A week with one change on the record and a great deal of reading behind it. The change is the Axis Burgundy Private's fee, which doubled on Monday 1 September for holders who no longer clear the relationship bar. The reading was the catalogue's: IndusInd's fee schedule, SBI's lounge and currency clauses, IDFC's and YES's redemption-fee footnotes, HDFC's SmartBuy cap matrix, Unity's category fees — none of it changes what a card pays a typical holder by much, and all of it replaces a number we had held on weaker evidence with the issuer's own words.
What took effect this week
Axis Burgundy Private — the standalone fee doubles. From 1 September 2026 the annual fee on the Burgundy Private is ₹1,00,000 plus GST where the holder's total relationship value with Axis falls below ₹5 crore, up from ₹50,000. It stays nil for clients who hold the relationship. In other words the fee is a penalty for leaving the tier, not a price for joining it, and the ₹50,000 figure that most reviews still print is now the wrong number for exactly the holders who would be checking. Axis's own documents had already split ahead of the date — the MITC printed ₹1,00,000 for both joining and annual fee while the Key Fact Sheet still printed ₹50,000 — and we recorded the customer notice as the source. This is a separate act from the 28 August T&C batch and should not be folded into it.
The record for this week: dates, before and after, sources
Axis Bank becomes a third issuer, on Mastercard and RuPay
On 3 September 2026 Scapia and Axis Bank launched the Scapia Axis Bank Credit Card, making Axis the third bank to issue the card after Federal Bank and BOBCARD. Axis issues the main card on Mastercard rather than Visa, with a RuPay edition for UPI. The headline terms match the other two banks: no joining or annual fee, zero forex markup, 10% in Scapia Coins on the main card and 5% on the RuPay edition, 20% on flights, hotels and buses booked in the Scapia app, and unlimited domestic lounges once ₹20,000 is spent in a billing cycle. Cards already issued by Federal Bank and BOBCARD are unaffected.
Verification: Axis Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
Standalone fee doubles to ₹1,00,000 for holders below the ₹5 crore relationship bar
₹50,000 + GST→₹1,00,000 + GST
Axis's customer notice states that from 1 September 2026 a revised annual fee of ₹1 lakh plus GST applies to the Burgundy Private - The One Card where total relationship value falls below ₹5 crore, doubling it from ₹50,000. The fee stays nil for clients who hold the relationship, so this bites only on the way out of the tier. Axis's own documents already disagree ahead of the date: the MITC prints ₹1,00,000 for both joining and annual fee today, while the Key Fact Sheet still prints ₹50,000. This is a separate date from the 28 August 2026 T&C batch and should not be folded into it.
Verification: Axis Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
Card phased out: holders move to Swiggy Ornge or Swiggy BLCK
HDFC is phasing the Swiggy HDFC Bank Credit Card out for every holder, with notices going out in phases until March 2027. Holders choose the Swiggy BLCK card (10% on Swiggy, ₹1,000 a year, first year free for a holder who pays a fee now) or the Swiggy Ornge card (5% on Swiggy, lifetime free for every moved holder); a holder who does not respond is moved to Ornge after at least 30 days' notice. The fee anniversary restarts and the card number changes, and the old card stops at the first use of the new one, after 60 days, or at its expiry. HDFC's own files date the process to September (migration terms dated 18-09-2026, both FAQs published on 30 September 2026); the exact start is not published. Rated a devaluation because both routes cost a heavy Swiggy user: the default halves the Swiggy rate, and the route that keeps 10% costs ₹1,000 a year.
Verification: HDFC Bank ↗ · Confidence: Reconstructed
3-month Swiggy One welcome membership ends
Complimentary 3-month Swiggy One membership on activating the card within 30 days, alongside 12-month Times Prime→Swiggy One offer ended; 12-month Times Prime remains
HSBC's introductory offer of a complimentary 3-month Swiggy One membership, for primary cardholders who activated the card within 30 days of issuance, ran from 15 September 2025 to 31 August 2026 and has not been extended: HSBC's product page no longer lists it. The 12-month Times Prime subscription is unaffected.
