HDFC adds 1% fees on rent, big utility and third-party education

From August 2024, three spend categories on HDFC cards pick up a 1% fee, capped at ₹3,000 per transaction: rent paid through apps, utility bills over ₹50,000, and education payments routed through third-party platforms like CRED and Paytm. Until now, none of these carried a surcharge.

Read the fine print and the target is obvious. Pay a school or college directly and education stays fee-free — the charge only bites when a fintech sits in the middle. The ₹50,000 utility threshold spares every normal household bill and catches only the bulk payments that were never really “utilities” at all. This is a fee aimed squarely at fintech rent routing and round-tripping, not at ordinary spending.

On a ₹1 lakh monthly rent payment, that’s ₹1,000 a month gone — more than most cards’ points on that spend were ever worth.

Our take: rent-for-points on HDFC is now officially dead economics. A 1% haircut wipes out the earn on all but the very richest cards. Pay rent from your bank account and save the card for spend that actually pays you back.