Axis Bank ACE
KeepFour lounge visits and 1.5% on everything, for ₹499 — and not one rupee of it can fly.
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: Not published — Axis lists no welcome or activation benefit for ACE on the product page or in the Key Fact Sheet
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 for itself at ₹3,000 a month
At ₹3,000 a month — ₹36,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹500 gross (earn ₹500) against its ₹499 fee = ₹0 net — the first rung at or above ₹0. 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 · why it ranks #185
Why #185 Decision 0012 exists for exactly this card. It pays cashback, so the old scope rule made it invisible, and it hands a traveller four complimentary lounge visits a year for ₹499 — a real airport door. It is ranked here and not higher because that is the whole travel story: no points, no partner, no seat, and 3.5% forex the moment you leave the country.
Our #2 for Cashback; #3 for Telecom and Utilities — 3 of the 23 questions this desk ranks.
The take
ACE is one of the most widely held credit cards in India and, until decision 0012, this board could not show it to you — because it pays cashback, and the old scope rule read category rather than benefit. That rule was wrong here. Axis's own Domestic Airport Lounge Access Program names "Axis Bank ACE Credit Card (4 complimentary lounge access per year)" at the head of its Set A list, and four airport doors for ₹499 is a real travel benefit whatever currency the card pays in. The earn is the best mass-market cashback grid Axis prints: 1.5% on everything, uncapped and explicitly so, 4% on Swiggy, Zomato and Ola, and 5% on utility bills, DTH and mobile recharges — with the trapdoor that the 5% only exists inside Google Pay on Android, and the same bill paid on the Axis app earns nothing at all since 20 April 2024. The 5% and 4% share one ₹500-a-statement ceiling, so the accelerators are worth ₹6,000 a year at most and the 1.5% is what you actually live on. Two things stop it climbing this board. The lounge visits are spend-gated — ₹50,000 through the card in the previous three calendar months, waived only for the issuance month plus three — so the free-card holder who swipes lightly gets nothing at the door. And it is 3.5% forex with no points, so the moment you are abroad it is the wrong card in every direction: it earns you nothing to fly on and charges you to spend. Hold it for the bill stack and the lounge. Do not hold it as a travel card.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
Here is the fee, the spend that clears it, and everything that has moved under this card since you last decided.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹499/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹499/yr
The waiver ₹2,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹16,667 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹3,000 a month — ₹36,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹4,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹8,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹16,900 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹50,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹84,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
Everyday earn plus milestones, minus the fee — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
Your copy of this card
You hold this card.
Kept on this device, in your browser. It is never sent to us, never synced, and nothing else on the site reads it yet.
The downgrade
Axis 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
- 23 Sep 2026 Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and Hilton issuer-wide
- 28 Aug 2026 Axis more than doubles its DCC markup — 3.5% generic, but Olympus and Magnus get their own rates issuer-wide
- 28 Aug 2026 Priority Pass stops opening Indian domestic lounges on every Axis card issuer-wide
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
- 4 complimentary domestic lounge visits a calendar year on Axis's Set A list — for a ₹499 card
- 1.5% cashback on everything else eligible, and Axis's own table says unlimited
- 5% on utility bills, DTH and recharges through Google Pay; 4% on Swiggy, Zomato and Ola
- ₹499 waived at ₹2,00,000 of preceding-year spend, excluding rent and wallet loads
- 1% fuel-surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹4,000 transactions, up to ₹500 a statement
Watch out
- The lounge visits are gated on ₹50,000 of spend in the previous 3 calendar months — new cards get the issuance month plus three free, then the gate bites
- The 5% and 4% categories share ONE ₹500-per-statement ceiling, so the accelerators cap out around ₹6,000 a year
- The 5% exists only through Google Pay on Android; utility bills paid anywhere else have earned zero since 20 Apr 2024
- Cashback is rupees on your statement — no points, no transfer partner, no award seat, ever
- Forex 3.5% plus a dynamic-currency-conversion markup that went 1.5% → 3.5% on 28 Aug 2026, on a card that earns nothing abroad
- Since 28 Aug 2026 gift-card spend earns no cashback AND does not count toward the ₹2,00,000 fee waiver; Bridge Fees, Road Fees and Tolls earn nothing either
- Fuel, EMI, wallet loads, rent, gold, insurance and education all earn nothing
- Axis's two current documents disagree on the joining fee: the card's own fee table says ₹499, the 12-Aug-2026 Key Fact Sheet says ₹0 as a limited-time offer. We carry ₹499, the durable number
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes Axis Bank Cashback 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
9 sourced rules · 6 pay zero
Axis states ACE's exclusions as named categories, not four-digit codes. The one that costs real money is not an exclusion at all but a channel rule: the 5% on utility bills, DTH and mobile recharges exists ONLY when the payment runs through Google Pay on Android, and the same bill paid anywhere else has earned nothing since 20 Apr 2024. The accelerated 5% and 4% share a single ₹500-per-statement ceiling; the 1.5% base is uncapped.