Verification: HSBC India ↗ · Confidence: High
Announced, taking effect later
The Amex Platinum Travel's milestone cut was four days away when this week closed, and it is the change worth reading twice. From 10 September the ₹1.9 lakh tier pays nothing, the ₹4 lakh tier keeps its 10,000 points, and the ₹7 lakh tier swaps 22,500 points for a ₹20,000 Taj e-Gift Card. The loss in kind matters more than the loss in size: 22,500 Membership Rewards points could move to Marriott Bonvoy or KrisFlyer, and a Taj card is worth its face value only to someone who was going to spend it at Taj. Amex's whole India line-up is paused for new applications, so this concerns existing holders.
Behind it, the October and November Axis gates from the 29 July batch: the Select's ₹3 lakh milestone stops counting insurance, rent, fuel, utilities, wallet loads, gold, government services, education and gift cards from 1 October; the Amex lounge visits become spend-gated on the same day; the movie offers and the MyZone's District buy-one-get-one become spend-gated on 1 November; and complimentary memberships on six Axis premium cards switch to opt-in renewal from 15 November.
Everything scheduled as this week ended, soonest first
Dates are the issuer’s effective dates; the calendar feed carries the same dates.
- Issuer noticeEffective 9 Sept 2026IDFC FIRST Bank· 1 change across 14 cards▲ Fee
Forex markup removed
1% to 3.5%, depending on the card→0% (nil)
IDFC FIRST Bank stopped charging a markup on foreign-currency spends on all its credit cards from 9 September 2026, the effective date its letter to cardmembers gives. Its Key Fact Statement dated 15 September 2026 lists the markup on foreign-currency and currency-conversion transactions as nil, with no card-by-card exception, where the January 2026 edition charged 3.5% on most cards and less on a few (1.99% on the FIRST Select, 1.5% on the FIRST Wealth, 1.49% on the IndiGo card and 1% on the Ashva). The same letter says international spends stop earning reward points from 26 October 2026 on most IDFC FIRST cards; that is recorded as its own change.
Applies to 14 cards
IDFC FIRST Ashva Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Classic Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Digital RuPay Credit Card · IDFC FIRST EA₹N Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Hello Cashback Credit Card · IDFC FIRST HPCL Power+ Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Millennia Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Power Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Select Credit Card · IDFC FIRST SWYP Credit Card · IDFC FIRST Wealth Credit Card · IndiGo IDFC FIRST Credit Card · LIC Classic Credit Card · LIC Select Credit Card
Verification: IDFC FIRST Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
- ▼ MilestoneObserved 10 Aug 2026 · Effective 10 Sept 2026American Express Platinum Travel Credit Card
Second milestone cut in six months — ₹1.9L tier deleted, ₹7L points traded for a bigger Taj card
₹1.9L→7,500 MR; ₹4L→10,000 MR; ₹7L→22,500 MR + ₹10,000 Taj voucher→₹1.9L→nothing; ₹4L→10,000 MR; ₹7L→₹20,000 Taj Experiences e-Gift Card, no points
From 10 September 2026 the ₹1.9 lakh milestone stops paying its 7,500 bonus Membership Rewards points altogether, and the ₹7 lakh milestone drops its 22,500 bonus points in exchange for doubling the Taj Experiences e-Gift Card from ₹10,000 to ₹20,000. The ₹4 lakh tier and its 10,000 points are untouched. Cumulatively a member who spends ₹7 lakh goes from 40,000 milestone points plus a ₹10,000 Taj voucher to 10,000 points plus a ₹20,000 Taj card — at this card's conservative ₹0.50/point that is roughly ₹30,000 of milestone value down to ₹25,000, and the loss is worse below ₹7 lakh because the entry tier now pays nothing at all. The bigger change is in kind rather than in size: 22,500 Membership Rewards points could transfer to Marriott Bonvoy or KrisFlyer, while a Taj e-Gift Card is only worth its face value to someone who was going to spend ₹20,000 at Taj anyway. This is the second devaluation of the same ladder in six months, after the 9 March 2026 restructure.
