SBI Card ELITE

Quick verdict: The ELITE was always a membership portfolio more than a rewards card — and in 2026 the Vistara-Air India merger pulled the Trident and Club Vistara status memberships out. What remains is quietly decent: a low ~1.99% forex, 6 international Priority Pass visits, 5X on everyday categories, and milestones worth up to ₹12,500. It's now a travel-leaning card for the internationally-mobile SBI customer.

The SBI Card ELITE was always more of a membership portfolio than a rewards card. Its draw wasn't the earn rate — it was the bundle of complimentary status memberships (Trident Privilege Red hotel status, Club Vistara Silver airline status) stacked on lounge access and movie benefits. In 2026 the Vistara-Air India merger pulled those memberships out, and the ELITE is left to stand on the parts that remain. The good news: some of those parts — a low forex markup, generous milestones, real international lounge access — are stronger than the card usually gets credit for.

The memberships changed hands

The headline change is a substitution, and it isn't an even trade. The ELITE's complimentary Trident Red Tier and Club Vistara Silver Tier memberships have been discontinued following the merger and the restructuring of Vistara's loyalty program under Air India's Maharaja Club. In their place SBI now grants a complimentary 1-year Club ITC Silver Tier membership, which lands after your first transaction within 60 days of issuance. Club ITC Silver is a thinner proposition than airline status — earn-rate perks and member rates rather than upgrades and lounge entitlements — so if you wanted this card for the airline status, that reason is genuinely gone. But the membership slot is not empty, and anyone still describing the 2026 ELITE as a card that lost its memberships and got nothing back is a version behind.

What remains — and it's better than you'd think

Set aside the lost memberships and the ELITE keeps a respectable core:

• A ~1.99% forex markup — among the lowest of any Indian card, a genuine reason to carry it abroad.
• 6 complimentary international Priority Pass visits a year, plus domestic lounge access.
• 5X reward points on dining, groceries and departmental stores; 2X elsewhere.
• A milestone structure worth up to ₹12,500 in bonus reward points — four separate awards that

stack: 10,000 points at ₹3 lakh, another 10,000 at ₹4 lakh, 15,000 at ₹5 lakh and 15,000 at ₹8 lakh, 50,000 in total. Effectively a fee rebate for the heavy spender.

• ₹500 off per BookMyShow booking, up to ₹6,000 a year — primary cardholder only — and a **₹5,000

welcome e-gift voucher** (Yatra, Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop, Bata and the like) that covers about 85% of the ₹5,899 all-in first-year fee.

• A 1% fuel surcharge waiver on transactions of ₹500–₹4,000, capped at ₹250 a statement cycle, and a

₹1 lakh fraud liability cover.

One thing the brochure won't tell you: the 5X rate is capped at 10,000 points a calendar month across all the accelerated categories together, after which you drop back to 2 points per ₹100. That binds at about ₹1 lakh a month of dining-plus-grocery spend. And SBI names Metro Cash & Carry, Reliance Market and Walmart as ineligible for the accelerated rate — precisely where a heavy grocery spender would try to max it.

The ₹4,999 fee waives at ₹10 lakh. For someone who travels internationally and clears the milestones, the ELITE still assembles a coherent premium package.

The honest read

The ELITE's best reward rate (~2.5%, only on dining, grocery and departmental stores, with ~0.5% elsewhere) is unremarkable for the fee, and with the memberships gone its case now rests on forex + international lounges + milestones rather than the prestige bundle it used to lead with. That's a narrower but more honest proposition: a travel-leaning premium card for the SBI customer who flies internationally and spends enough to bank the milestones. Pure points-hunters will find better per-rupee math elsewhere; the ELITE was never really about the points.

It sits alongside the SBI PRIME, which suffered the same membership losses. The two earn at the same accelerated rate — 10 RP per ₹100, ~2.5% — however SBI badges it ("5X" here, "10 reward points" there). The real trade is breadth against ceiling: the PRIME adds a fourth category (movies) but stops accelerating at 7,500 points a calendar month; the ELITE covers only dining and departmental stores/groceries and runs to 10,000. They tie up to about ₹75,000 a month of shared-category spend, above which the ELITE pulls ahead — by up to 2,000 points a month, roughly ₹500. The ELITE also leans more travel (lower forex, more international lounge access). Pick by whether your category spend is broad or heavy.

Who should hold it

The ELITE suits the SBI customer who travels internationally, will use the 1.99% forex and 6 international Priority Pass visits, and spends enough (toward ₹8–10 lakh) to capture the milestones and fee waiver. For that traveller it remains a sensible, fee-recoverable premium card.

It's the wrong card for anyone who wanted the discontinued Trident/Vistara memberships, for the rewards-maximiser (a ~2.5% category rate over a ~0.5% base trails same-fee rivals), and for the low spender who'll neither travel abroad nor hit the milestones.

Should you get it?

The SBI Card ELITE entered 2026 as a membership-led premium card and lost its memberships to the Vistara-Air India merger. What survives is quietly decent: a low ~1.99% forex, 6 international Priority Pass visits, 5X on everyday categories, and milestones worth up to ₹12,500 that rebate the fee for a heavy spender. It's now best understood as a travel-leaning card for the internationally-mobile SBI customer, not the status bundle it once was. Judge it on the forex, the lounges and the milestones — and if you want the same accelerated rate spread over one more category (movies) at a lower fee, look at the PRIME, bearing in mind its lower 7,500-point monthly ceiling.