#30

Scapia (BOBCARD)

Keep

The Federal Scapia's twin on a second bank — same 0% forex, same coins-that-aren't-money, double the approval odds.

BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda)·Visa·entry
Visa RuPay — A complimentary RuPay twin ships alongside the Visa card for UPI — UPI spends earn 5% coins, half the card rate
2.0%
Effective reward rate
₹0 + GST
Annual fee
None
Fee waiver

What it's worth to you — net annual value

₹24,000
at ₹1L/month
₹72,000
at ₹3L/month
₹1,20,000
at ₹5L/month

Welcome: None — lifetime free with no joining bonus; the 0% forex is the pitch

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

Scapia now issues through two banks, and the BOBCARD version is the Federal card wearing a different logo: lifetime free, 0% forex markup in 150+ countries, unlimited domestic lounge access once you push ₹20,000 through it the previous month, and 10% Scapia Coins on spends (20% on bookings inside the Scapia app). The reason it exists is approval odds — the Scapia app auto-routes your application to Federal or Bank of Baroda by profile and pincode, so a rejection at one bank no longer ends the story. Read the coins the same way you read them on the Federal card: 5 coins = ₹1, spendable ONLY on flights, hotels, trains and buses inside Scapia's own app, no cashback, no transfers, a 36-month fuse and zero coins abroad. And because BOB opened this to the public after February 2026, it ships with the post-nerf terms baked in — the ₹20k lounge gate, not the old ₹10k. A first-rate free forex-and-lounge tool; a gift card, not a rewards program.

What's good

  • Lifetime free + 0% forex markup — a second issuer for India's cheapest border-crossing card
  • Unlimited domestic lounge visits at ₹20k prior-month spend
  • Auto-routed application (Federal or BOB) roughly doubles approval odds
  • 10% coins everywhere, 20% on app bookings — 2% / 4% in real money

Watch out

  • Coins spend ONLY on Scapia-app travel — no cashback, no transfers, total app dependency
  • Ships with the post-Feb-2026 terms: ₹20k/month lounge gate, no coins on insurance/utility
  • Zero coins on international spends — abroad it's purely a 0%-forex card
  • 36-month coin expiry; the coins never appreciate (fixed 5 = ₹1)

What earns, what doesn't

Identical coin economics and exclusions to the Federal Scapia (same Scapia program). Coins are travel-app-only money — see currencies.yaml. Ships with the post-Feb-2026 terms (utility/insurance MCCs zeroed).

Fuel excluded — Zero coins; 1% surcharge waiver on small txns; 1% fee past ₹50k/month fuel spend
Rent & property management excluded — Zero coins AND a 1% + GST convenience fee per rent txn
Government / tax excluded — Government services on the Scapia no-coins list
Utilities (electricity/water/gas) excluded — Utility MCCs zeroed w.e.f. 27-Feb-2026 (Scapia devaluation notice); 1% fee past ₹50k/month
Insurance excluded — MCC 6300 zeroed w.e.f. 27-Feb-2026 (Scapia devaluation notice)
Education excluded — Education on the Scapia no-coins list
Wallet loads excluded — Zero coins + 1% + GST fee per wallet-load txn
Groceries & supermarkets full — 10% coins ≈ 2% effective — not excluded
Telecom excluded — Telecom MCC 4814 sits in the Scapia utility exclusion list — earns nothing
Jewellery / gold full — Not on the exclusion list — inferred from absence, flag
Forex / international spends excluded — Official: no coins on international spends — the 0% forex markup IS the reward
UPI (RuPay-on-UPI only) reduced — RuPay variant earns 5% coins (≈1%) on UPI — half the Visa rate
EMI conversions / merchant EMI excluded — EMI transactions on the Scapia no-coins list
  • Fuel · excluded Zero coins; 1% surcharge waiver on small txns; 1% fee past ₹50k/month fuel spend
  • Rent & property management · excluded Zero coins AND a 1% + GST convenience fee per rent txn
  • Wallet loads · excluded Zero coins + 1% + GST fee per wallet-load txn
  • Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded Utility MCCs zeroed w.e.f. 27-Feb-2026 (Scapia devaluation notice); 1% fee past ₹50k/month

per BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda) T&C · rank every card by spend category →

Lounge access

Unlimited
Domestic
None
International
paid
Guests

Gate: ₹20k spend in the previous month; access activates 3–5 working days post-billing

Opens 72 of 662 tracked lounge doors across 40 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.