Verification: CardAdvisor Research · Confidence: High
Tolls stop earning Uni Coins; public transport and insurance earn only up to a monthly limit
Tolls, public transport and insurance earned Uni Coins like other eligible spends→Tolls earn nothing; public transport earns on up to ₹20,000 and insurance on up to ₹50,000 of spend a month
From 19 September 2026, BOBCARD's MITC stops Uni Coins on tolls and bridge and road fees (MCC 4784), and pays them on public transport (MCC 4111, 4112 and 4131) only for the first ₹20,000 of spend a month and on insurance premiums (MCC 6300 and 5960) only for the first ₹50,000. Everyday spends still earn 1%.
Verification: BOBCARD ↗ · Confidence: High
- Issuer noticeEffective 22 Sept 2026Axis Bank· 4 changes across 10 cards▲ Transfer
Accor ALL returns as a transfer partner, in Group A
Accor ALL unavailable since 2 April 2026→Accor ALL back, in Group A
Accor Live Limitless is back in the EDGE transfer table, almost six months after Axis removed it on 2 April 2026. It returns in Group A, so it shares the smaller annual cap, and on several cards at a less generous ratio than the card gives its airline partners; the Atlas, for instance, moves 2 EDGE Miles into 1 Accor point where most of its airlines get 1 into 2. Check the card's own transfer table before planning a large transfer.
Applies to 10 cards
Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card · Axis Bank Burgundy Private Credit Card · Axis Bank Horizon Credit Card · Axis Bank Magnus Credit Card · Axis Bank Olympus Credit Card · Axis Bank Privilege Credit Card · Axis Bank Reserve Credit Card · Axis Bank Rewards Credit Card · Axis Bank Select Credit Card · IndianOil Axis Bank Premium Credit Card
▲ TransferCathay Asia Miles, Lufthansa Miles & More and Hilton Honors added
None of the three available→Asia Miles in Group A; Miles & More and Hilton Honors in Group B
Three new programmes joined the EDGE transfer table in the same overnight change. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles sits in Group A with the smaller annual cap; Lufthansa Miles & More and Hilton Honors sit in Group B with the larger one. Ratios vary by card.
Applies to 10 cards
Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card · Axis Bank Burgundy Private Credit Card · Axis Bank Horizon Credit Card · Axis Bank Magnus Credit Card · Axis Bank Olympus Credit Card · Axis Bank Privilege Credit Card · Axis Bank Reserve Credit Card · Axis Bank Rewards Credit Card · Axis Bank Select Credit Card · IndianOil Axis Bank Premium Credit Card
▼ TransferClub ITC removed as a transfer partner
Club ITC available→Club ITC removed
Axis dropped Club ITC from its EDGE transfer table in the same overnight change. It had been one of the better-value hotel routes left after the April 2026 cut, since ITC points redeem against stays and dining at ITC hotels in India.
Applies to 10 cards
Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card · Axis Bank Burgundy Private Credit Card · Axis Bank Horizon Credit Card · Axis Bank Magnus Credit Card · Axis Bank Olympus Credit Card · Axis Bank Privilege Credit Card · Axis Bank Reserve Credit Card · Axis Bank Rewards Credit Card · Axis Bank Select Credit Card · IndianOil Axis Bank Premium Credit Card
▼ TransferFlying Blue, Air India and Qantas moved into the smaller Group A transfer cap
Group B (the larger annual transfer allowance)→Group A (a quarter of the Group B allowance); ratios unchanged
Axis moved Air France-KLM Flying Blue, Air India Maharaja Club and Qantas Frequent Flyer from Group B to Group A of its EDGE transfer partners, overnight and without notice. The conversion ratios did not change, but Group A carries a quarter of the Group B annual allowance, so far fewer points can reach these three programmes each year. On the Atlas, for example, the most that can go to Air India in a calendar year falls from 1,20,000 EDGE Miles to 30,000.
