passive Income: get rewarded Paying Credit Card Bills In India

CRED was the first app in India through which you can earn reward points or cash back by paying your credit card bills.

Now you can pay credit card bills through Amazon, Paytm, phonepe app.

But, should you trust these apps for providing your credit card details & other information?

I am going to review CRED app keeping the same question in mind.

Major benefits of CRED App

#1. Credit Card Payments

You can add all of your credit cards in the app, track the payment due dates and pay the bills directly from the app.

You don’t need to check your credit card statement every month separately. For payments, you can use net-banking or UPI apps.

The whole process of payments is very swift and smooth.

#2. Cashback on Paying Bills

You would earn cashback on your bill payment transaction. You would see the option to #killthebill just after making a payment of more than Rs. 1000.

This works like a scratch card, where you can win cashback up to 1000. In earlier days people actually earned Rs 1000 cashback as but now the cashback doesn’t go beyond Rs 10.

You can earn a maximum of 5 scratch cards of cashback value up to Rs 1000 in a calendar month.

You can also earn scratch cards on payment for

On Payment	Earn Up to
Rs 50,000	1,00,000
Rs 20,000	10,000
Rs 5,000	5,000

In reality, you can expect a small cashback from these scratch cards, like under Rs 20 from the 5000 scratch card.

#3. Earn CRED coins to redeem gifts

You would earn CRED coins equal to your credit card payment. For example, you will earn 15,000 cred points on payment of Rs 15,000.

You can use the CRED points to get a product discount. The offers keep changing on regular basis.

I will share the details in the later section of the article.

#4. Upto Rs 500 Cashback on referring your friends

You and your referred friend would earn upto Rs 500 cashback on their next bill payment.

CRED has not provided more details on this.

Download CRDD & Get Upto 500 cashback

#5. Free Credit Report & Score

You would be able to see your CIBIL score and credit history free of cost. Currently, the app shows the credit score from Experian and CRIF.

You will get your first report free. After that you can check your latest score by spending 1000 CRED points

In the detailed credit report, you can see the payment history, credit card utilization and age of credit history.

How to make the Best Use of the CRED App

Installation process

• Click here to install on iOS or Android
• You would be approved only if you have a good CIBIL score
• The application starts with your primary mobile number that is registered with banks
• Your application may get denied if your mobile number details could not match with the CIBIL report or your credit score is not good.

If approved,

• Start adding your credit card information in the app.
• CRED is very smart to give you a hint of your credit card numbers. Just fill the missing numbers.
• The app would validate the credit cards by depositing Rs. 1 into your card (that would appear into your credit card statement)
• Start paying the bills of your credit cards

If rejected,

• Change the contact details if you are using multiple mobile numbers for banking
• Contact their customer support if you believe the information is correct
• Wait & Apply after a few months if your credit score is low

How to earn & redeem CRED coins

You would earn 1 CRED coin for each rupee payment through the app. If you are paying 5000 rupees for 3 credit cards then you would earn 15,000 CRED coins.

Redeem Option #1

You would also get a chance to earn additional cashback on each payment above 1000 rupees. You can see the option of burning your CRED coins to win upto 1000, 5000 or 10,000 rupees. The options vary as per your payment amount.

Some people have won 1000 rupees in a single chance while I earned a max of Rs. 488 in single transaction.

But now the casback remains under Rs 10. You can earn 5 #killthebill scratch card mystery reward systems in a calendar month.

You can try your luck. It’s pure FREE money that you get just by paying credit card bills.

Redeem Option #2

The second option is redeeming CRED coins for the rewards catalog that keeps updating with new options every month.

Currently CRED is offering discount on

• Leaf Hush ANC
• Kiehl’s
• OnePlus TV
• Easydiner
• Pepperfy

So far I have claimed 10 rewards by redeeming CRED coins.

• Swiggy Super for one year
• Rs. 100 off on 5 meals from Swiggy
• Rs. 500 products from Moms Co
• Free gift from Bodycraft
• Discount on groceries from Grofers
• Rs. 500 gift from EazyDiner
• Dineout Gourmet Passport for 3 months
• 20% off on Zoom Car
• Rs. 150 off on Uber rides
• 25% discount on hotels from Yatra

Two types of rewards

I love the fact that CRED has clearly defined the terms & conditions for reward redemption.

You would find the rewards with “No TnC” label, that means there is no trick. It’s pure money without any condition.

• Use points to get the reward
• Check on the details
• Click on the redemption link
• And order the products

The second type of rewards have ‘Terms & Conditions’

For example, You can see that Rs. 1500 gift card is ‘valid only on shirts’.

I prefer to use CRED coins for rewards that have ‘No TnC’. You can pick the rewards as per your requirement.

Safety & Privacy Concerns

I am using the app and love the benefits. But there are some concerns that I want to clarify to the best of my knowledge.

#1. Credit Card Information Safety

CRED app does not save the complete credit card information. You only need to add the credit card number in the app for bill payments. No one can misuse your card without expiry date and cvv.

In my opinion, CRED app seems safe.

#2. Email Access for Statements

CRED app needs to access your email to fetch the details of credit card statements that you receive via emails. CRED claims that they won’t read anything in the emails other than credit card statements.

If you have critical information in your email then don’t give access to CRED app. You would only lose one feature, notifications of the credit card due date and amount.

After 3 years of launch, CRED must have build the partnerships with the banks for getting the credit card statement balance. They could build a system to get the authorisation from the user to get the information from the bank.

#3. Failed Payment Refunds

It may happen that payments fail due to technical or banking issues. Your money would be refunded back to your account within 1 to 3 days (or faster).

I have never faced payment failure issue but many community members have faced payment failure/delay with CRED app.

Use at your own risk. CRED is run by credible people so your money would be safe and come back to your account.

It’s an inconvenience that money gets deducted from your saving account and you have to wait for a few days to get that back. My suggestion is that if you have a big amount to pay then pay in small chunks. (maybe in multiple of 10,000 as shown in the snapshot below)

#4. Delayed Payment Credit

Don’t pay the credit card bills on the last day of the due date. Delays may happen in reflecting the payments in your credit card statement. However, I have seen that all the payments made through CRED appeared on the same day in my credit card statement.

To be on the safe side, always pay 2-3 days before the last date of the credit card. My suggestion is to complete the credit card bill payments as soon as you get the salary.

What Needs to be Improved

#1. No Email Access Requirement

CRED should work on their partnership with the bank to get the credit card bill statement directly from the bank. Currently, CRED asks for email access to fetch the details of credit card statements which is definitely a security concern for some people.

#2. Better Offers

Deals under the reward catalog are actually not much useful these days. You would get a higher discount directly on other shopping sites for similar products.

CRED should bring some good deals that actually benefit the user. They can bring some exclusive launch deals which would benefit the user and the partner companies as well. Like AppSumo brings deals for SAAS products.

Verdict

CRED app benefits are over and above the credit card rewards & cashback. There is no reason to miss the extra cashback & rewards that come by just paying the bills through the app.

You are anyways going to use net-banking to pay your credit cards, why not to double the benefits.

I would give 3 out of 5 to CRED app for its beautiful design, ease of payments and value of reward points. 1 point deducted because of delayed/failed payment experience of CashOverflow readers and 1 point for not bringing exciting offers for the users.