- Fuel · excluded No cashback on fuel, stated twice. The 1% surcharge is still refunded on ₹400–₹4,000 transactions up to ₹500 a statement, and a separate 1% fee lands above ₹50,000 of fuel a cycle
- Rent & property management · excluded Rental payments earn nothing, carry a 1% fee per transaction, and MCC 6513 is struck out of the ₹2,00,000 fee-waiver count
- Wallet loads · excluded Wallet loads earn nothing, carry a 1% fee above ₹10,000 a cycle, and MCC 6540 is struck out of the fee-waiver count
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · accelerated 5% through Google Pay on Android and ZERO on every other platform since 20 Apr 2024; the 5% shares a ₹500-per-statement cap with the 4% category, and a 1% fee applies above ₹25,000 of utility spend a cycle
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹2,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹499 fee. A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Not published. Axis Bank states what the Axis Bank ACE earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹2,00,000 bar. We won't guess it from the earn table or from a sibling card: Axis published three cards' rules on one day and all three lists differed. If you hold this card and have it in writing from the issuer, send us the document and we'll source it.
Lounge access
12 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹50,000 of eligible spend in the previous 3 calendar months, w.e.f. 1 May 2024 — waived for the month of issuance and the 3 calendar months after it on a newly issued card, but an UPGRADE does not count as a new issuance
Opens 12 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 6 airports — 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.
Open, with a direct application and no invite list. Axis publishes no income floor for ACE — its stated criteria are 18 to 70 years of age, resident in India, with a PAN or Form 60, an income proof and an address proof. The fee is where its own documents fall out of step, and both are current: the product page's fee table prints "Joining Fee ₹499" and "Annual Fee: ₹499 2nd year onward", while the 12-Aug-2026 Key Fact Sheet prints joining "INR 0 (Limited time offer)" against the same ₹499 annual fee. We carry ₹499 because it is the durable figure — the one that is true the morning a promotion ends — and record the ₹0 here rather than pricing a card on a promotion. Both documents agree on the waiver: ₹2,00,000 of preceding-year spend, with rent and wallet loads excluded from the count.
per the official Axis 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
6 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Annual fee ₹499 from the second year, waived above ₹2,00,000 of preceding-year spend with rent (MCC 6513) and wallet loads (MCC 6540) excluded from the count. THE JOINING FEE IS DISPUTED BETWEEN TWO CURRENT AXIS DOCUMENTS: the card's own fee table prints ₹499, the 12-Aug-2026 Key Fact Sheet prints "INR 0 (Limited time offer)". We carry ₹499, the durable figure. Pays CASHBACK to the statement, not points, and does not appear on Axis's Travel EDGE eligible-cards list, so nothing here transfers anywhere: 5% on utility bills, DTH and mobile recharges paid through Google Pay on Android, 4% on Swiggy, Zomato and Ola — those two sharing ONE ₹500-per-statement ceiling — and 1.5% unlimited on everything else eligible. Since 20 Apr 2024 utility spends on any platform except Google Pay earn nothing. LOUNGE: 4 complimentary domestic visits a calendar year off Axis's Set A list, gated on ₹50,000 of eligible spend in the previous 3 calendar months (waived for the issuance month plus three). Nothing earns on fuel, EMI and post-facto EMI conversions, wallet loads, cash advances, rent, gold and jewellery, insurance premiums, education or card fees. Fuel surcharge refunded on ₹400–₹4,000 transactions up to ₹500 a statement; 1% rent fee; 1% on third-party education apps and on cumulative statement-cycle spends above ₹25,000 utilities, ₹10,000 wallet, ₹50,000 fuel and ₹10,000 skill-based gaming. Card network not published anywhere.
per the official Axis 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.
