AU Zenith+
CancelAU's low-forex lounge machine — 0.99% abroad, 32 lounge visits, a rewards rate that isn't one.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: Luxury gift vouchers or reward points worth ₹5,000 on activation
How these numbers are computed →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
The take
Zenith+ is the closest AU gets to a serious travel card, and it earns the title on two lines of the brochure: a 0.99% forex markup — the lowest of any AU card and cheaper than most full-service banks — and a genuinely fat lounge stack, 16 domestic and 16 international (Priority Pass) visits a year plus four Meet & Assist services and eight golf games. Then the rewards collapse: 1 point per ₹100 at AU's ₹0.25 catalogue value is 0.25%, the accelerated dining/travel band is a whole 0.5%, and the ₹75,000-a-month milestone drips 1,000 points (₹250). What changed in Jun-2026 is the one thing AU points never had: Zenith+ — and Zenith+ alone across AU's deck — now transfers to Air India Maharaja Club at 3:2, ₹0.67 a point at the mile anchor, nearly 3× the catalogue. It doesn't turn 0.25% base earn into a rewards card, but it does lift Zenith+ out of the closed loop every other AU card is still stuck in. At ₹4,999 you're buying lounges, a cheap forex rate and that Maharaja escape hatch — a free Wealth or a ₹2,999 Vetta gets you the lounges but not the transfer. Take it if you fly enough to drain 32 lounge visits, want the 0.99% abroad, or will actually route points to Air India; otherwise cancel.
What's good
- Only AU card that isn't closed-loop: 3:2 transfer to Air India Maharaja Club (₹0.67/pt), live since Jun-2026
- 0.99% forex markup — the lowest across AU's entire lineup
- 16 domestic + 16 international (Priority Pass) lounge visits a year
- 4 Meet & Assist airport services + 8 complimentary golf games/lessons a year
Watch out
- 0.25% base earn at AU's honest ₹0.25 point; even dining/travel is only 0.5%
- The Maharaja 3:2 is the only escape — every other redemption is the ₹99 + GST closed catalogue, points expire in 24 months
- ₹4,999 fee, waived only at ₹8L spend; the milestone pays ₹250 at ₹75k/month
- AU markets the point at ₹1 — the catalogue redeems it at a quarter of that
What earns, what doesn't
Zenith+ earns 1 RP/₹100 general, 2 RP/₹100 on dining/travel/international, inside AU's 1-Apr-2024 exclusion regime (rent/education/government/fuel/wallet earn nothing; utilities/telecom cut to 1 RP/₹100). Points redeem at ₹0.25 — AU markets them at ₹1. Monthly milestone: 1,000 RP at ₹75k retail.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP (bank-wide since 1-Apr-2024); 1% surcharge waiver; 1% fair-usage fee past slabs (official KFS)
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero RP; 1% fee on domestic rentals, min ₹99 (official KFS)
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero RP on wallet loads since 1-Apr-2024
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 1 RP/₹100 (0.25%), capped 100 RP/txn; 1% fee past ₹50k/month (official KFS)
per AU Small Finance Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Where the miles go
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
Lounge access
Opens 588 of 644 tracked lounge doors across 245 airports — see the full map →
Can you get it?
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.
A normal application, but a documented one: unlike AU's document-light Swipe-Up flow, Zenith+ wants the full file — bank statements, salary slips or account-aggregator data — with TechnoFino application threads clustering around ₹2.5L/month salary, a ~₹30L ITR, or a ₹5L+ limit on an existing card elsewhere. The two cheaper doors, both commonly reported: corporate employee-benefit tie-ups that issue it lifetime-free, and converting an AU card older than three months (₹199 + GST) once your profile catches up.
per the official AU Small Finance Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Fee ₹4,999 joining and annual, waived at ₹8L spend. The only AU card with 0.99% forex and the gentler 1.99%/mo finance-charge tier. Same bank-wide fair-usage fees as Ananta (rent 1% min ₹99, utility 1% past ₹50k/month, fuel/transportation 1% past their slabs). 16 domestic + 16 Priority Pass international lounge visits a year; 4 Meet & Assist. AU publishes no income cutoff for Zenith+; age from community.
per the official AU Small Finance Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 1 Jun 2026AU, YES and IndusInd points open transfers to Maharaja ClubAU/YES/IndusInd points locked in closed loops → Maharaja routes: IndusInd Tiger 1:1 (Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1); AU Zenith+ 3:2, other AU cards 6:1; YES Marquee/Reserv 15:1
Three banks joined Air India's transfer roster at once — and the ratios are the whole story. The lifetime-free IndusInd Tiger gets the only honest 1:1 (capped 25k/month); AU Zenith+ lands a genuinely good 3:2 that triples what AU points were worth; everything else — Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1, the AU 6:1 crowd, YES at a punitive 15:1 — is a decoy dressed as a partnership.
