HDFC Bank MoneyBack+
KeepTwo and a half percent at Amazon and Swiggy, for the first ₹25,000 a month.
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: 500 CashPoints (₹125) when the joining membership fee is paid — and another 500 on every renewal 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: 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 →
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 ₹100 gross (earn ₹100) against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹500 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹50,000 a year = ₹100 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 #252
Why #252 Ten times points at Amazon, Flipkart and Swiggy is a genuine 2.5% and the fee waives at ₹50,000 — but the accelerator stops at ₹625 a month and the quarter of a percent underneath it is the rate you live on.
HDFC prices a MoneyBack+ CashPoint at "upto ₹0.25" and there is no avenue where it is worth more: ₹0.25 against SmartBuy flights and hotels and up to ₹0.25 in the product catalogue. The statement-credit rung is WORSE than both, and by the bank's own schedule rather than its marketing page — clause (x) of HDFC's August 2026 Key Fact Statement sets cashback against the statement balance at 20 paise a point for Money Back Plus with effect from 1 November 2025. Our 0.25% prices the catalogue, the best avenue HDFC publishes; cash out instead and you are taking a further fifth off. Statement credit also costs a ₹50 redemption fee since 1 Aug 2024, needs a minimum balance of 2,000 CashPoints, and a catalogue redemption costs ₹99 + taxes. Points lapse two years after they accrue, and SmartBuy travel redemption pays at most 50% of a booking.
The take
MoneyBack+ is HDFC's mass-market rewards card and its pitch is one line: 10X CashPoints at Amazon, BigBasket, Flipkart, Reliance Smart SuperStore and Swiggy. Read that as 20 CashPoints per ₹200 — 10 per ₹100 — and price the point at the ₹0.25 HDFC itself publishes, and you get 2.5%, which is exactly the "upto 2.5% valueback" the bank prints. It is a real rate on five merchants a household genuinely uses, and it stops at 2,500 CashPoints a calendar month, or about ₹25,000 of accelerated spend. Everywhere else the card pays 2 CashPoints per ₹200 — a quarter of a percent. The ₹500 fee waives at ₹50,000 of annual spend, so nobody using this card properly pays it, and a ₹500 gift voucher lands in every calendar quarter you clear ₹50,000 of net spend, which is worth more than the accelerator to most holders. The exclusion list has grown teeth: fuel, rent, government payments, wallet and gift-card loads, voucher purchases and every kind of EMI earn nothing, and grocery accrual outside the five merchants caps at 1,000 points a month. A good card to hold. Not a card to put your whole spend through.
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
₹700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹1,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹2,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹8,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹14,100 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
- 1 Sep 2026 SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta Deals issuer-wide
- 1 Jul 2026 HDFC caps SmartBuy brand-voucher rewards issuer-wide
- 15 May 2026 HDFC lifts its DCC markup to 1.75% across the card range 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
- 10X CashPoints at Amazon, BigBasket, Flipkart, Reliance Smart SuperStore and Swiggy — HDFC's own "upto 2.5% valueback"
- ₹500 gift voucher in every calendar quarter you clear ₹50,000 of net spend — Swiggy, Myntra, Pizza Hut, Apollo Pharmacy or Bata
- ₹500 fee waived at ₹50,000 of annual spend, so most holders never pay it
- 500 CashPoints for paying the joining fee, and 500 more on every renewal
- 1% fuel surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions, up to ₹250 a statement cycle
Watch out
- The 10X caps at 2,500 CashPoints a calendar month — about ₹25,000 of accelerated spend — and the card-wide ceiling is 15,000 points a statement cycle
- 0.25% on everything outside the five merchants: 2 CashPoints per ₹200, at 25 paise a point
- A CashPoint is "upto ₹0.25" on every avenue HDFC publishes — statement credit, SmartBuy travel and the catalogue alike
- Statement-credit redemption costs ₹50 since 1 Aug 2024 and needs 2,000 CashPoints; a catalogue redemption costs ₹99 + taxes
- Grocery accrual away from the five merchants is capped at 1,000 points a month
- Fuel, rent, government payments, wallet and gift-card loads, voucher purchases and all EMI earn nothing
- 10X is matched on the merchants' own terminal and merchant IDs — if an ID has not been shared with HDFC, the points do not accrue
- Buying through SmartBuy or PayZapp drops even these five merchants to the base 2 CashPoints per ₹200
- No lounge access of any kind, and points lapse 2 years after they accrue
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes HDFC Bank CashPoints 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
10 sourced rules · 6 pay zero
HDFC's "10X CashPoints" is a POINT MULTIPLIER, not a percentage: 20 CashPoints per ₹200 is 10 per ₹100, and a MoneyBack+ CashPoint is "upto ₹0.25", which is the 2.5% HDFC itself advertises. Base is 2 CashPoints per ₹200 = 0.25%. The 10X caps at 2,500 CashPoints a calendar month and the card as a whole at 15,000 Reward Points a statement cycle.
