Live+ Credit Card

Live+ or Swiggy HDFC: where the 10% works

The card people most often weigh against HSBC Live+ is the Swiggy HDFC Bank Credit Card. Both pay 10% on food. The difference is where. Swiggy HDFC keeps its top rate inside Swiggy. Live+ pays 10% on dining, food delivery, grocery, shopping and utilities, and it works on offline swipes too: a DMart bill, a restaurant terminal, a Zepto or Blinkit order.

That breadth is why one long-running Reddit thread asks "Why no love for HSBC Live+?" If your food and grocery money is spread across apps and real shops, Live+ usually wins. If almost all of it goes through Swiggy, the HDFC card is the better fit.

One ₹1,200 cap for all five categories

This is the number to remember. The 10% rate stops at ₹1,200 of cashback a month, and that is one combined cap across all five categories, not one per category. In practice, the 10% covers your first ₹12,000 of spending in those categories each month.

A normal month looks like this:

• ₹7,000 at DMart and on quick-commerce apps, ₹5,000 on dining and delivery: 10% of ₹12,000 = ₹1,200.
• ₹10,000 on other spends such as bills that do not qualify, clothes and travel: 1.5% = ₹150.

That is ₹1,350 back on ₹22,000, about 6%. Cashback goes straight to your statement; there is nothing to redeem.

What happens above ₹12,000 in the 10% categories is less clear. Under the older ₹1,000 cap, seven threads reported that extra spend in those categories earned 0%, not 1.5%. HSBC's current terms in our data do not settle it, so plan for 0% and move overflow spending to another card.

What the July 2026 update took away

HSBC reworked Live+ on 26 July 2026. It added shopping and utilities to the 10% list and raised the cap, but it also cut things:

• Amazon and Flipkart shopping now earn 1.5%, not 10%.
• International spends no longer earn anything, even with the 1.99% forex markup.
• Domestic lounge visits dropped from 4 to 2, and the card now gives 2 a year. One international visit a year was added from 1 September 2026.
• Myntra keeps 10% only until 31 October 2026, for new applications.

Much of the praise you will find on Reddit was written before these changes, so read older threads with that in mind.

Merchant codes and the PIN code check

Two practical problems come up again and again. First, cashback follows the merchant's category code, and HSBC's decision is final. Users report Flipkart Grocery and Flipkart Minutes coding as general retail and missing the 10%. Check your first statement for any new app.

Second, getting the card can be harder than using it. HSBC only issues in PIN codes it services, and users describe long video KYC queues and failed calls. Check serviceability before you apply.

The bottom line on HSBC Live+

The fee is ₹999 + GST, waived if you spend more than ₹2 lakh a year. Even if you only put ₹12,000 a month on it and pay the fee, up to ₹14,400 a year in capped cashback easily covers it. New applicants also get ₹1,000 cashback on ₹25,000 spent in 30 days through the app, and a ₹750 voucher on activation.

Get Live+ if you spend around ₹10,000 to ₹12,000 a month on groceries, eating out and bills, especially offline. Skip it if most of that money goes to Amazon or Flipkart, if you want UPI (Live+ is Visa only), or if you spend abroad. For general online shopping, users prefer the Cashback SBI Card.

Credit Card Information Compiled by: Abhijeet Kumar | Reviewed by: Anmol Ratan Sachdeva