GoIbibo GoCash vicious trap. Be careful!

I have been getting multiple messages from GoIbibo claiming that I have been granted Rs 2000 in my account and all I need to do is register and use it. Naturally it rose my interest- with 2000 Rs I can have a quick weekend trip to nearby destination- bus ticket & hotel combined. So I was tempted to sign up. But then I also got my suspicion simultaneously. There’s got to be some trap. GoIbibo is no fool to give free cash just to sign up. So instead of signing up, I spent some time looking at GoIbibo website searching for terms and conditions of this great offer.

This post shares with you what I found about this GoCash offer.

The GoCash offer is cleverly designed to keep you stay hooked to GoIbibo and make you spend more each time you try to use your GoCash GoIbibo. There’s this limitation on what percentage of a booking amount can be paid for by using GoCash. For example, only 5% of flight booking amount (base fare), Only 15% of hotel rent (base amount) can be paid by GoCash, rest have to be paid in cash. 

So if you have 2000 in GoCash, to use that you’ve to spend at least 18000-20000 from your pocket, if you try to use it for hotel bookings. (14000 rental + taxes n charges extra). In the disguise of giving you free sign up cash, GoIbibo is ensuring that you will spend 10-20 times more on their platform. 

If you plan to use it for flight booking, then you've to spend around 60000 + (That is about 40000 in base fare plus taxes and fees and surcharges and convenience fee extra) Plus there’s daily usage limitation, number of transaction limited etc, because of which you will end up spending much much more, if you ever try to use all of your GoCash. 

There is a 90 day expiry period, forcing you to shell out more money sooner or risk losing your goCash

Also for small 5 to 10% saving you don't have to do so much circus (like refer your friend, make them sign up, book with so many terms and conditions etc). Just browse through social media pages of various travel companies, usually you will find some offers/discount codes available that will save you few hundred rupees or a few % on your bookings. 

Considering the amount you will end up spending, there is no practical gain. Below are the disadvantages:

1. Because you’ve to use GoCash, you will end up booking via GoIbibo without comparing competition sites or even if GoIbibo is slightly expensive. Whatever little savings you seem to get, will probably recovered through other means such as higher cancellation fees, convenience charges etc.
2. What GoIbibo spends to give you 5% off, they will earn much more selling your contacts, serving you ads or using you as a bait to gain better deals with service providers.
3. GoIbibo is running lots of campaigns to collect more n more mobile numbers/user details- not sure how secure are your contact details or if it will be misused. In all probability, GoIbibo will definitely claim a huge customer base and use this to bargain harder with various service provider. In return, the 5% off you get is peanuts.
4. Your contacts will be tortured till they give up n sign up. I've already got their SMS half dozen times. Ideally they should stop after one or two SMS but no, they will keep spamming. For the above joy of having to spend 20 times more to use your referral amount, why should you compromise on your contact's details and share it with GoIbibo? Don't expose your contacts to GoIbibo App without permission from your friends- it is not cool, it is a serious breach of trust and will result in commercial abuse of your friend's contact details.

You’ll be encouraged to share your contacts/promote goIbibo to your friends, with a promise that you’ll get lots of goCash. In reality, more goCash you get, more money you will end up spending on GoIbibo, so GoIbibo has nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving out free GoCash, coupled with so many clever terms and conditions. Plus they get to loot from your friends as well, while abusing their contact numbers with spam. I would suggest stay away from such traps.

Of course GoCash scheme is very much legal scheme and might really work for those who anyway have to spend a lot on travel. But booking just because you've to use goCash will be a very foolish decision. You've been warned.