HDFC caps SmartBuy brand-voucher rewards
Gift-voucher earn on SmartBuy now tops out at 3,000 accelerated points a month. Flights and hotels still earn, but the easiest arbitrage is capped.
HDFC has put a fence around SmartBuy’s easiest trick. From 1 July 2026, gift-voucher purchases on the portal earn a maximum of 3,000 accelerated points a month — down from sharing the full SmartBuy cap with everything else.
This matters because voucher stacking was the lazy engine behind Infinia and Diners Club Black returns. Buy a brand voucher you were going to spend anyway, collect multiplied points, repeat. Flights and hotels on SmartBuy still earn at accelerated rates, but the pure arbitrage — points for shopping you’d already do — now has a hard ceiling.
At the Infinia’s base earn of 3.33 points per ₹100, the card is still a 3.3% machine on everyday spend. What’s gone is the padding on top.
Our take: the Infinia and Diners Black remain the top of the HDFC stack — but stop counting voucher multipliers in your mental math. Shift SmartBuy activity to flights and hotels, where the accelerated earn still lives, and treat 3,000 points a month as the new voucher budget.