[ANALYSIS] ICICI Bank Rubyx Visa Platinum

ICICI Bank is headquartered in India, but operates in Canada as well. They are generally known for higher interest savings accounts, but they also offer an interesting cash back credit card called the: Rubyx Visa Platinum, which is worth a second look. Below are the highlights of this credit card:

  • $49 annual fee
  • Earn 2% bonus c ash back on 3 categories of your choice
  • Earn 1% cash back on all other purchase

Comparisons to Tangerine

Right off the bat, it sucks that there are no sign up bonus offers and the $49 annual fee is unfortunate, especially when you compare this to the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card with the following highlights:

  • No annual fee
  • Earn 4% bonus cash back on a select group of categories for 93 days
  • Earn 2% cash back on a select group of categories (choice of 2 categories, a 3rd choice if you deposit the cash back into your Tangerine Savings Account)
  • Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases
  • 1.5% foreign conversion/transaction fee

Categories

The difference between the two credit cards is their categories:

Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card ICICI Rubyx Visa Platinum
  • Drug Store
  • Eating Places
  • Entertainment
  • Furniture
  • Gas
  • Grocery
  • Home Improvement
  • Hotel-Motel
  • Public Transportation and Parking
  • Recurring Bill Payments
  • Bars
  • Car Rentals
  • Coffee Shops
  • Flights
  • Gas stations
  • Grocery stores
  • Hotels & Motels
  • Movies & Sports Events
  • Restaurants

With Tangerine, you can change your preferred category at any time, but it will only take effect on the first monthly statement date after the existing categories have been in place for 90 days.

With ICICI, you can only change a category every 6 months. The one that stands out of ICICI are flights.

Conclusion

Personally, I would not get this credit card for myself. But if you are already a client of ICICI, and are looking into getting this credit card, I would nudge them to waive your annual fee. Also remind them that Tangerine is currently offering a more competitive product. Let’s see if they budge on that!

At the very least, I am glad to see such a credit card is available. It is a great starting point. A few improvements to the card (cough cough, no annual fee) would make this very competitive.

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