ixigo AU
KeepA lifetime-free 0%-forex card with 16 lounge visits and rail access — the rewards are just a coupon to ixigo.
a year at ₹40,000 a month, after the fee
Skip the arithmetic — the board, ranked → · nothing to sign up for
What it's worth to you, after the fee
Welcome: 1,000 reward points + ₹1,000 ixigo money on the first transaction within 30 days — the ixigo-money voucher is new-to-bank only and expires 90 days from issuance
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied: it earns nothing on fuel here, so that spend is dropped, not paid at the headline, and stops pacing milestones and the waiver. Plus milestones, minus the fee. No accelerator credit — the ranking model on /compare adds ~20% of spend at the card's best accelerator, so its ₹ for this card reads higher.
How these numbers are computed — and why the rankings show a bigger one →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
Pays from the first rupee
At ₹1,000 a month — ₹12,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹100 gross (earn ₹100) against its ₹0 fee = ₹100 net — at or above ₹0 from the first rung we price. The ladder runs in ₹1,000 steps to ₹1,00,000 a month and ₹10,000 steps to ₹5,00,000; figures are rounded to the hundred, and the accelerator is never credited.
2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · the network variants
Our joint #1 for Forex (15 cards level); #2 for Lifetime free — 2 of the 23 questions this desk ranks.
The take
The ixigo AU is AU Small Finance Bank's first co-brand, and it is a genuinely strong free travel companion right up until you look at the points. Lifetime free, 0% forex markup in every currency, 8 domestic airport lounge visits a year (2 a quarter, gated at ₹50k prior-quarter spend), 8 railway lounge visits with no gate at all, a Priority Pass for one international visit on request, ₹2 lakh of trip protection and up to 10% off flights, hotels and buses booked on ixigo — for ₹0 a year that is a lot of card. Then the reward maths: a flat 5 points per ₹200 (2.5 per ₹100) that only reach their headline 1.25% if you burn them as ixigo money at ₹0.50 each, inside ixigo's own app, minus a ₹99+GST fee every time you redeem — and you need 200 points in hand before you can redeem at all. Cash them out instead and it is 0.5%. Nothing abroad, nothing on fuel, rent, education, government or BBPS; utility, telecom and insurance pay a reduced 1 point per ₹100, with insurance stopped dead at 100 points a transaction. Points die two years after the statement they land in. Carry it for the free forex, the two flavours of lounge and the ixigo discounts; do not carry it to earn.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
This card is lifetime free. There is no fee due, no renewal to weigh, and nothing to cancel to save.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
nothing due at the anniversary · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹0 — lifetime free
At your spend
₹3,500 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹17,100 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹24,100 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹52,300 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹70,000 a year at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
Everyday earn plus milestones, with no fee to subtract — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
The downgrade
AU Small Finance Bank publishes no document naming a card you can step down to, so we name none — an invented product change is a phone call you would waste. That leaves keep or cancel, and the numbers above are the whole of it.
What has changed under this card
- 1 Apr 2026 AU stops paying reward points on transportation merchant codes issuer-wide
- 22 Dec 2024 AU rewrites where the ixigo co-brand earns — four categories to nil, three to a reduced rate
We price what is in force today — a change that has not happened yet is not in these numbers. the full archive for this card →
If you call to cancel
What the bank offers to keep you is the one fact this desk cannot compute. We are collecting those reports — dated, and only in aggregate — before publishing any: an offer one reader was made is not one you are owed. Called about this card? Tell us what they offered →
The desk publishes subscribable .ics feeds for the dates it knows — offer deadlines, devaluations, expiry audits. Your renewal date is not one of them: only your statement knows it.