Applies to 10 cards
Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card · Axis Bank Burgundy Private Credit Card · Axis Bank Horizon Credit Card · Axis Bank Magnus Credit Card · Axis Bank Olympus Credit Card · Axis Bank Privilege Credit Card · Axis Bank Reserve Credit Card · Axis Bank Rewards Credit Card · Axis Bank Select Credit Card · IndianOil Axis Bank Premium Credit Card
Verification: Axis Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
- Issuer noticeEffective 23 Sept 2026SBI Card· 1 change across 3 cards▼ Transfer
Air France-KLM Flying Blue removed as a transfer partner
Flying Blue at 1:1; 17 airline partners + 8 hotel partners (25 total)→Flying Blue removed; 16 airline partners + 8 hotel partners (24 total)
SBI dropped Air France-KLM Flying Blue from the MILES-family transfer table with no customer notice we could find. The archived copy of 4 August 2026 lists it as airline row 4 at 1:1; the PDF SBI re-issued on 23 September 2026 does not mention Flying Blue, Air France or KLM anywhere and lists 16 airlines. The change therefore lands between 4 August and 23 September 2026, dated here to the day the new PDF was created. Hotel partners are untouched at 8 and no other ratio moved. Applies identically to MILES, MILES PRIME and Miles Elite, because SBI publishes one transfer table for all three. Aeroplan, British Airways, Cathay and Qantas remain at 1:1 for the same kind of long-haul redemption.
Applies to 3 cards
SBI Card MILES · SBI Card Miles Elite · SBI Card MILES PRIME
Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: Reconstructed
- Issuer noticeEffective 30 Sept 2026American Express· 1 change across 5 cards▼ Reward
Reward Multiplier discontinued; ShopWise e-vouchers keep their bonus
Bonus points on Reward Multiplier brand links and on ShopWise e-vouchers→Bonus points on ShopWise e-vouchers only (capped at 25,000 bonus points a month)
American Express is ending its Reward Multiplier programme on 30 September 2026. Bonus points on purchases made through Amex's links to individual brands, such as Apple, Myntra, Nykaa and MakeMyTrip flights and hotels, end with it; purchases made up to 11:59 PM on 29 September still earn under the old terms. Bonus points on e-vouchers continue through ShopWise, which Amex now runs as a separate platform, at the card's existing ShopWise rate and capped at 25,000 bonus points a month. Base earn and the value of a Membership Rewards point do not change.
Verification: American Express ↗ · Confidence: High
Domestic lounge access gated behind ₹1L of spend in the previous quarter
2 complimentary domestic visits per calendar quarter, unconditional→2 per quarter only if ₹1,00,000 of eligible spend in the preceding calendar quarter
From 1 October 2026 the card's two complimentary domestic airport lounge visits per calendar quarter stop being unconditional: a member has to have spent ₹1 lakh or more in eligible transactions during the preceding calendar quarter to get them in the next one. Amex is easing the first quarter in — for October–December 2026 the bar is ₹70,000 of spend across July–September 2026 rather than ₹1 lakh. The allowance itself is unchanged at up to 8 visits a year; what changed is that lumpy spenders now lose whole quarters, since the ₹1 lakh has to land inside one quarter and does not carry over. A member pacing evenly toward the ₹4 lakh milestone clears the bar automatically; one who front-loads a year of spend does not.
Verification: CardAdvisor Research · Confidence: High
- Bank-wide changeEffective 1 Oct 2026AU Small Finance Bank· 1 change across 6 cards▼ Fee
Fuel surcharge waiver cap cut from ₹150 to ₹100 a month
1% waiver, capped at ₹100 per statement month
From 1 October 2026 the Altura Plus's 1% fuel surcharge waiver (on fills of ₹400 to ₹5,000) is capped at ₹100 per statement month, down from ₹150, so the most it can save in a year falls from ₹1,800 to ₹1,200. AU announced it on the card's own page ("Effective 1st October 2026, Fuel Surcharge Waiver will be up to ₹100 per statement cycle") and moved the card into the ₹100 row of its MITC dated 30 September 2026.