- 6 May 2026AU relaunches its card range — Ananta tops a new four-card deckAU's lineup led by Zenith+/Zenith/Vetta → Ananta (₹2,000), Lakshya, Tejas and Prathama join; Ananta gets 16 lounge visits and 50k milestone points
AU's 6-May-2026 portfolio reset puts Ananta on top: ₹2,000 fee, 16 domestic lounge visits a year, an 8,000-point welcome and up to 50,000 milestone points at ₹10L. The brochure is generous; the currency isn't — AU points still redeem at ₹0.25 in a closed catalogue, so the 5X headline is 1.25% and the lounge visits hide behind an AU Rewardz flight-booking gate.
- 10 Apr 2026AU more than doubles its domestic-lounge spend gate to ₹50,000/quarterComplimentary domestic lounge visits gated at ₹20,000 prior-quarter spend → ₹50,000 prior-quarter spend required (bank-wide: Zenith, Vetta, Xcite Ace/Ultra, SPONT, NOMO, ABCL Pro)
AU's 10 April 2026 'Revision of Usage Terms & Conditions' lifts the prior-quarter spend needed to keep complimentary domestic airport-lounge access from ₹20,000 to ₹50,000 a quarter, across the Zenith, Vetta and Xcite range. The visit allotments are unchanged (Zenith 2 domestic + 2 Priority Pass international per quarter, Vetta 1+1), but the bar to earn them more than doubles — the kind of quiet, spend-gated clawback that keeps a closed-loop points card drifting toward downgrade territory.
- 1 Apr 2026Maharaja Club gets cheaper awards and faster creditingHigher award costs; slow points crediting → Domestic awards from 1,500 pts; credited within 2 hours
A rare buff. Air India's post-merger programme drops domestic award flights to 1,500 points, cabin upgrades to 4,000, credits Star Alliance miles within two hours, and eases Platinum to 60 flights. The transfer target Indian card geeks care about actually got better.
- 10 Jan 2026SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry feesUniform domestic lounge list, free swipe-in access → Set A/Set B lounge tiers by card, plus ₹2–25 entry charges
From 10 January 2026, SBI Card sorts its domestic lounge network into a Set A (top cards like Club Vistara SBI Card, Apollo SELECT) and a broader Set B (PRIME, Pulse, Titan SBI Card and others) — and bolts on a non-refundable ₹2 authorization charge plus a ₹25 validation hold on every visit. It's marketed as an expansion since more airports are covered, but the fine print is a two-tier system with new friction at the gate, right after SBI had already pulled complimentary air accident insurance six months earlier.
- 1 Dec 2024HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles cardNo mainstream HSBC airmiles card in India → ₹4,999 card, 4X travel/forex, 1:1 to Avios & KrisFlyer
HSBC's serious play for Indian miles chasers: 4 points per ₹100 on flights, travel aggregators and forex, and instant 1:1 transfers to British Airways and Qatar Avios plus ~20 airline/hotel partners including KrisFlyer and Air India — all from the app. A genuine sub-₹5k alternative to Atlas. (Welcome-offer window opened 1 Dec 2024.)
- 12 Nov 2024Vistara flies its last; Club Vistara becomes Maharaja ClubClub Vistara (Vistara) → Maharaja Club (Air India), points 1:1
Vistara's final flight was 11 November 2024. Over 4.5 million Club Vistara members — and the single most-loved transfer target for Indian card points — folded into Air India's Maharaja Club at 1:1. The premium-cabin sweet spots Indian miles chasers plan around all moved house overnight.
- 1 Apr 2024AU zeroes out rewards on fuel, rent, education and governmentFuel, rent, education and government spends earned points; utilities earned accelerated rates → Zero points on fuel/rent/BBPS/education/government; utilities and insurance base-rate only, utilities capped at 100 points per transaction
Notified on 1 March and live from 1 April 2024, AU's bank-wide exclusion list strips reward earn from fuel, rent, education, government and BBPS payments outright, and demotes utilities and insurance to the 1-point base rate — utilities with a 100-point-per-transaction ceiling for good measure. On cards already earning 0.25% at the catalogue value, the categories most households actually spend on now earn nothing at all.
Go deeper
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these documents — the issuer's own paperwork first. Spot something stale? The PDF wins, and we re-verify.
- official Product page checked 11 Jul 2026
- official Schedule of Charges PDF checked 11 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider review checked 13 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — AU/YES/IndusInd join Maharaja Club (Zenith+ 3:2, other AU cards 6:1), live 1-Jun-2026 checked 12 Jul 2026
- community TechnoFino — LIT/Vetta/Zenith/Zenith+ RuPay-variant launch (BINs) checked 11 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — AU RuPay card list (Zenith+ on RuPay) checked 11 Jul 2026
- community TechnoFino — application docs (statements/payslips/Anumati) + reported eligibility bars checked 11 Jul 2026
- community TechnoFino — LTF via corporate employee-benefit tie-ups checked 11 Jul 2026
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