- Fuel · excluded Zero points; the 1% surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions (max ₹250 a statement cycle) is all fuel gets, and a transaction above ₹15,000 carries a 1% fee
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero points since 1 Jan 2023 (MCC 6513), and a 1% fee capped at ₹3,000 applies from 1 Aug 2024
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero points on wallet loads (MCC 6540), gift and prepaid card loads and voucher purchases — stated twice, and reconfirmed effective 1 Sep 2024
- Government / tax · excluded Zero points since 1 Jan 2023
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+ earns and does not earn, 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?
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.
per the official HDFC 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
3 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
HDFC's fee table has ONE combined column, "Joining / Annual membership Fee", so ₹500 is both the cost to get the card and the cost to keep it — waived on ₹50,000 of annual spend. Card-wide earning ceiling of 15,000 Reward Points a statement cycle; the 10X caps at 2,500 CashPoints a calendar month and grocery at 1,000. From 1 Aug 2024: rent 1% (capped ₹3,000), fuel 1% above ₹15,000 a transaction, utilities 1% above ₹50,000 a transaction, third-party education payments 1%, Easy-EMI processing up to ₹299. CashPoints lapse 2 years after accrual.
per the official HDFC 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.
- 1 Sept 2026SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta DealsAmazon Pay Gift Voucher sat in SmartBuy's accelerated tier — 'up to 5X Reward Points or 5% cashback' → 'Insta Deals: 1 % Instant Discount + 1X Reward Points' — this brand is out of the accelerated tier
The most-farmed HDFC voucher route stopped being a points play. SmartBuy's own voucher storefront now shows the Amazon Pay Gift Voucher under a new "Insta Deals" tile reading "1 % Instant Discount + 1X Reward Points", and the page's own description flipped from "up to 5X Reward Points or 5% cashback" to "up to 1X". The comparison that settles it sits on the same storefront: the Amazon Fresh voucher still carries an "Accelerated Rewards — Upto 5X Reward Points RPs / 5% Cashback" block that the Amazon Pay page no longer has, so this is one brand leaving the accelerated tier, not the tier closing. The date, honestly: the Insta Deals offer ("Flat 1% OFF", ₹10,000 monthly limit) was already live in the page's own data on 31 August 2026, the reward line still read 5X in the 1 September 16:26 UTC archive capture, and read 1X when this desk fetched the page on 2 September — so 1 September is the community's effective date sitting inside a window we can bracket from primary captures, not a figure HDFC published. The bank has announced nothing and no SmartBuy page carries a notice. Two pieces of context for the size of it: brand vouchers were already sub-capped at 3,000 accelerated points a month from 1 July 2026, and Amazon Pay vouchers disappeared from the portal entirely for stretches of July and August before returning in this shape. Flipkart and Amazon Fresh vouchers still pay the accelerated rate; the ₹10,000-a-month Amazon Pay lane now pays base earn plus the 1% instant discount.
- 18 Aug 2026The Harley-Davidson Diners Club drops out of HDFC's bank-wide MITC
- 6 Aug 2026HDFC caps Regalia Gold miles transfers at 50,000 points a month
- 25 Jul 2026HDFC switches on 22 transfer partners for BizPower
- 16 Jul 2026Regalia Gold's cash-out rate quietly drops to ₹0.15
- 1 Jul 2026HDFC caps SmartBuy brand-voucher rewards
- 1 Jul 2026Regalia Gold's domestic lounge access goes spend-gated
- 1 Jul 2026Diners Club Privilege ties its lounge vouchers to prior-quarter spend
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 The card's own Terms & Conditions, published 15 May 2026 — the 10X table with its 2,500-point monthly cap, the ₹0.25 CashPoint, the exclusion list and the quarterly voucher terms
- official Product page — "10X CashPoints (Upto 2.5% Valueback)" at the five merchants, 2 CashPoints per ₹200 elsewhere, the ₹500 quarterly voucher and the income criteria
- official The card's own fees schedule — ₹500 in HDFC's single combined joining/annual column, waived on ₹50,000 of annual spend