Kotak Trump Gold Credit Card review

The Kotak Trump Gold Card is a Visa Gold credit card from Kotak Bank (earlier known as Kotak Mahindra Finance). This is a lifetime free credit card with no signup fee/annual fee/ renewal fee. You don't have to pay anything when you sign up. Nor do you pay anything for renewing or keeping this card.

The Kotak Trump Gold credit card comes with several discount offers valid at major multiplexes, theatres, movie halls. You can get movie tickets at a discount or get 1 for 1 free movie tickets. You get a 10% cash back on movie tickets. You also get 10% cash back on food and drinks at coffee shops, fast food joints, restaurants, pubs and bars all through the year.

To sign up for the Kotak Bank Credit Card instantly please click here

The Kotak Trump Gold Card is targeted at salaried people between 21 and 65 years of age drawing a minimum salary of Rs.18 lakhs per annum. It is available to residents of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi (including Gurgaon and Noida), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune.

The Kotak Trump Gold Card offers free balance inquiry at any ATM throughout the country. Kotak Bank will replace a lost card at no cost to you. Duplicate credit card statements too are provided free of cost. This compares favorably to some other banks like HDFC which charge a fee for this.

This credit card lets you make a purchase on a 0% EMI. With this you can buy anything with a minimum value of Rs.5,000 and pay no interest or fees for 3 months.

Cash loan on the Kotak Trump Gold credit card

Kotak Bank gives you a cash loan withdrawal limit on this credit card that is equal to 50% of your credit limit. This is a pretty high limit as compared to what most other banks offer on their credit cards. Additionally Kotak Bank also offers an interest free cash loan for a period of upto 48 days. The 'upto 48 days' means that it varies depending on when you take the cash loan. If you're shrewd about taking the cash loan you can use the funds for a month and half and pay nothing in interest. There's a processing feee of Rs.199 on the cash loan withdrawal, however. If you exceed the interest free period you'll pay 3.1% interest on the amount taken as loan. This is calculated on a daily basis. So if you use the money for six days, you'll pay interest for six days and not more.

You can get cash and fund transfers at a branch of Kotak Bank also besides requesting for a demand draft either on the phone or online when you own this credit card by Kotak.

Fuel Surcharge Waiver

The Kotak Trump Gold credit card gets get you a 2.5 % fuel surcharge waiver on petrol pumps all over India. This is a useful feature we  wish every credit card had. Some credit card companies limit these waivers of fuel surcharge to either HPCL or BPCL petrol pumps but rarely are both covered like in case of this card.

When you book a railway ticket online or offline using a credit card you usually pay a 2.5% surcharge. This credit card gets you a waiver of that surcharge. So if you spend Rs.10,000 booking railways tickets you save the Rs.250 you would have otherwise coughed up as surcharge. This is a useful saving especially since the card itself comes free!

Balance Transfer

You can transfer any outstanding balance you have on a credit card you own to the Kotak Trump Gold Card and use the interest free period for that outstanding balance. This makes sense if you have gone on a shopping spree and have oustanding balances you're finding it hard to deal with. The Kotak Trump Gold Card will give you respite for a while, atleast as long as the interest free period is on.

Kotak Bank charges a flat processing fee of Rs.199 for this. You will still have an interest free period for the retail purchaes you make on this credit card.

To sign up for the Kotak Bank Credit Card instantly please click here

An add-on credit card with the Kotak Trump Gold Card costs Rs.199. You can get this add-on card for any person above the age of 18. The add-on card holder gets all the benefits of the card which the main card holder gets except he/she cannot request for drafts or get cash loans.

A credit card can be an excellent tool for saving money and getting discounts. If one goes haywire it can lead to additional costs and penalties.

With the Kotak Trump Gold card if you make a late payment you have to pay a penalty of Rs.350. If your cheque bounces you pay Rs.300. If you exceed the generous credit limit given to you, you're charged Rs.500. The late payment fee of Kotak Bank in fact seems more reasonable than that of some credit card companies which charge more than this. Some charge upto Rs.500 if you miss the due date. This can happen to all of us. With a lot of work on our hands, it's normal to forget making a payment once in a while and you would want your credit card company to be fair in such a situation.

If you use your credit card abroad or on the internet be aware that there's a markup of 3.5% on foreign exchange transactions. This is similar to other credit card companies in India.