Verification: AU Small Finance Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
- Bank-wide changeEffective 1 Oct 2026AU Small Finance Bank· 1 change across 2 cards▼ Fee
Forex markup raised from 1.99% to 3.49%
3.49% on international transactions
From 1 October 2026 AU raised the Zenith's cross-currency markup from 1.99% to 3.49%, so an international spend now costs about 4.1% on top once GST is added. AU announced it on the card's own page ("Effective 1st October 2026, Forex Markup will be revised from 1.99% to 3.49% for your international transactions") and moved the card into its 3.49% group in the Key Fact Statement v1.9 and the MITC dated 30 September 2026; the July 2026 editions still listed it at 1.99%.
Applies to 2 cards
Verification: AU Small Finance Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
- Bank-wide changeEffective 1 Oct 2026AU Small Finance Bank· 1 change across 2 cards▼ Lounge
Domestic lounge visits now need ₹50,000 of spend in the quarter before
2 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits per quarter on a purchase-active card→2 visits per quarter, only after ₹50,000 of spend in the previous calendar quarter
From 1 October 2026 the AU CA card's two complimentary domestic airport lounge visits a quarter follow the spend gate AU has applied to its other cards since 10 April 2026: they need net retail spend of ₹50,000 or more on the card in the previous calendar quarter, so the October to December visits depend on July to September spend. Until then a purchase-active card was enough. AU's airport lounge terms, issued on 30 September 2026, revise the condition "(for CA & CS from 1st Oct 2026)". The card is open only to Chartered Accountants.
Applies to 2 cards
Verification: AU Small Finance Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
Excluded categories stop counting toward the Rs 3 lakh milestone bar
All spend counted toward the Rs 3 lakh anniversary threshold→Nine excluded merchant categories no longer count toward it
The Select's Rs 3 lakh anniversary-year milestone — which unlocks 6 extra international lounge visits, 6 extra golf rounds and the following year's Priority Pass renewal — keeps its benefits and its threshold, but narrows what counts toward it. From 1 October 2026 spend in the categories that already earn no reward points stops contributing: insurance, rent, fuel, educational services, utilities and telecom, wallet loads, gold and jewellery, government services and gift cards. If a meaningful slice of your Rs 3 lakh came from rent or utilities, the bar is now materially harder than the headline number suggests.
Verification: Axis Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
Shopping 10% needs more than ₹15,000 of spend in the statement cycle
50 Jewels per ₹100 on every eligible purchase→5 Jewels per ₹100 instantly; 45 more only if cycle spend tops ₹15,000
From 5 October 2026 the 10% shopping rate (50 Jewels per ₹100) at Amazon, Flipkart and Jupiter's other named brands is paid in two parts. 5 Jewels per ₹100 are credited on every purchase; the other 45 are added at the end of the statement cycle only if total qualifying spend in that cycle is more than ₹15,000, and are cancelled if it is not. In a lighter cycle the named brands therefore earn 1%, the same as everyday spend. The caps of 1,000 Jewels a transaction, 3,000 a merchant and 10,000 a cycle, the 25 Jewels per ₹100 on Jupiter Flights and everyday earning are unchanged. The two issuer-side documents disagree on the start date: CSB Bank's card terms date the new table from 5 October 2026 ("Applicable 05th October, 2026 onwards"), while Jupiter's own terms page gives 10 October ("Applicable till 09th October, 2026" for the old table). This record follows CSB, the issuer; a statement from the first days of October may still show the old rate.
Verification: CSB Bank ↗ · Confidence: High
Catalogue: re-read against the issuer this week
- IndusInd, 17 cards, against IndusInd's MITC. The reward-redemption fee is priced by route — ₹149 for cash, ₹100 for every other category, 5% plus GST between ₹5 and ₹100 for Twid pay-with-rewards. Seventeen records had carried the cash surcharge as the only fee, overstating a voucher or catalogue redemption by 49%. The label-to-value binding was proved by cell coordinates in the PDF rather than adjacency, because this repository has twice been burned by a flattened table pairing unrelated cells; a second IndusInd notice agrees with the reading.
