Scapia (Axis Bank)
KeepScapia's third bank, and the first one big enough to actually approve you.
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: None published — Axis names no joining bonus in its T&C or on the product page; the zero fee and the zero forex are the pitch
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied. 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 ₹200 gross (earn ₹200) against its ₹0 fee = ₹200 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
The take
Scapia spent three years as a Federal Bank product and one year as a BOBCARD one; on 3 September 2026 it went live on Axis, which is a different order of distribution entirely. The proposition did not move an inch, and that is the point: zero joining fee, zero annual fee, zero forex mark-up, unlimited domestic lounge access the month after you push ₹20,000 through the card, and coins that come back as travel inside Scapia's own app. What changed is the bank behind it — a private bank with a nationwide book instead of a regional one — so the reader whose Federal or BOBCARD application went nowhere now has a third door. Read the coins the way you would read any closed-loop currency. Axis prints the whole arithmetic in its own T&C, which is unusually honest of it: "2% value back (equivalent to 10% rewards)" on the Mastercard, "1% value back (equivalent to 5% rewards)" on the RuPay twin, "4% value back (equivalent to 20% rewards)" on flights, hotels and buses booked in the app, and "5 Scapia Coins = INR 1". So the headline 10% is 2%, the app's 20% is 4%, and the RuPay UPI rate is 1%. They spend on Scapia-app travel and nothing else — no statement credit, no transfer partner, no airline. The lounge line is the strongest thing here and it is now spelled out at clause level: unlimited domestic lounge, meals, shopping or spa on a ₹20,000 net spend in the preceding billing cycle, primary cardholder only, claimed through a QR code the app generates once you are physically at the airport with a boarding pass uploaded and location switched on, enabled three to five working days after the billing date. The airport-shopping kickback is real too — up to 100% of the transaction back as coins, capped at ₹500 or ₹1,000 a transaction and ₹2,500 or ₹5,000 a cycle depending on the city. Now the exclusions, which are long. No coins on wallet loads, education and school fees, fuel, government services, EMI conversions, business services, real-estate rent, crypto, mail-order/telephone-order, insurance or utilities — and a fee on top of several of them: 1% uncapped on rent, 1% past ₹10,000 of wallet loads, 1% past ₹50,000 of fuel, 1% past ₹25,000 of utilities in a statement period. Finance charges are 3.75% a month, 55.55% a year, which is where a free card makes its money. Run it at zero balance for the forex and the lounge and it is one of the best free cards in India; revolve on it and it is one of the most expensive.
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
₹6,000 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹12,000 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹24,000 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹72,000 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹1,20,000 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
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
- Zero joining fee and zero annual fee — Axis's T&C says so in one clause, and the fees table says Zero
- Zero forex mark-up on international transactions, with the DCC surcharge also NIL
- Unlimited domestic lounge, meals, shopping or spa on ₹20,000 net spend in the preceding billing cycle
- 10% coins on eligible Mastercard spends of ₹20+, 20% on Scapia-app flights, hotels and buses — 2% and 4% in real money
- Up to ₹2,000 of airport shopping back as coins on your travel date, at up to 100% of the transaction
- A RuPay twin for UPI, earning 5% coins on transactions of ₹500 or more with no cap
- 1% fuel surcharge waiver on transactions up to ₹5,000, capped at ₹500 plus tax a billing cycle
Watch out
- Coins spend ONLY on Scapia-app travel — no cashback, no transfers, no airline; 5 coins = ₹1
- Lounge access is primary-cardholder only, needs a QR code generated at the airport with a boarding pass and location access, and switches on 3–5 working days after the billing date
- Rewards accrue on NEITHER wallet loads, education, fuel, government, EMI, business services, rent, crypto, MOTO, insurance nor utilities
- Fees stack on several of those anyway: 1% uncapped on rent, 1% past ₹10,000 of wallet loads, 1% past ₹50,000 of fuel and 1% past ₹25,000 of utilities a cycle
- Finance charges are 3.75% a month — 55.55% a year — so this is a pay-in-full card or a very costly one
- Mastercard transactions under ₹20 and RuPay transactions under ₹500 earn nothing at all
- Axis publishes NO coin expiry for this edition, and no welcome bonus of any kind
- Axis's own product page still carries an IndiGo BluChips strapline above the Scapia panel — copy from another co-brand, not a benefit of this card
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes Scapia Coins 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 →
Lounge access
0 of 793 tracked doors
No lounge access. This card opens exactly 0 of 793 tracked lounge doors — board with the crowd, or find a card that doesn't →
Can you get it?
the route in — no cutoffs published
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 application through the Scapia app or Axis Bank, for residents of India aged 18 to 70 with PAN or Form 60, a payslip, Form 16 or an IT return, and a residence proof. Onboarding opened on 3 September 2026. Axis releases a ₹5,000 limit on activation through the Scapia app before the physical card arrives, and the card must be activated within 30 days of issuance or RBI's rules close it.
Axis Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
no MITC row researched for this card yet · filter the board by what you can get →
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 — 4 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Axis Bank's Scapia member terms — the nil joining and annual fee, the 2%/1%/4% value-back table, "5 Scapia Coins = INR 1", zero forex, and the ₹20,000 lounge threshold
- official Axis Bank's Scapia product page — the Zero joining/annual fee row, NIL foreign currency and DCC, the fee schedule, and the 18–70 eligibility band
- community Business Today — the 3 September 2026 launch date, Mastercard and RuPay at go-live, and Scapia's third banking partner
- community Live From A Lounge — the tie-up on the Mastercard platform, and Scapia's route from Federal to BOBCARD to Axis