Route Direct application
Income · salaried not published
Income · self-employed not published
Age band 18+ (Scapia standard — app-based approval; verify)

Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.

per the official BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda) 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.

Forex markup 0% — zero forex markup
APR 3.75%/mo (45%/yr) — standard BOBCARD tier (matches Federal Scapia's 3.75%/mo; verify)
Late fee Nil <₹100; ₹100 (₹100–500); ₹400 (₹501–1,000); ₹750 (₹1,001–10,000); ₹950 (₹10,001–25,000); ₹1,100 (₹25,001–50,000); ₹1,300 (>₹50,000)
Cash advance 2.5%, min ₹500
Add-on card Nil — no joining/annual fee on add-on cards (BOBCARD standard)
Overlimit 2.5%, min ₹600 (BOBCARD standard)
Redemption fee Coins redeem at 5 coins = ₹1 inside the Scapia app; no per-request fee published

Lifetime free, 0% forex. 20% Scapia Coins on app travel, 10% other, 5% on UPI (RuPay). Unlimited domestic lounge at ₹20k prior-month spend (activates 3–5 working days post-billing); no international lounge. Public launch Jan 2026 (post-beta), so it carries the post-Feb-2026 terms (₹20k gate; insurance/utility earn zeroed). Coins are travel-app-only money, 36-month expiry, no cashback/transfers. Scapia app auto-routes applications between Federal and BOB. APR/late-fee slabs and income/age follow BOBCARD/Scapia standard — verify against the card-specific KFS.

per the official BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda) 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.

  • 5 May 2026
    Buff moderate BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda)
    Eterna's lifetime-free window rolls forward yet again
    ₹2,499 joining + ₹2,499 annual fee (LTF offer due to lapse) Zero joining and annual fees for new applicants, extended to 30 Jun 2026 — since pushed to 31 Jul

    BOBCARD keeps extending the deadline on its best acquisition offer: Eterna — 3.75% statement-credit value on online spends and unlimited domestic lounges — stays lifetime-free for new applicants. The offer opened in early 2026 with a 31-March fuse and has been rolled forward twice; every extension is a louder hint that the ₹2,499 fee isn't coming back soon. Sign before the music stops.

  • 1 Apr 2026
    Fee moderate BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda)
    BOBCARD reprices rail, toll and app-routed education
    No processing fee on railway/toll/bus bookings; telecom (MCC 4814) earned zero points 1% fee on railway bookings ≥₹30k, all toll & bus ≥₹5k, and education via Cred/Paytm/PhonePe-type apps; telecom now earns core points

    BOBCARD's April-2026 notice gives with one hand and clips with the other. Telecom spends finally earn core points (3 RP/₹100 on Eterna), but big-ticket rail bookings, every toll and bus charge over ₹5,000, and tuition routed through third-party apps now carry a 1% fee — and the notice restates the long zero-earn MCC list, from supermarkets to hospitals. One, Uni and the Scapia co-brand are explicitly exempt.

  • 5 Jan 2026
    Launch moderate BOBCARD (Bank of Baroda)
    BOBCARD and Etihad Guest deal two co-brands — the last pipe in
    Etihad Guest earn from Indian card spend dying with the SBI co-brands (closing 31 Mar 2026) Guest (₹2,500) and Guest Premium (₹5,000): 2 miles/₹100, 0% forex, double welcome miles for sign-ups till 28 Feb

    As SBI walked away from Etihad and Axis prepared to drop the transfer route, BOBCARD picked up the whole franchise: two Mastercard co-brands earning Guest miles directly, with the Premium doing 2 miles/₹100, 6 on etihad.com, 0% forex and a milestone ladder to 40,000 miles a year. Launch-window sign-ups before 28 February got doubled welcome miles. For anyone flying AUH out of India, this is now the only game in town.

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.

Spot an error? Report it →