RBL Bank Apex Credit Card

Quick verdict: A low-fee cashback card built around RBL's rewards portal — unlimited 2% back on flights, hotels, shopping and vouchers booked through the portal, a flat 1% (capped ₹500/month) everywhere else, and two milestone cashbacks worth ₹3,000 that can cover the ₹1,000 fee. The value is real, but only if you route your bookings through RBL's portal.

The RBL Apex is one of RBL's more honest low-fee cards: it doesn't pretend to be a premium travel product, it's a cashback card with a portal twist. Understand that twist and the card either works well or barely works at all — there isn't much middle ground.

The 2% is portal-gated — read this first

The headline is unlimited 2% cashback on flights, hotels, shopping and gift vouchers. The asterisk that decides everything: that 2% only fires when you book through the RBL Bank Rewards Portal. Book a flight on the airline's own site or a hotel directly, and you're not earning 2% — you're earning the card's base 1% cashback, which is capped at ₹500 a month.

So the Apex rewards a specific behaviour: funnelling your travel and shopping spend through RBL's portal rather than booking wherever you like. If that fits how you shop, the 2% is genuinely uncapped and adds up. If it doesn't, you've got an ordinary 1%-capped cashback card.

The Apex isn't a 2% card. It's a 2%-if-you-use-the-portal card and a 1%-capped card the rest of the time — decide which one you'll actually be.

Where the fee really gets covered

The ₹1,000 fee is easiest to justify through the milestones, not the everyday earn: ₹1,000 cashback at ₹2 lakh of eligible annual spend and a further ₹2,000 at ₹4 lakh — up to ₹3,000. Add welcome vouchers worth over ₹1,000 on your first transaction, and an active spender is comfortably ahead before the cashback even counts. There's also one domestic lounge visit per calendar quarter, unlocked by ₹35,000 of spend in the previous quarter — which is worth reading carefully, because it means a new cardholder gets nothing in the quarter the card arrives, and a quiet quarter costs you the next one's visit.

There is also a fee route RBL barely advertises: opening a new RBL Bank Savings Account alongside the card waives the ₹1,000 annual fee outright, for as long as that account stays open. There is no spend-based waiver on the Apex, so for anyone willing to hold an RBL savings relationship this is the only way the fee goes away — and it changes the value maths considerably.

The small perks are better than the fee suggests, too: a buy-one-get-one BookMyShow ticket each month, up to ₹100, is worth about ₹1,200 a year to a regular cinemagoer. And one quiet plus RBL doesn't shout about: Apex is on the bank's list of cards with no ₹99 reward-redemption fee, so your cashback isn't nibbled at redemption.

What doesn't earn

The exclusion list is the usual cashback-card story, and it's long enough to matter: fuel and auto, utilities, insurance, education, rent and real estate, wallet loads, government services, quasi-cash and cash, EMI conversions and Bills2Pay all earn nothing. If a big share of your monthly outflow is utilities, school fees and fuel — as it is for many households — the Apex simply won't touch it. Pair it with a dedicated fuel card and keep the Apex for portal bookings and general shopping.

How it stacks up

Against a broad cashback rival like the SBI Cashback, the Apex is a different shape: that card pays a simple percentage on most spends, while the Apex concentrates its best rate inside a booking portal. If you value simplicity, a flat-rate card wins; if you book a lot of travel through a bank portal anyway, the Apex's uncapped 2% there can pull ahead. Within the RBL stable it sits above the everyday RBL Icon for portal-heavy spenders. If you'd rather learn how to weigh a portal rate against a flat rate for your own spending, our guide to choosing a cashback card walks through the trade-off.

Who should hold it

The Apex suits the RBL customer who books travel and shopping through the bank's rewards portal and will chase the ₹2 lakh and ₹4 lakh milestones. For that person the ₹1,000 fee is easily recovered and the uncapped 2% is a genuine edge.

It's the wrong card for someone who books directly and won't touch the portal (the capped 1% is mediocre), and for anyone whose spend skews to the excluded categories. Match your habits to the portal, and the Apex is a tidy, low-fee earner; ignore the portal, and you've bought a 1% card with a cap.