PhonePe HDFC Bank Ultimo
Keep₹999 for eight lounge visits and ₹24,000 of ceiling — if you live inside PhonePe.
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: 5 PhonePe scratch cards worth ₹200 each, on your first 5 UPI-on-credit-card transactions of ₹100+ — applications from 1 Aug 2026, and only where the joining fee is charged
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 groceries and 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 ₹27,000 a month
At ₹27,000 a month — ₹3,24,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹0 gross against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹999 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹2,00,000 a year = ₹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.
3 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · the network variants · why it ranks #108
Why #108 Scores far below where a reader would put it, and the score is measuring the right thing badly. `rankingValue` prices earn on general spend, and this card has none — it pays 10%, 5% and 1% on three narrow buckets and literally nothing anywhere else, so a model built on a base rate reads it as a zero. What a reader actually buys for ₹999 is ₹24,000 a year of capped ceiling plus 8 domestic lounge visits, and it belongs beside the mid-fee co-brands rather than at the floor.
Our joint #1 for Telecom (2 cards level) and Utilities (2 cards level) — 2 of the 23 questions this desk ranks.
Read the two redemption lines side by side, because they point in opposite directions. Cashed out against your statement, 1 Reward Point is ₹1 — the full HDFC house value, no redemption fee, 500 points minimum, ₹7,500 a month maximum. Spent on SmartBuy, the SAME point is ₹0.30, and that ₹0.30 covers Airmiles as well as flights, hotels and the catalogue. So the "transfer" avenue on this card pays thirty paise where doing nothing pays a rupee. Take the cashback.
The take
This is the only card on our board that earns nothing on ordinary spend, and HDFC says so in its own FAQ rather than hiding it: a transaction outside the three predefined lists does not qualify for reward points. What is left is a very sharp, very narrow instrument. 10% on PhonePe recharges, bills, flights, buses, trains and hotels; 5% at seven online brands; 1% on any UPI QR scan — and hard caps of 1,000, 500 and 500 Reward Points a month that stop the whole thing at 2,000 points, which is ₹2,000 of statement credit, which is ₹24,000 a year. That ceiling is the honest headline, and against a ₹999 fee it is a good one — if you route ₹10,000 a month of bills and travel through the PhonePe app. Miss that and the card is close to inert. The 8 domestic lounge visits are real but conditional twice over: two a quarter, and only in a quarter you have already spent ₹75,000 in, so a quota of 8 is really a quota of 8 at ₹3 lakh of annual spend. Cash out at ₹1 a point and ignore SmartBuy, where the same point is worth thirty paise. And note what you are not getting for the fee: 3.5% abroad, no airline this currency reaches, and an application form that exists only inside the PhonePe app.
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
₹999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹999/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 ₹27,000 a month — ₹3,24,000 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
−₹1,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹0 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹0 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹0 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹0 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
- 10% back on PhonePe recharges, bills, flights, buses, trains and hotels — capped at 1,000 points a month
- 1 Reward Point = ₹1 against your statement, with no redemption fee
- 8 domestic lounge visits a year, 2 a quarter
- 5% at Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Uber, Swiggy and Zomato
- ₹999 renewal waives at ₹2 lakh of prior-year spend
Watch out
- Zero reward points on anything outside the three lists — no base earn rate exists on this card
- The whole programme stops at 2,000 Reward Points a month; the ceiling is ₹24,000 a year
- Each lounge quarter needs ₹75,000 of spend in that quarter first — 8 visits really means 8 visits at ₹3 lakh a year
- The joining fee has no waiver at all; only the renewal waives, at ₹2 lakh
- SmartBuy and Airmiles pay ₹0.30 a point where your statement pays ₹1 — the transfer avenue is the trap
- 3.5% forex markup
- Applications are accepted only inside the PhonePe app, and HDFC decides whether you get this or the ₹499 Uno
- Points lapse 2 years after accrual; cashback redemption is capped at ₹7,500 a month
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 →
What earns, what doesn't
11 sourced rules · 6 pay zero
- Fuel · excluded Named in the Reward Points TnCs exclusion list; a 1% fuel-surcharge waiver applies instead on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions, capped ₹250 a statement cycle
- Rent & property management · excluded "rental transactions" — named in the Reward Points TnCs exclusion list
- Wallet loads · excluded "wallet load" — named in the Reward Points TnCs exclusion list
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · capped 10% Reward Points via the PhonePe app (MCCs 4814, 4899, 4900) — 10 RP per ₹100 at ₹1 a point — capped at 1,000 points a calendar month across the whole PhonePe bucket, about ₹10,000 of utility spend a month if nothing else in that bucket has used it
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 ₹999 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 PhonePe HDFC Bank Ultimo 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
17 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹75,000 of spend in the calendar quarter; cash advances, fees and all EMI spends are excluded from the test
Opens 17 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 10 airports , via RuPay — 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.
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
6 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Joining fee ₹999 + applicable taxes with NO waiver — HDFC prints "No waiver on Joining Fee." against this card's own MITC row, and levies the fee within 60 days of card issuance. The ₹999 annual fee IS waived on ₹2,00,000 of spend in the previous year, with cash advances, card fees and all EMI spends excluded from the test. The reward programme is three buckets and nothing else: 10% Reward Points on PhonePe recharges, bills, travel and stays (flights, bus, trains, hotels — MCCs 4111, 4112, 4511, 4722, 4784, 4814, 4899, 4900) capped at 1,000 points a calendar month; 5% at Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Uber, Swiggy and Zomato capped at 500 a month; 1% on any UPI Scan & Pay QR transaction, on any UPI app, capped at 500 a month. There is NO base earn rate — HDFC's own FAQ v2.2 says a transaction outside the predefined categories "will not qualify for reward points" — and EMI, fuel, wallet loads, gift cards, cash advances, card bill payments, charges, government payments, rent, education fees, insurance, investments and jewellery are all named as ineligible. Redemption is 1 Reward Point = ₹1 as statement cashback (500-point minimum, ₹7,500 a calendar month maximum, no redemption fee) or ₹0.30 on SmartBuy flights, hotels, Airmiles and the product catalogue; unredeemed points lapse 2 years after accrual. Lounge access is 8 domestic visits a year, 2 per calendar quarter, and only in a quarter you spent ₹75,000 in. Fuel-surcharge waiver 1% on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions, max ₹250 a statement cycle. Rewards on PhonePe PINCODE ended 5 December 2025. Applications are accepted only inside the PhonePe app, and HDFC decides whether the applicant is issued this card or the ₹499 Uno.
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.
- 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 — 4 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product FAQs v2.2 (28-Jul-2026) — "Powered by the Rupay platform, the card also supports UPI linking for QR payments"
- official Reward Points TnCs — the 1,000/500/500 monthly point caps and the categories that earn nothing
- official Product page — "Enjoy 8 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits every year (2 per quarter)"
- official HDFC Bank MITC v4.6 (August-2026) — the card's own fee row, "No waiver on Joining Fee", forex 3.5%