ICICI Bank generally issues preapproved Lifetime Free Credit Cards to customers who have opened new bank accounts with them. Many people have got Coral, Coral HPCL, RubyX, or even Sapphiro Credit Card as a preapproved card lifetime free.
However, not everyone gets such offers. It is very selective. I know quite a few people who use paid Coral or Coral HPCL credit cards. I myself had a Coral HPCL Paid Credit Card, and in this post, I am going to write a method that you can use to convert your existing Coral HPCL Credit Card to Lifetime Free.
Since I tried it for the Coral HPCL credit card, I am writing about that. This method may also work with the regular Coral Credit Card. You may try it with other Gemstone Cards. But I doubt this will work for RubyX or Sapphiro. Anyways, let’s move to the method.
Prerequisites:
This method demands quite a few prerequisites. Not everyone will fall under this criterion. Listing them one by one:
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You need to be either salaried or self-employed. You need to have a salary slip or ITR. The amount of ITR does not matter, since Coral HPCL is an entry-level card.
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You need to have at least one Lifetime Free Gemstone Card from ICICI. Here’s the ICICI Gemstone Credit Cards List: Coral VISA, Coral MC, Coral Rupay, RubyX, Sapphiro, Emeralde. Any one of these cards has to be a Lifetime Free Credit Card.
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This method won’t help you apply for a new LTF Coral HPCL Credit Card. This is only for existing HPCL CC users whose renewal is due in the upcoming months.
In case you do not fulfill the above conditions, I am sorry.
The Method to Convert ICICI Coral HPCL Credit Card to Lifetime Free:
Okay so as you probably know, ICICI Bank sends a common statement for all their Gemstone Cards. Now imagine this scenario: You have 3-4 gemstone cards, out of which some of them are Lifetime Free, and some of them are paid.
In paid cards, there is a condition to have an annual spending to get an annual fee waiver. In Coral HPCL Credit Card, you need to spend 50k per year to get your annual fee waived.
But how do you track and calculate your spending through your Coral HPCL Credit Card?
If you go to your statements, it will show spending done through all your Gemstone cards. It won’t show individual spending from Coral HPCL Credit Card. In iMobile app too, you cannot find card specific transactions.
So, all you need to do is write to ICICI Bank Customer Support that you have multiple credit cards, and you are unable to track individual spends, which is preventing you to calculate the requisite spends for getting an annual fee waiver.
You can request for 2 resolutions:
Resolution 1: Provide you with a separate statement for each Gemstone Card every month, so that you can track your card spends individually.
Resolution 2: Convert your Coral HPCL Credit Card to Lifetime Free.
Your language of email should be strong enough to convey the message that this is a serious problem with your credit card, which is an important affair to you. And if ICICI is unable to resolve this, you may be forced to choose better credit cards from other banks, since in other banks it is very transparent.
In case you are unable to compose the mail yourself, take help from GPT writers.
Here’s the email I sent them. I have blurred certain sections to protect my email template. Don’t use the same language.
What happens Next?
Once you mail ICICI Customer Support, expect some delay in response, since the entire process too me almost 2 weeks. They may send automated responses like, we are still working on your resolutions etc.
But they will definitely respond back, and they will ask for your Salary Slip. If you have a Salary Slip then provide it, in case you do not have one, just reply that you can provide ITR.
They took so long to respond. Just check their emails and dates.
In their next email, they will ask you for your ITR. Once you submit your ITR, they will finally raise a request for converting your ICICI Coral HPCL Credit Card to Lifetime Free. You will get an SR Number, and your request will be processed within 1 working day.
Once your ICICI Credit Card gets converted to Lifetime Free, you will receive this kind of SMS.
That’s it. Don’t forget to call ICICI Customer support and take their confirmation if your Credit Card carries any charges or not.
Try this Method with other ICICI Gemstone Credit Cards:
I have tried this method with Coral HPCL Credit Card. You may also try this with other ICICI Credit Cards like Coral VISA, in case you have a paid variant. Since these are entry level credit cards, ICICI bank might consider converting it to Lifetime Free for you. I don’t think they will honor this request for higher variant credit cards like RubyX or Sapphiro, however, you can still ask them for a resolution regarding the common statement problem. Good Luck!
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