HDFC Diners 10X drops Amazon, adds CaratLane, extends to March 2018

HDFC Bank has pulled Amazon.in from the Diners Club Black 10X SmartBuy list, effective November 1, 2017. In its place: jewellery retailer CaratLane, with gold coins excluded. The programme itself survives, extended to March 2018.

Read that trade again. Amazon was the single easiest way to rack up 10X points — everyday spend, no behaviour change, ten times the points. CaratLane is a jewellery store. Unless your monthly budget includes diamonds, this is a swap of your most-used category for one you may never touch.

The extension to March 2018 is the consolation, and it comes with the now-familiar asterisk: this programme runs on short renewals and shifting merchant lists, and today proves no SmartBuy category is safe from month to month.

Our take: the 10X engine still runs, but HDFC just showed you how it ends — not with a shutdown notice, but category by category. Max out what’s still on the list and stop building spending habits around merchants the bank can delete overnight.