What's good
- Lifetime free with 0% forex markup — a free border-crossing card
- 16 free lounge visits a year: 8 domestic airport (₹50k/quarter gate) + 8 railway, no gate
- 1 COMPLIMENTARY international lounge visit a year on a Priority Pass issued on request — the $35+tax applies beyond that visit, and to any Priority Pass use inside India
- Up to 10% off ixigo flights/hotels/buses + ₹2L trip protection
Watch out
- Points are worth 1.25% ONLY as ixigo money in ixigo's app — 0.5% as cashback, ₹99+GST per redemption, and a 200-point minimum before you can redeem anything
- Zero reward points on international spends, fuel, rent (MCC 6513), education, government, BBPS or wallet loads
- Utility, telecom (MCC 4812/4814/4899/4900) and insurance (5960/6300) earn a REDUCED 1 point per ₹100, and insurance stops at 100 points a transaction — so a ₹50,000 premium earns the same 100 points as a ₹10,000 one
- AU's product page still carries an undated bullet saying insurance is excluded outright; its own dated notice (w.e.f. 22-Dec-2024) tables insurance at 1 RP/₹100 instead, and the page's own 22-Dec-2024 sentence omits insurance from the exclusion list. We follow the dated notice — expect a call-centre agent to quote the bullet
- The ₹1,000 ixigo-money welcome is new-to-bank customers only, credited within 15 days of activation, and valid 90 days from issuance. The 1,000 reward points post separately and follow the two-year expiry
- Points expire 2 years from the statement month they post in, not 2 years from the spend
- 10,000 RP monthly earn cap and a per-request redemption fee cap the upside
- The whole rewards value is locked to booking travel on ixigo — no transfers, no partners
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes ixigo AU Reward Points into a programme that publishes an award chart. These points buy catalogue and portal redemptions, not award seats — so this page has no flight to show you, and will not invent one.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
What earns, what doesn't
13 sourced rules · 9 pay zero
Flat 2.5 RP/₹100 (5 RP/₹200) on eligible online/offline/UPI spends. Official exclusion list (AU/ixigo): no RP on fuel, rent, education, government, jewellery, insurance, wallet loads or international spends. Utilities and telecom are NOT on the exclusion list — they earn base. 10,000 RP monthly earn cap.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP; 1% fuel surcharge waiver — band ₹400–₹5,000 per txn (CardInsider), cap ₹250/month (official); both terms hold, reconciled 2026-07-22
- Rent & property management · excluded Rent on the official no-RP exclusion list
- Wallet loads · excluded Wallet loads on the official no-RP exclusion list
- Insurance · excluded Insurance on the official no-RP exclusion list
per AU Small Finance Bank T&C (community-sourced) · rank every card by spend category →
Lounge access
717 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹50k prior-quarter spend (domestic airport visits); railway visits have no gate
Opens 717 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 283 airports and 19 railway stations , via Priority Pass Global, DreamFolks Railway — see the full map →
Can you get it?
income, age and the route in
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
per the official AU Small Finance Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the board by what you can get →
The fine print
7 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Lifetime free (a one-time ₹999 + GST applies only to the LED card variant). 50-day interest-free period. Flat 5 RP/₹200 (2.5/₹100) on online/offline/UPI, best redeemed as ixigo money at ₹0.50 (₹0.25 cashback, ₹0.20 vouchers); 10,000 RP monthly earn cap. Priority Pass renewal on request, $35+tax per lounge visit within India. No RP on fuel/rent/education/government/jewellery/insurance/wallet/international. AU bank-wide 1% fair-usage fees apply (rent min ₹99; utility past ₹50k/month; fuel past ₹10k/txn or ₹25k/month w.e.f. 1-Jul-2026). Income/age from community sources.
per the official AU Small Finance Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
8 dated changes
Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to. Every one is dated here; the tracker carries each one's before → after and the write-up.
- 7 Jul 2026AU makes the CheQ AU card lifetime free, dropping ₹499 joining and ₹499 renewal"CheQ AU — Joining Fee ₹499 & Renewal Fee ₹499"; the LED variant "Joining Fee ₹1499 & Renewal Fee ₹499"; renewal waived by spending ₹3,00,000 in a year. → "CheQ AU Credit Card — Lifetime free (₹999 + GST one-time fee applicable for LED Card only)." CheQ no longer appears in the fee-waiver block at all, because there is no fee left to waive.
