Gold Cards Come Laden With Freebies

Want free health check-ups? Free stay for your spouse at five-star hotels to accompany you during your business trips? Upgrade your ticket from economy to business class without spending a paisa?

Free insurance covers for loss of passports, delayed baggage or delayed flights? Simply, pick up a gold card from one of the banks. The foreign and new private banks have started wooing the up-market gold credit card customers with a host of freebies never offered before.

Standard Chartered today announced that its gold card members can get free health check-ups at Apollo and other premium hospitals in India. They can also get complimentary upgrades from economy class to business class on Sahara Airlines. It is offering "free stay for spouse" benefit at all participating Taj hotels in India other apart from special invitation to golf tournaments and privileged access to domestic and international airport lounges.

The largest player in the Indian credit card market Citibank is offering to its gold card customers access to domestic and international airports in India and a string of insurance covers ranging for personal accident covers to loss of passports, air tickets to delayed baggage and delayed flights. The purchase protection, credit shield and insurance covers on Citi gold cards are normally twice than that of normal credit cards.

HSBC, which has a credit card base of around seven lakhs, has gone one step ahead and tied up with Cathay Pacific for the Hong Kong mega festival. It is offering a package to its gold card customers including the flight, stay in Hong Kong and a plethora of discounts.

The gold customers account for 30 per cent of its total card base and the card spend by the gold card is four times higher than that of the normal card, said HSBC's manager marketing (personal financial services) Robinder Singh.

Standard Chartered has a credit card customer base of around 14 lakh of which 20 per cent are gold customers. The gold card customers are normally senior corporate executives or high net worth individuals. The spends on these cards are around 1.72 per cent higher than the base level credit cards.

In the private sector, ICICI Bank sometime back offered its gold card customers zero per cent interest rate for 12 months for buying the whole range of Sony and Samsung products. It had also tied up with a number of merchants in the top 10 cities in the country with discounts ranging from 7 to 12 per cent. The bank has a card base of around 6.3 lakhs of which around 18 per cent are gold cards.

HDFC Bank, which launched its gold card last week, is offering free membership to International Business Travellers Club which helps customers get a discount of up to 50 per cent at over 5,500 star hotels worldwide and up to 25 per cent off on rentals of Hertz Rent-a-Car at over 7,500 locations worldwide. The customers also get a complimentary Global One Calling card and 15 per cent discount on the first two billings on the credit card.