Month: August 2021

Uni 1/3rd Card: 3 months no cost EMI card for all!

Update: Owing to RBI Guidelines, this card is currently suspended. There is hope that it shall return once the guidelines become relaxed or some other format of the part payment scheme may return. Until then, we will miss this card and its amazing concept.
The suspension is active since 1st December 2022.

Hello dear readers,

As you may have read in my previous post on credit cards, I do own a few cards. I use them for specific purposes, the AMEX card to gain the rewards, ICICI-Amazon card to get cashback on Amazon, ICICI-HPCL card for some fuel related cashbacks, HSBC Platinum card since it is lifetime free and has occasional offers on it.

Of these cards, only the Amazon card offers me an option for No cost EMI for 3/6/9 months, on selected products, only on Amazon. What if, there was a card, which would provide us with a similar no cost EMI option for all spends? I feel it would be brilliant.

A few days ago, I watched a video on Youtube describing the Uni 1/3rd card. The USP of this card is that it lets you choose to split your bill on each spend, whether you want to pay it in full or convert it into a no cost EMI for 3 months. This appealed to me greatly. For the relatively big ticket spends, they can now be converted into more affordable packets for a period of 3 months, and that too is not restricted by a website or platform as such. Off course, most of the other cards offer the option to convert a big spend into EMIs but there is always an interest rate attached to it, which is not the case here for the three months period. Also, if you choose to pay the bill in full, there is a 1% cashback. 1% may not sound a lot, but it is worth the amount in actual rupees, which is in turn almost 4 to 5 times more in worth than each reward points earned. Also, the card is Visa powered, hence, no issues with acceptance. So, convinced that this is a good idea, I applied for the card.

The application process is simple enough. You download the app and sign up for a new card. A quick KYC based on your PAN card, Aadhar Card and a selfie later, you have the card assigned to you with a fair credit limit. It took about 24 hours for me to have the card available online for transactions and in a week, the card arrived home.

The box was nice and the card is minimalistic. In the box, there was the card, a mask, a bag tag and a small packet of Toblerone chocolate. Overall, a simple yet thoughtful gesture towards initiating a new customer into the fold.

The card and the goodies

As of now, I am looking forward to using this card mainly for the transactions which generally do not yield much points or cashbacks, so that the advantage of the card’s 1% cashback can be utilized.

Also, the card and its app are in beta stage, simply put, it is still a very new card, so a lot more facilities and uses of the card is expected soon.
If you apply for the card now, you’ll be one of the early adopters of the card, and that is rewarded by Uni by not charging the joining or annual fee. This may change in the future though.

Finally, in my opinion, this card provides a good proposition towards owning and using a credit card. Off course, like all cards, always ensure that you are able to pay your dues in full. What makes this interesting is that if you pay in full, which you are expected to anyway, you get 1% cashback, so, that is an incentive to pay in full. And if you are just not able to accommodate the full payment or feel a little stressed about the big purchase that you have done, split the bill into 3 parts and pay with relative ease. I would recommend this card to people who have a financial discipline in place and know how to handle their finances. It is easy to overspend when you are paying just a fraction of the cost immediately. So, good luck with using this promising card and I am hoping that more facilities are made available soon.

Feel free to put up thoughts and questions as comments to the post.

Until the next post,
Cheers!!

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TTL : Thailand for a week

Hi all,

Now, with the Covid restrictions slowly easing up, tourism is bound to pick up pace. The timing is apt for a reminiscence of our trip to Thailand in January, 2020. Our trip was a weeklong one, covering Phuket, Krabi and Bangkok. The details follow below!

The planning began in early December ’19 scoping out the locations, tentative dates and duration of stay. We finalized to go to three places, Phuket, Krabi and Bangkok, spread over a duration of 1 week.

Our journey began from Mumbai to Bangkok. On the evening of arrival, we spent the night at a nearby hotel (Silver Gold Garden, Suvarnabhumi Airport) for we had the flight to Phuket early next morning. This is where our trip began in earnest.


At Phuket, we had booked for 2 nights’ stay at Arya Eightball Records Hotel, Patong. The hotel was clean, simple and served our purpose. We had planned to roam about the entire day on scooter and have a clean place to sleep, nothing fancy.

At Phuket, on the first day, we went to Wat Chalong, The Big Buddha and the Phuket Aquarium.

Phuket on Day 1

For the second day at Phuket, on recommendation from our host at the hotel, we booked a 3 Island day tour. It would be an entire day of island hopping to the Phi-Phi Islands and then back. Once we were back, we went to the Thalang Road to take some pictures and then to the Patong beach to find out why it is so (in)famous.

It was quite fun the stay at Phuket. With rolling hills all about and amazing roads, riding a scooter on the twists and turns are quite amazing. One must be a bit careful though, but it is fun.

From Phuket, on the next day, we took a mini-bus/van kind of a vehicle to Krabi. It was cheaper than flying or via boat, but it was more tiresome and time consuming.

At Krabi, we chose to splurge on our stay. We stayed at an apartment booked via AirBnB at Muang. It is a few kms out of the Krabi town, peaceful, serene and very beautiful. At Krabi, we visited the Noppaharat Thara beach, the Ao Nang beach, took a small boat to the Railay Beach. One of the most amazing things to see was a shell cemetery. It is a place where shells, millions of years old have become fossilized and have now become effectively rocks. We also visited the Thapom Resort which is basically a mangrove forest with elevated walkways within to enjoy. It is interesting to see such forests up close, knowing the major significance they have in preventing rogue waves from causing destruction inland.

The sunset at the Nopparahat beach is absolutely spell binding and it makes you feel happy. Try not to miss it.

Krabi and around

The next day, we flew to Bangkok. As with the stay at Phuket, we needed a place to go to sleep at night and the Chocolate Mint Box was just the place for it. It was clean, simple and had complimentary breakfast, which was very tasty. At Bangkok, a realization that helped us a lot to save time and money, is to use the extensive and frequent boat service. Do not fall for the Tourist trap of Hop on Hop off boat, rather, travel as the locals do, in the express boats. They are economical and they shall get you from point A to B easily.

At Bangkok, we visited the Wat Arun and the Patpong night market. We made a quick tour to the China Town area too. We skipped the Grand Palace though and instead went to the Asiatique Sky. The place is nice and lively with the giant wheel being the main attraction. The Bangkok Eye provides a birds-eye view of the city and its surroundings.

At Bangkok

Apart from all the wonderful places to be, there were loads of amazing things to eat. The place is an absolute paradise for the non vegetarian people. Huge varieties of sea food along with the commonly available meats are for sale. Crocodile meat was also for sale, didn’t try it though. A fruit, which looks like Jackfruit for us back home is the Durian. Apparently it has such a smell, which some love and some hate, that you are not allowed to carry durians in cabs, buses, trains or flights. Someday, am sure I ll find out why it is so.

Food from the streets of Thailand

So, this was a quick recap of our weeklong Thai tour. The final cost to us, including the flights, transfers and boat tours was about ₹1.3 lakhs. So, in about ₹1.5 lakhs, it is possible for a couple to spend a week having fun at Thailand.

The Visa fee was waived at the time we went for our trip, but we paid 200 THB per head to skip the queue. That smoothened up the Visa entry procedure considerably. The people around are helpful and the signboards plentiful. There should be no problems. Booking a scooter is easy. Cost is reasonable, so is the fuel cost. We had to keep our passports as collateral to take the scooters, which feels a bit scary, but then, that’s how things are. One must always ensure that they are decently dressed while entering a place of worship and be respectful to the people. Give respect to earn it.

I hope that you enjoyed the account of our trip. More to follow soon.

Cheers!!

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