FreeCharge Launches 5 Day Shopping Festival to Promote FreeCharge Go

In a bid to boost adoption of its recently launched virtual card, Snapdeal-owned payments platform FreeCharge has gone live with its five day FreeCharge Go Shopping festival, which will be held from 11 to 15 February.

As part of FreeCharge Go Shopping festival, the platform is giving away a 25 percent cash back on payments made using its Go card, in addition to discounts ranging from 15 to 70 percent from participating merchants.

Notable offers include a 25 percent flat discount on bookings made on bus booking portal Redbus, along with a Rs. 100 cashback. Yatra is offering a discount of Rs. 700 discount on domestic flights along with Rs. 3,000 in Yatra eCash. Restaurant listings and ordering platform Zomato is offering a flat 20 percent discount, along with a maximum cashback of Rs. 200. Travel aggregator GoIbibo.com is offering upto 70 percent discounts on dometic hotel bookings, with a maximum cashback of Rs. 2,500.

Other participating merchants include Jabong, Freshmenu, Peppertap, Ferns & Petals, GiftXoXo, Limeroad.com, Swiggy, travelyaari.com, and voonik.com.

According to the terms and conditions listed on the page, the cashback will be credited to the FreeCharge Go MasterCard account within 24 hours, and can be redeemed within 185 days from the date of credit. The page states that the cashback offer is is valid for only two transactions at any of the participating merchant websites.

"Through this initiative we intend to provide customers with more use cases and compelling reasons to shop. We are excited to partner with the best of brands in the online space as we strive to create the digital payments OS for the country" said Govind Rajan, Chief Operating Officer, FreeCharge, in an emailed statement.

Launched in partnership with Yes Bank and powered by MasterCard, the 'FreeCharge Go' card was launched on 21st January 2015 and has been used by over half a million people within weeks of launch, the company said.

Users can create and top up their virtual FreeCharge Go card in seconds from their FreeCharge account, and use to to make online payments on Indian e-commerce portals that accept MasterCard. Users can enter the 16 digit card FreeCharge Go card number at the checkout page of any Indian shopping website or app, and then enter an OTP sent to the mobile number registered with the account to complete the transaction.

As we've noted earlier, unlike regular debit or credit cards, FreeCharge Go cannot be used for offline payments or on international payment gateways yet.