleartrip — check Cleartrip and confirm with concierge.
- Always call concierge before planning to redeem points for flights.
This incident happened around late September. The points I had redeemed were due to expire at the end of October and were expected to be credited back to my account in the next statement cycle in November. At that time Regalia points were being devalued, so I asked customer care to credit my points before the devaluation date so I could use them at the higher value.
Customer care promised to help, but the points were not restored by November 1 and the devaluation took effect. I continued escalating the issue and explained that I couldn’t use the points because the portal had redemption problems with AirAsia.
After persistent follow-ups by phone and email — more than 20 contacts in total — the points were finally restored nearly two months later. Fortunately, HDFC credited extra points so the voucher value matched what I had before the devaluation, effectively protecting me from most of the loss. I then redeemed the restored points immediately.
In short, I was lucky that the outcome turned out in my favor, but the process cost a lot of time and effort. Persistent follow-up is often necessary to resolve such issues.
That was my experience redeeming HDFC reward points. If you’ve had similar or different experiences, feel free to share them in the comments.