HDFC Bank MoneyBack (original)
DowngradeTwo thousand rupees of vouchers a year, and a quarter of a percent otherwise.
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
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 →
Breaks even only by erasing its fee at ₹5,000 a month
At ₹5,000 a month — ₹60,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹200 gross (earn ₹200) against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹500 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹50,000 a year = ₹200 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 #751
Why #751 The original MoneyBack, superseded by MoneyBack+ at the same ₹500 — and the two are told apart by name alone, which is the trap. This one has no 10X accelerator: the quarterly ₹500 voucher is the whole card, and 0.25% sits underneath it.
HDFC publishes the ladder on the product page and every rung is thin: up to ₹0.25 on the product catalogue, ₹0.20 on SmartBuy flights and hotels, ₹0.15 as statement cashback, and 0.25 AirMiles on conversion. A statement redemption needs at least 2,500 Reward Points, points pay at most 50% of a flight or hotel booking, and SmartBuy travel redemption is capped at 50,000 points a month. A closed card's balance survives 30 days for products and vouchers only.
The take
There are two HDFC cards called MoneyBack and they both cost ₹500, which is exactly the problem: the live one is MoneyBack+, this is its withdrawn predecessor, and the only thing distinguishing them on a statement is the plus sign. What MoneyBack+ has and this card does not is the 10X accelerator at Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, BigBasket and Reliance Smart, which is worth 2.5% at those merchants. Without it, this card earns two Reward Points per ₹200 — HDFC's 15 May 2026 revision moved the range from a ₹150 divisor to ₹200 — at a best firm exit of 0.25 AirMiles a point, so a quarter of a percent, dropping to 0.15% if you take the cashback. The reason to keep it is the quarterly voucher: ₹50,000 of spend in a calendar quarter releases a ₹500 e-voucher, four times a year, ₹2,000 in total, and anyone reaching that has already cleared the ₹50,000 annual waiver several times over. So a holder using the card properly pays nothing and collects ₹2,000, which is a perfectly respectable outcome for an entry card. Read the exclusions before you route spend through it: rent and government payments have earned nothing since January 2023, rent adds a 1% fee from the second transaction of the month, and grocery accrual is capped at 1,000 points a month. Sourcing has stopped. If you are being offered a MoneyBack today, it is the plus.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
This card reaches break-even by ERASING its fee, not by out-earning it: the waiver is the decision.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹500/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹500/yr
The waiver ₹50,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹4,167 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹5,000 a month — ₹60,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee, and it gets there by erasing the fee at the waiver rather than out-earning it.
At your spend
₹800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹1,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹3,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹9,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹15,000 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
HDFC 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 a program these points reach
- 15 Sep 2026 Wyndham splits its three flat free-night tiers into four a program these points reach
- 8 Sep 2026 Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product a program these points reach
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
- ₹500 e-voucher in every calendar quarter you clear ₹50,000 of spend — ₹2,000 a year
- ₹500 renewal fee waived at ₹50,000 of annual spend
- Reward Points also convert to AirMiles at 0.25 a point
- Up to 50 days of interest-free credit
Watch out
- Withdrawn — HDFC states "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped"; the live card of the same name and price is MoneyBack+
- No 10X accelerator: that is the feature MoneyBack+ has and this card does not
- A point is ₹0.25 at best and ₹0.15 as cashback — the 2-per-₹200 headline is really 0.25%
- The quarterly voucher pays once a quarter however much you spend above ₹50,000
- Grocery accrual is capped at 1,000 Reward Points a calendar month
- Rent and government payments have earned nothing since 1 January 2023
- A statement redemption needs at least 2,500 Reward Points
- Reward Points pay at most 50% of a flight or hotel booking
What these points actually fly
HDFC Reward Points move to Avianca LifeMiles , Air France-KLM Flying Blue , Etihad Guest , United MileagePlus , Air India Maharaja Points , AirAsia Rewards , SpiceJet SpiceClub , Accor Live Limitless (ALL) , Marriott Bonvoy , Club ITC , IHG One Rewards , Radisson Rewards and Wyndham Rewards — and those price every award dynamically. There is no published chart to quote, so we quote nothing: an estimate is not a seat.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹50,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹500 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. HDFC Bank states what the HDFC Bank MoneyBack (original) earns, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver and the milestones — the ₹50,000 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
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.
Closed to new applications — existing cardholders keep the card; there is no way in.
You cannot. HDFC prints "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped. Existing customers of this card will continue to enjoy the benefits", and its FAQ adds "We are currently not accepting new applications for the HDFC MoneyBack Credit Card." The successor is MoneyBack+, at the same ₹500 with the same ₹50,000 waiver and a 10X accelerator this card never had. HDFC's own terms cover the switch: if the card is upgraded or downgraded mid-quarter, the quarterly voucher is earned only if the ₹50,000 threshold was cleared before the change.
HDFC 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.
- 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.
- 15 Sept 2026Wyndham splits its three flat free-night tiers into four
- 8 Sept 2026Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product
- 1 Sept 2026SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta Deals
- 25 Aug 2026Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus
- 21 Aug 2026Club ITC pays up to 50,000 bonus Green Points for spreading 10 nights across all five brands
- 20 Aug 2026IHG Hotels & Resorts becomes a Maharaja Club earning and conversion partner
- 18 Aug 2026Amex India re-rates Virgin Atlantic upward — 2:1 becomes 5:4, the first MR buff in years
Every HDFC Bank change we've dated → 37 events since 2001, 23 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against HDFC Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 3 of them, each with the day we read it
- official MoneyBack product page — the sourcing-stopped notice, the full redemption ladder from ₹0.25 down to ₹0.15, the quarterly ₹500 voucher and its once-a-quarter rule
- official HDFC's 15 May 2026 rewards, fees and charges update — the revised accrual table that sets "Moneyback" at 2 Reward Points per ₹200
- official Fees and charges — ₹500 joining and renewal, with a 2.5% cash-advance fee at a ₹500 minimum