Caught as live drift on 24 August 2026 and dated to the document that carries it: AU's bank-wide MITC and Schedule of Charges, version 2.21, "Last updated on 7th July'2026". The previous edition — version 2.19, 16 May 2026, still served from a different path on AU's own site — prints the old numbers in the same table, which is what makes this a change and not a reading error. AU announced nothing. A ₹499 card becoming lifetime free is a real buff and the direction is worth naming, but price it honestly, because the fee was never the problem with this card. AU advertises the CheQ AU rungs as percentages — 12% on CheQ Travel and utility bills, 5% on online shopping, 1% on everything — and every one of those headlines is exactly double what it returns, because AU prints the POINT count with a percent sign and a CheQ Point is worth ₹0.50 at AU's own published redemption rates. The base rung AU calls "1%" pays 0.5%. Removing ₹499 a year from a card that returns half what its own page claims makes it a better free card, not a good one — and the earn still lands in a CheQ app account rather than on your statement, and expires two years from credit. ONE READING TRAP, since a later lane will hit it: three editions of this MITC sit at four URLs on au.bank.in, two of them differing only in filename case and punctuation, eight months apart. Only /credit-cards/mitc(with-schedule-of-charges).pdf serves v2.21. A drift check run against any of the others is a drift check against a stale table.
- 6 May 2026AU relaunches its card range — Ananta tops a new four-card deck
- 10 Apr 2026AU more than doubles its domestic-lounge spend gate to ₹50,000/quarter
- 1 Apr 2026AU stops paying reward points on transportation merchant codes
- 22 Dec 2024AU rewrites where the ixigo co-brand earns — four categories to nil, three to a reduced rate
- 1 Apr 2024AU zeroes out rewards on fuel, rent, education and government
- 21 Mar 2024AU unveils Zenith+ — a metal card built for the departure gate
- 5 Jul 2023AU Rewardz devalues vouchers 20% and tolls every redemptionE-vouchers at ₹0.25/point; free redemptions; uncapped Zenith earning → E-vouchers cut to ₹0.20/point; ₹99 + taxes per redemption; Zenith capped at 40k points/cycle (20k per category)
AU's first big rewrite of its points program hits from three directions at once: the e-voucher rate — the redemption most cardholders actually use — drops from ₹0.25 to ₹0.20 per point, every successful redemption now costs ₹99 plus taxes, and Zenith's earning gets a 40,000-point statement-cycle ceiling. A closed-loop currency with no transfer partners just got 20% smaller and pay-per-exit.
Every AU Small Finance Bank change we've dated → 9 events since 2021, 5 of them nerfs — worst year 2024.
Verified against AU Small Finance Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 7 of them, each with the day we read it
- official ixigo co-brand product page — 5 RP/₹200 online/offline/UPI, LTF, 0% forex, 16 lounge visits, ₹2L trip protection, Visa + RuPay, ₹1,000 ixigo money + 1,000 RP welcome
- official AU product page — lifetime free, 2.5% rewards per ₹200 (10,000 RP/cycle), ₹99+GST redemption from 200 RP, points last 2 years from the statement month, 8+8+1 lounges
- official AU notice, Revision of ixigo AU Reward Points Usage T&C (w.e.f. 22-Dec-2024) — the MCC table cutting utility, telecom and insurance to a reduced rate and zeroing rent, education, BBPS, international
- official AU's current bank-wide MITC with Schedule of Charges (v2.21, 7 July 2026) — ixigo AU is lifetime free and the only AU card at 0% forex, 50-day interest-free period, ₹250/month fuel-surcharge cap
- community CardInsider — 2.5 RP/₹100, ₹0.50 ixigo money / ₹0.25 cashback / ₹0.20 vouchers, ₹99+GST redemption fee, 10,000 RP monthly cap, 5,000 RP quarterly milestone at ₹75k, lounge counts
- official AU Usage T&C (w.e.f. 10-Apr-2026) — the domestic lounge programme runs on AU's OWN 50+ room list, not a card scheme; ₹50,000 prior-quarter spend gate
- official AU's own domestic lounge list for every card except Zenith+ — 50 rooms in 24 cities (Adani, Encalm, Travel Club, 080, Earth, Primus, Pearl, Blackberry, Airr)