IndusInd Bank Legend Credit Card

Quick verdict: Read the current terms, not the old reviews. The IndusInd Legend was genuinely compelling — zero forex, unlimited global lounges, below super-premium pricing — but in 2026 it's been dismantled: lounge access was discontinued in March 2025, forex is 1.8% (not 0%), and InterMiles redemption is gone. What's left is a decent rewards card that costs ₹5,000 once at the front and nothing on renewal — nothing like the travel flagship the marketing implies.

This review has to open with a correction, because the gap between how the Legend is described and what it actually is in 2026 is the most important thing about it. Older reviews and marketing still sell the IndusInd Legend as a zero-forex, unlimited-global-lounge card at half the super-premium price. In 2026 that's simply wrong on both counts: the Legend charges a 1.8% forex markup, and its complimentary lounge access was discontinued in March 2025. What remains is a rewards card with a real one-time entry cost — fine on its own terms, but nothing like the travel flagship the marketing implies.

What actually changed

IndusInd quietly hollowed out the Legend's travel proposition over 2025:

• Lounge access discontinued (7 March 2025): the complimentary airport lounge benefit — once a headline

feature — is gone. A card sold partly on "unlimited global lounge access" now offers none.

• Forex is 1.8%, not 0%: no zero-forex benefit. The 1.8% markup is low-ish (better than the 3.5%

standard) but a markup, and since 15 June 2026 a 2% dynamic currency conversion fee applies on top if a foreign merchant bills you in rupees — IndusInd doubled that fee from 1% on the same date.

• InterMiles redemption discontinued (21 January 2025): a redemption route holders relied on for

converting points to miles, removed across IndusInd's cards.

So the two pillars the Legend was famous for — zero forex and unlimited lounges — are both gone. Choosing this card on those features in 2026 would mean buying something that no longer exists.

The lounge claim IndusInd hasn't taken down

This one is worth stating plainly, because the bank's own page argues with itself. The Legend product page carries the notice that "effective 7th March 2025, Lounge Access feature will be discontinued" — and, on the same page, still advertises access to "600+ lounges" using a "complimentary Priority Pass", with a line item valuing the membership for you and your partner. The linked Priority Pass terms settle it: a usage charge of up to US$35 per person applies each time a cardholder visits a lounge. The membership survives; the free visits do not. Read the T&C, not the benefits grid.

What it costs

IndusInd's Most Important Terms and Conditions — the only credit-card fee schedule the bank publishes — gives the Legend a one-time joining fee of ₹5,000 and an annual fee of NIL. That structure is the bank's house style rather than an anomaly: the Nexxt is ₹10,000 in with no annual fee, the Pinnacle ₹15,000, all read from the same table. So the Legend is not a card that costs ₹0 a year — it is a card you pay for once and then hold for nothing.

Two caveats belong on the record. First, the fee column is headed "actual fees will be conveyed at the time of application", and the product page says welcome gifts are available "at select fee points only" — so ₹5,000 is the published rack fee point, not a universal charge, and you should confirm yours before applying. Second, IndusInd's own credit-card hub still badges the Legend "Lifetime Free". We follow the Schedule of Charges, because that badge sits in a block of copy that has not been updated in a year and still credits the Legend with the airport lounge access the bank withdrew in March 2025.

What the Legend is now

Stripped back, the Legend is a rewards card earning 1 reward point per ₹100 on weekdays and 2 per ₹100 on weekends — a calendar-weighted 1.43 points per ₹100 if your spending is spread evenly — with points that never expire. Airmile transfers still exist after InterMiles, to KrisFlyer and Air India Maharaja, but at 4 points to 1 mile, the weakest IndusInd tier: the calendar-weighted 1.43 points per ₹100 becomes about 0.36 miles per ₹100, so transfers rarely beat the card's own point value. Since January 2022, medical, automobile and telecom spends are carved out of the weekend doubling and earn a flat 1 point per ₹100. Fuel earns nothing on the Legend, as on most IndusInd cards, since April 2018. A second carve-out is easier to miss and costs more: utility, insurance, government, education and rent spends earn a reduced 0.70 points per ₹100 — roughly 0.35% — under IndusInd's August 2019 rewards revision, with rent added to that list in January 2022. It is half the calendar-weighted headline rate, and it lands on precisely the recurring bills people most often try to route through a card.

There is also a 3,000-point bonus at ₹5 lakh of spend in a card anniversary year, credited within 45 days, though low-MCC spends — fuel, transport and tolls, utilities, insurance, education, telecom, brokers and government — don't count toward the target. IndusInd's wording is genuinely ambiguous about whether that bonus repeats every anniversary year or applies only in the first; we model it as recurring, which is the more common reading, but don't plan around it.

You still get a Priority Pass membership, with a per-visit fee now that the complimentary visits are gone, plus a BookMyShow buy-one-get-one (up to ₹200). Redemption has tightened too. Since 1 September 2024 cash redemption on the Legend is capped at 5,000 points a calendar month, and since 1 April 2025 each cash redemption costs ₹149 + GST and can use at most half your balance, so it pays to redeem in larger, less frequent batches. With no annual fee, the bar for "worth keeping" once you own it is still low, and the rewards engine — while no longer paired with premium travel perks — still earns reasonably for everyday use.

The IndusInd context

The Legend's de-featuring is part of a broader pattern at IndusInd, which has trimmed benefits across its portfolio (lounge removals, redemption-route discontinuations). The lesson for a cardholder: value the Legend strictly on what it offers today — a rewards card with no renewal cost — and don't assume the travel perks will return. Treat every current benefit as provisional.

Who should hold it

As it actually exists in 2026, the Legend suits someone content to pay once for a rewards card with weekend-spend acceleration and points that never expire — with no expectation of lounge access or zero forex. Because the cost is front-loaded and never repeats, the longer you hold it the better it reads.

It's the wrong card for the international traveller who came for "zero forex" (it's 1.8% plus a 2% DCC fee), for anyone who wanted the "unlimited lounges" (discontinued), and for anyone misled by the outdated marketing into thinking this is a budget super-premium travel card. It isn't anymore.

Should you get it?

The IndusInd Bank Legend is a cautionary tale about reading current terms rather than old reviews. The card that was genuinely compelling — zero forex, unlimited global lounges, below super-premium pricing — has been dismantled: lounge access discontinued in March 2025, forex 1.8% (not 0%), InterMiles redemption gone. What's left is a rewards card that asks ₹5,000 once and nothing thereafter — fine as an everyday earner but bearing no resemblance to the travel flagship its old reputation still advertises. Want a weekend-boosted rewards card you pay for once? It qualifies, at whatever fee point you're offered. Came for the zero-forex, unlimited-lounge legend? That card no longer exists.