I-mint rewards Card from ICICI-Review (now Payback)

August 2012 Update: Redeemed some points from payback, delivery of gifts have been very prompt and got it in about 3 business days flat.


Jan 2012 Update: imintpoints is now Payback.in


June 2011 Update: Recently I did redeem my points from iMint couple of times and the delivery of items happened promptly. I believe the issues with iMint have been resolved or minimized of late. Below is my original review of iMint, written 3 years ago...
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Original Post: June 2008: iMint points-Good idea, badly executed.

Imint, in principle, is an excellent idea, but I somehow am not finding it useful. This post offers an analysis of pros and cons of this reward program.

The core idea behind the scheme is to encourage people to spend more, that too at certain specific merchants/companies with whom iMint has a tie up. In exchange for your money which is spent at channel partners you will get some points, which when accumulated, can be exchanged for some gifts.IMint started sometime in late 2006/early 2007. It was fully free at that time. I applied and got a card delivered promptly within few days. They also tied up with major players like ICICI Bank, Airtel etc and got access to huge customer base these companied had. All customers of ICICI Bank, airtel etc were sent unsolicited imint cards-same individual would have got multiple cards- one for being ICICI account holder, one as an Airtel customer, one through direct application etc- NO attempt was made to consolidate and issue a common card.

I got two cards- one from direct application and another from ICICI-I seldom used any of them, because I was not frequent spender at any of the participating partners (Lifestyle, Indian etc). I never believed in "spend more, save more" concept. I always believed in "Don’t spend at all and save all" concept.

Now, here’re some observations because of which I feel it is not a good idea to keep excessive expectations from this card:

1. You get 2 points for every Rs 100 spent at lifestyle. To get Rs.500 gift voucher, you’ll need 1400 points, to get which you need to spend Rs 70000. If you’re spending Rs 70k, you can easily demand a discount of 5-10% in any shop (buying the cloths from an unbranded cloths shop can fetch you even higher discounts for that amount. Lifestyle products are always overpriced and a less than 1% discount is not worth all the pain. (You don't have to spend all 70k at once, and not just at Lifestyle-still that is a huge amount)

2. The process of crediting the points is not automated. If I use my ICICI credit card at Lifestyle, immediately the points should get credited to my iMint account (since ICICI account can be linked with iMint). But that doesn’t happen- we need to manually swipe the imint card again. For online purchases it is another headache. Most of the participating outlets, mainly HP ones are either not aware of the scheme or do not have a swiping machine to credit iMint points. Most of the HP outlets simply say "we don't entertain iMint card". Some shops listed on their website say “We’ve pulled out of this scheme”. If you miss to swipe your card during the transaction, there’s no way to claim it later. With so much technological advances, they need to make the process simple and automated, reducing inconvenience to customers.

3. I don’t see my ICICI credit card points reflecting promptly in iMint. ICICI says I need to check with iMint and iMint do not have a habit of responding to emails. (I’ve resolved not to waste my money calling their customer care) ICICI doesn’t give an option that I can chose not to go with iMint and redeem my points separately. ICICI mandating me to go with iMint has forced me to minimize the usage of ICICI card altogether. I’ve started using my other card more because of better reward schemes. (Update: this issue is resolved now-refer end of the post)

4. No toll free number for redemption/customer care. Customer care numbers have been set up in few major cities but calling them would cost significantly. Online redemption is there, but site design and navigation is not that friendly. We all know how tough it is dealing with customer care people- Repeating our story again and again each time we call them, instant promises but no action, long hold periods-I’m sure one will spend more money on phone calls than value of the gift., Why can’t they give a toll free number? Making the process complex, painful and uneconomical for end user will turn users away.

5. Most of the shops they have tie up with are some unknown shops located in unknown area-time, petrol and effort spent in locating these shops would not make it worth the value of imint points received in return. If they can have tie up with well known shops like Reliance Fresh, Big bazaar, Subhiksha and such shops which can be found in every neighborhood it will be good.

While it was free initially, now it costs Rs 199. I believe as they gain more members and acceptance they will increase the points required to exchange gifts with.

In past one and a half years I have accumulated some 240 points-not enough to redeem the cheapest item one can redeem-a HPCL voucher requiring some 350 points. I don’t spend much with their participating outlets-at some instances I did, I didn’t care to swipe the imint card. All in all, this is a useless card for low spenders like me. The money, time and effort involved in redeeming doesn’t make it worth for me. If you spend several thousand rupees every month on air travel, phone bill, shopping etc, may be you can give it a try.

The concept behind it is really good, but the promoters of i-Mint do not seem to have any intention of making it a really pleasant experience to end users. Through their incompetent website and pathetic customer service, they are destroying a beautiful business opportunity and turning users away. It’s high time i-Mint channel partners (lifestyle, ICICI Bank, Indian, MakeMyTrip and other lesser known shops) take a serious look at this, put some pressure on iMint promoters and ensure that customer gets to enjoy their usage of iMint.

Some immediate action points for i-Mint Promoters (if they care)

• Show some courtesy of acknowledging and responding to mails.
  
• It’s not worth to make multiple STD Calls to talk to customer care. Give a toll free number and invest in site's infrastructure to increase its efficiency and reliability.
  
• Points should get credited without any additional effort by the user (or it should be minimum)
  
• Give online provisions to claim points for eligible transactions for which imint card was not swiped (this can be done by taking bill number, verifying it with service provider and then crediting the points-For example airlines allow you to claim frequent flyer miles post journey)
  
• Value of gifts should be at least 2-3% of the amount spent to accumulate the points which were needed to exchange that gift. If it is less than 1% the extra time and effort spent in redeeming won’t be worth it.
  
• Conduct a survey and collect feedback from your users to recognize how disappointed they are with your service. If you care to improve yourself you’ll automatically get more customers and business partners. (Update: They did held a survey in Nov 08)
  
• Revamp your website-its not that user friendly. (For example, I need to enter 16 digit imint card number every time- a userID would have been better)

Santosh wrote an interesting comment when I cross published this post at MS. He says “Whatever you do they mint…What you get is not more than a pepper mint”
Guess many of you might have got this card-say from ICICI or airtel. Did you find it useful?
Photo from imintpoints.com. Updates: I read on moneycontrol that Infosys BPO has tied up with iMint to enroll all its employees to this reward program. They are also going on aggressively to sign-up many more commercial establishments (like giving free iMint card with purchase of mobile phone etc). I only wish they fix some basic issues listed above first.
Also read elsewhere that ICICI Bank owns iMint-Not sure if it is true.

Major update on iMint card: 

iMint customer care never bothered to respond to my mails but an escalation through ICICI Bank helped. My complaint was that my ICICI credit card reward points are not reflecting in my iMint statement. I escalated this through ICICI Bank and Dennis from iMint called me from Bangalore. After discussing with him I learnt that the points were being sent to a separate iMint number which was created for me when I applied for ICICI credit card. I already had an iMint card as ICICI Account holder, mapped to my ICICI debit card usage, which was different from the card mapped to credit card. So Dennis offered to map my credit card to my old iMint card and transfer the points to this card. That was good. He also explained that now they are allowing online redemption and I need not waste money call customer care. That is a good relief.

Also one Mr Pradeep has thanked for the feedback and has offered to extend his assistance in this matter.

Feeling bit comfortable that they cared to call and resolve the issue. Many of you must be feeling similar issues-spare a moment to escalate through proper channels and get it fixed.

October Updates: Redeemed some points for a Rs 100 CCD gift coupon. Website failed me twice, but got third time lucky when tried during early morning. My first redemption in 2 years... Delivery of the item was prompt and ontime. No issues

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