- SBI Card MILES, against SBI's rendered product page. The lounge allowance — four domestic visits a year, at most two a quarter — was the last aggregator-sourced number on the card, and SBI's static documents do not carry it. A headless-browser capture of SBI's own page does, with one self-contradiction ("every quarter" where the sibling cards say "every year") resolved by the siblings' identical sentence template. No number moved; the source did.
- SBI's dynamic currency conversion clause, six cards. SBI's MITC gives DCC at exactly its forex rates — 3% on MILES, 2.5% on MILES PRIME, 1.99% on AURUM, Elite, Tata Neu Infinity and MILES ELITE, 3.5% elsewhere — and only on transactions of ₹1,000 or more. Recorded as sourced prose on the six cards where it differs from the market default.
- Three issuer-waived redemption fees, recorded as free. IDFC FIRST Private and IDFC IndiGo are named in the footnote to IDFC's ₹99 fee in both its MITC and Key Fact Statement; YES Private is named in YES's MITC. All three had carried "unknown" — which, it turned out, dropped the fee row from the card page and from the model's grounding entirely.
- Axis IndiGo pair, against the T&C. The exclusions prose was three categories short of the document and is now complete; the IndiGo's live nil fee-waiver is recorded without losing the ₹799 list fee.
- Roarbank RuPay Credit Card, against Unity's MITC. Unity charges its own transaction fee of one per cent — a charge, not a reward — on fuel, on wallet and card top-ups and on utility spend, once each category crosses ₹5,000 in a month, effective 26 June 2026; and it publishes no base reward rate at all. Both facts are now on the card record, as prose — the same treatment every other threshold-shaped category fee in the catalogue gets.
- HDFC's SmartBuy cap matrix, three cards. HDFC republished the matrix at a fetchable URL. The Diners Club Privilege cap is now issuer-sourced, named verbatim; the Regalia Gold stays an inference because the matrix never names it while discriminating inside the Regalia family; the Diners Black's provenance notes were cleaned up. No cap value moved. Filed as an open question: HDFC publishes a per-day ceiling that our model does not carry.
- Axis Priority Pass change carried into four card records (Burgundy Private, Magnus, Olympus, Reserve), and the Burgundy Private fee applied to the record on its date, not before.
- The engine now models tolls and gift cards as their own categories, following the Axis notice, across 57 card records.
How to read this
Dates on every row are the issuer's effective dates; where the record knows when we observed a change, that date is shown separately. Sources are linked on each row, and the provenance tier says whether the source is the issuer's own document or a specialist publisher's report.
A quiet week here is a statement about our record, not about the market. The tracker's document intake is uneven — some issuers' documents cannot be fetched at all, and a share of the catalogue has no document source yet — so a change we have not recorded may well exist. If you know of one, the suggest form reaches the editor directly, and the full ledger is at /changes.
Cite this
Every row referenced above is in the open change record (https://cardadvisor.in/changes), dated and sourced. The write-up is a dated document and is not edited after publication; later corrections go on the corrections page.
Source: <a href="https://cardadvisor.in/press/credit-card-changes-2026-w36">Indian credit card changes, 31 Aug – 6 Sept 2026</a>, CardAdvisor (CC BY 4.0).
I have spent over a decade on Indian credit cards, mostly for the points and miles. I am a software engineer by profession, I hold and use the cards I write about, and I redeem through airline and hotel transfer partners: Avios, KrisFlyer, Flying Blue, Air India Maharaja Club, Accor ALL, Marriott Bonvoy and Taj. What I write about is what a card is actually worth after the fine print, the caps and exclusions that decide the real return, and the changes issuers make quietly. No paid placements.
Frequently asked questions
Did the Axis Burgundy Private annual fee really double?
What is IndusInd's reward redemption fee now?
Which cards had a redemption fee recorded that their issuer actually waives?
Written from the issuer’s own documents and our dated change record. The full ledger → · How we work →