PhonePe HDFC Bank Uno
Downgrade₹499 for a ₹1,500-a-month ceiling, and no lounge to soften it.
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 ₹100 each, on your first 5 UPI-on-credit-card transactions of ₹100+ — applications from 1 Aug 2026
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 ₹14,000 a month
At ₹14,000 a month — ₹1,68,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹0 gross against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹499 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹1,00,000 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 #126
Why #126 Like its sibling, this scores at the floor because the value model prices earn on general spend and HDFC publishes none. Unlike its sibling it has no lounge to argue with, so the low placement is roughly right — it sits here because the honest answer to "Uno or Ultimo" is "Ultimo", and a reader can only be told that if both are on the board.
Identical to the Ultimo's, and identically inverted: 1 Reward Point is ₹1 cashed out against your statement (500-point minimum, no redemption fee, ₹7,500 a calendar month maximum) and ₹0.30 on SmartBuy flights, hotels, Airmiles and the catalogue. The travel-shaped redemption is the one that destroys value. Take the statement credit.
The take
The Uno is what PhonePe hands you when HDFC decides you are not getting the Ultimo — you apply once, inside the PhonePe app, and the bank picks the variant. So the question is not whether to buy this card, it is what you are getting if it arrives. You are getting the Ultimo's structure with every number divided: 2% on PhonePe recharges, bills and travel instead of 10%; 1% at the seven online brands instead of 5%; the same 1% on UPI QR scans. Each capped at 500 Reward Points a month, so 1,500 points is the ceiling — ₹1,500 of statement credit, ₹18,000 a year, against a ₹499 fee that waives at ₹1 lakh of spend. And crucially, no lounge: the eight domestic visits are the Ultimo's alone, which is the whole difference between the two cards and worth more than ₹500 a year to anyone who flies. It earns its place on this board on one gate — a travel accelerator that is real if thin, because PhonePe's flight, bus, train and hotel bookings are a named earning category. It does not earn it on the points: the Airmiles exit pays thirty paise where the statement pays a rupee, and there is no base rate on ordinary spend at all. Take the Ultimo if the bank offers it. Take this only if you were going to route your bills through PhonePe anyway.
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
₹499/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹499/yr
The waiver ₹1,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹8,333 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹14,000 a month — ₹1,68,000 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
₹0 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹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
- 1 Reward Point = ₹1 against your statement, with no redemption fee
- 2% back on PhonePe recharges, bills, flights, buses, trains and hotels
- ₹499 renewal waives at ₹1 lakh of prior-year spend
- 1% on any UPI QR scan, on any UPI app
Watch out
- No lounge access at all — that is the Ultimo's benefit, and the single biggest reason to want the other card
- Zero reward points on anything outside the three lists; there is no base earn rate on this card
- Every bucket caps at 500 Reward Points a month, so the whole card ceilings at ₹18,000 a year
- The joining fee has no waiver; only the renewal waives, at ₹1 lakh
- SmartBuy and Airmiles pay ₹0.30 a point where your statement pays ₹1
- 3.5% forex markup
- You cannot choose this card or the Ultimo — one PhonePe application, and HDFC picks the variant
- 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
10 sourced rules · 5 pay zero
- Fuel · excluded Named in the PhonePe programme's Reward Points exclusion list; a 1% fuel-surcharge waiver applies instead, capped ₹250 a statement cycle
- Rent & property management · excluded "rental transactions" — named in the PhonePe programme's Reward Points exclusion list
- Wallet loads · excluded "wallet load" — named in the PhonePe programme's Reward Points exclusion list
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · capped 2% Reward Points via the PhonePe app — 2 RP per ₹100 at ₹1 a point — inside a 500-point monthly cap shared with the whole PhonePe bucket, about ₹25,000 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
₹1,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹499 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 Uno earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹1,00,000 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
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
6 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Joining fee ₹499 + applicable taxes with no waiver; the ₹499 annual fee is waived on ₹1,00,000 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, each capped at 500 Reward Points a calendar month: 2% on select PhonePe categories (recharges, utilities, bill payments and travel), 1% at Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Uber, Swiggy and Zomato, and 1% on all UPI Scan & Pay spends — 1,500 Reward Points a month in total. There is NO base earn rate: the PhonePe programme FAQ says a transaction outside the predefined categories will not qualify for reward points. There is NO lounge access on this variant — that benefit belongs to the Ultimo alone, and is the substantive difference between the two. 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, a clock the MITC restates for both PhonePe variants. 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 chooses the variant — a reader cannot ask for this card or for the Ultimo.
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 — 3 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page — the 2% / 1% / 1% grid at 500 Reward Points a month each, and "1 Reward Point is equivalent to Re.1 when redeemed as cashback against statement credit"
- official PhonePe programme FAQs v2.2 (28-Jul-2026) — "If a transaction does not fall under these predefined categories, it will not qualify for reward points"
- official HDFC Bank MITC v4.6 (August-2026) — the card's own row, ₹499 with a ₹1 lakh renewal waiver and no waiver on the joining fee, forex 3.5%