- 15 Nov 2026The Reserve's memberships stop renewing unless you say yesClub ITC Culinaire, Accorplus, handcrafted Club Marriott Asia Pacific, EazyDiner Prime and Priority Pass renewed automatically each year for as long as the card was open → From 15 Nov 2026 complimentary memberships linked to the card renew only with the cardholder's explicit consent — Axis says renewal and consent details will be shared closer to each renewal date. The same notice flips Priority Pass off at Indian domestic lounges from 28 Aug 2026 (present the Reserve card itself) and adds a ₹1,300 late-payment slab above ₹50,000 outstanding
The Reserve's whole defence of a ₹50,000 fee is the membership stack — Club ITC Culinaire with its free third night, Accorplus, handcrafted Club Marriott Asia Pacific, EazyDiner Prime, and the unlimited Priority Pass. Axis's own Reserve revision notice says that from 15 November none of them renew unless you actively consent. Framed as a choice, it works as breakage: the failure mode of an opt-in is silence, and a cardholder who misses the renewal email keeps paying ₹50,000 for a card whose benefits have quietly lapsed. Reserve is on the same list as Select, Magnus, Magnus for Burgundy, Burgundy Private, Olympus and both Miles & More cards, so this is the whole Axis premium book learning the same trick. Two other things ride the notice: from 28 August the Priority Pass card stops opening Indian domestic lounges — you present the Reserve itself against Axis's own eligible-lounge list, and post-immigration lounges at Indian international terminals still count as international — and a fifth late-payment slab of ₹1,300 appears above ₹50,000 outstanding. Notably, the Reserve notice carries no dynamic-currency-conversion line at all while the bank-wide grid goes 1.5% → 3.5%, and the card's 1.5% foreign transaction fee is untouched.
- 1 Nov 2026Privilege's movie buy-one-get-one becomes a spend gate
- 1 Nov 2026IndiGo Axis Premium's movie BOGO grows a ₹25,000 spend gate
- 1 Nov 2026The movie-BOGO spend gate reaches My Zone too — ₹25,000 in the previous 3 months
- 1 Nov 2026NEO's BookMyShow discount grows a ₹25,000 spend gate
- 1 Oct 2026SELECT's ₹3L milestone stops counting the spends it never rewarded
- 23 Sept 2026Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and HiltonAccor and Marriott off the grid since 2 April 2026; Club ITC live; no Cathay, Miles & More or Hilton → Accor live at the punished rates; ITC removed; Cathay, Hilton and Miles & More live; Marriott still gone
Axis's own Travel EDGE terms, re-read 25 September 2026, already show the grid that went live on 23 September. Accor ALL is back, and not at the old Atlas 1:2: EDGE Miles convert at 2:1 (Olympus 1:2) and EDGE Rewards at 5:1, with Magnus for Burgundy at 5:2 and only Burgundy Private still at 5:4. Club ITC is off the table. Three partners are new. Cathay Asia Miles sits on that same punished grid. Hilton Honors is the ordinary one: EDGE Miles 1:2, EDGE Rewards 5:2, Burgundy 5:4. Lufthansa Miles & More is the exception on Atlas, which converts 1:1 there while every other standard airline on that card is 1:2; the EDGE Rewards side of Miles & More is the ordinary 5:2. Marriott stays removed. Qatar Privilege Club was already back. Flying Blue, Air India and Qantas moved into Group A, which is the capped group. The Axis Rewards credit card's Amex network is advertised as joining-fee and annual-fee nil for a limited period; there is no separate Amex variant on this board, so that offer is not modelled as a fee change.
- 1 Sept 2026Burgundy Private's lapse fee doubles to ₹1 lakh
Every Axis Bank change we've dated → 38 events since 2019, 25 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against Axis Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 6 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Revision of Axis Bank Credit Card Terms and Conditions — the bank-wide notice: DCC 1.5% to 3.5%, and gift cards, Bridge Fees, Road Fees and Tolls out of rewards, from 28 Aug 2026
- official Axis Bank ACE product page — the 5%/4%/1.5% cashback grid, four lounge visits a year, and the fee table with ₹499 joining
- official ACE cashback Terms & Conditions — the ₹500-per-statement ceiling shared by the 5% and 4% categories, and the exclusion list
- official Axis Bank Domestic Airport Lounge Access Program — ACE is a Set A card at 4 complimentary visits a year, gated on ₹50,000 of spend in the previous 3 months
- official Axis Bank Key Fact Sheet, last updated 12 Aug 2026 — ACE annual fee ₹499 with the waiver at ₹2,00,000, and joining shown as ₹0 on a limited-time offer
- official Axis Travel EDGE Program eligible cards — ACE does not appear, so there is no transfer rail out of this card