Shopping using Credit and Debit Cards? Two Must Have Mobile Apps For You
By: Sandeep Patil
Tags: Payments, Discounts, Offers, Credit Cards, Deals

October to December is the season of shopping in India as these months wrap the key festivals like Diwali and Christmas. Shopping in urban India and to a larger extend in semi-urban India (tier 2 cities) is now happening via either credit cards or debit cards and in some categories via mobile payment apps — thanks to the government initiatives. This has increased fierce competition among the Indian banks to gain the credit card or even the debit card market share. Infact the use of credit cards and debit cards is currently at all time high in India. Similarly there is a nail biting competition among the payment apps like PayTM, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, etc to gain market share.

Competition is always healthy and even so more for the end consumers. In this case, the consumers are benefiting by the laundry list of offers the banks are offering on their cards (both credit and debit) via their merchant network. These offers from banks vary from Lifestyle to Electronics to Dining and many others which are both online as well as instore offers. Now the question is — how do we as consumers make the most of these offers from the banks on credit/debit cards and also benefit from the spends we make using our credit and debit cards ?

What happens in real life is that most of us know that there are deals and offers on our credit and debit cards but have no idea of what the deals are, where to look for and surely not at our fingertips (especially to know what are the offers when we are at the purchase window in a shopping mall or in a restaurant). Moreover in urban Indian , most people have more than one credit or debit cards in which case the problem becomes even more difficult as they have no idea as to which card should be used in which place to get the most benefit. So we really lose on those lucrative offers that are there on our cards. This is Problem No 1.

Let us move on to our next challenge. If a person makes use of credit cards for shopping , he/she typically is aware of the credit card points one gets which can be redeemed for gifts or vouchers. But what pains is that when you pay the hefty credit card bill you do not get incentivized in any form (other than building a good credit score — which by the way is important :). But this is Problem No 2.

Lets move to the next inhibitor that we card shopper have. If you are using credit cards , one thing that always irritates a person is that he/she has no idea of what are the benefits associated with his cards in terms of airport lounge access, movie tickets, etc. One is only aware of this information when he/she buys the card and then later on it is gone. This is Problem No 3.

Now, after some research here are two apps that every shopaholic in India who uses cards should have on their mobile phones which will help him/her to save and gain.

RUSSH

This is a cute app available both on Android and iOS that shows all the in-store offers on your credit and debit cards . What is cool is that it shows it over a google map allowing you to search for deals associated with cards in a given location or a city. It shows deals from Dining, Lifestyle, Electronics and Others. I used the app couple of times to discover the Dining deals associated with my card and saved 20% on my bill using my debit card without the need for Zomato Gold or other things. Additionally it shows the benefits associated with a credit card like airport lounge access, movie tickets, rewards points information at finger tips. I use to always struggle at airport lounge wondering of my card has access or not. This app helps solves that problem. The best part of the app is that it DOES NOT require any credit or debit card details. All you have to do is select the type or card or bank and you are all set.

If one wants to search for deals only associated with credit and debit card then the app allows you to do a search in the deals listing screen over a bank name. What would be cool is to have a filter that shows only deals associated with my cards. Writing to the app team , they said that it is coming soon– which is cool :-). The other thing it says is that it will show even Online Deals associated with the cards and that is going to come soon- that will surely be handy.

So in a nutshell, I will recommend this app to be in your pocket phone if you are a credit or debit card user. It will help address our Problem 1 and Problem 3 — save and gain on deals that you have been missing and are eligiable for.

Link to website: www.russh.in

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.russh

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/russh/id1471083101?ls=1

Coming to our Problem 2: In the season of shopping and travelling we get huge credit card bills (this is not applicable for debit card usage). Would it be nice to get rewarded for paying or credit card bills. This is where my next app recommendation comes handy.

2. Cred

Cred is a cool looking app that allows you to pay credit card bills and get rewarded for the same. Is that not what we want. You are required to register your credit card with this app (well yeah — this is a requirement for this app unlike RUSSH app) and then you pay your card bills monthly using this app via your bank gateways or so. You are awarded with Cred reward points which you can redeem for some cool gifts or dining via the Cred app.

Now their dining benefits are not yet equally spread across different cities but that will hopefully even out over a period. Also I will recommend that if you pay your credit card bills via Cred app then do it 2–3 days prior to your last day of payment as the app takes couple of days to reflect the payment on the card — you don't want to get penalized if something goes wrong or goes late.

Website: https://www.cred.club/

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dreamplug.androidapp&hl=en_IN

iOS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dreamplug.androidapp&hl=en_IN

So in summary, post my research RUSSH and CRED are two apps that I will recommend every Indian buyer who uses credit or debit cards for payments to have it on your phones. If you are still a person dealing in cash, then it is time for your to modernize :-).

RUSSH is one app that you will tend to use it more frequently especially every time you are on a shopping speer or looking for a dine out place, while Cred you will use it every month of your credit card payment cycle. Hope you all shopaholic like me sitting out there benefit from these recommendations Cheers.