HDFC Regalia Activ
KeepTwelve lounge visits a year on a swipe, no spend gate — on a card HDFC stopped selling.
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: ₹250 Amazon gift voucher for activating the card within 37 days of setup — no welcome or renewal points
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 →
Pays for itself at ₹23,000 a month
At ₹23,000 a month — ₹2,76,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹2,600 gross (earn ₹2,600) against its ₹2,500 fee = ₹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 #694
Why #694 The strongest lounge quota of any closed HDFC card on this board — twelve domestic visits a year on a swipe, no quarterly spend gate — and it still sits at the tail with its Regalia siblings, because nobody can get one. HDFC's own page says "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped." A card a reader cannot apply for does not outrank cards they can; this page exists for the holders who already have it.
The ₹1.00 HDFC house value belongs to the Infinia stack, not to this card. Regalia Activ redeems at ₹0.50 on SmartBuy flights and hotels, converts to airmiles at 0.5 a point through netbanking, and falls to ₹0.35 on products and vouchers. Our 1.0% rate already bakes that ceiling in. One live disagreement between HDFC's own documents, recorded rather than settled quietly: the product page still prints cashback at ₹0.20 a point, while the August-2026 MITC says the cashback value for Regalia Activ was cut to 15 paise with effect from 1 November 2025. The MITC is the newer document and it is the one that binds.
The take
Regalia Activ is the quiet best-in-family lounge card, and you cannot have one. HDFC pulled it from sourcing — its own page carries the sentence, "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped. Existing customers of this card will continue to enjoy the benefits" — so this page is for the holders still carrying it, and the news for them is better than they probably think. Twelve complimentary lounge visits a year inside India, usable at domestic AND international terminals, availed by swiping the card at the terminal with no quarterly spend gate attached: HDFC's own MITC lists Regalia Activ alongside Infinia, Diners Black and BizBlack in the swipe-at-the-lounge group, while Regalia Gold has to clear ₹60,000 of prior-quarter spend for its three a quarter. On top sit up to six Priority Pass visits a year outside India, shared with your add-on holder and unlocked after four retail transactions. The earn is where it stops being special. Four Reward Points per ₹200 is 2 points per ₹100, and Regalia Activ caps its points at ₹0.50 on SmartBuy flights and hotels — so it is a 1% card, cut from 1.33% when HDFC moved the accrual denominator from ₹150 to ₹200 on 15 May 2026. Insurance still earns at the full rate, which is genuinely rare now. Milestones add 15,000 points (₹7,500) by ₹8 lakh of anniversary-year spend, and the ₹2,500 fee waives at ₹3 lakh. If you hold one: keep it, use the twelve visits, and do not let HDFC talk you into a product swap to Regalia Gold, whose lounge access is both smaller and spend-gated. If you do not hold one, there is no door here to knock on.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
Here is the fee, the spend that clears it, and everything that has moved under this card since you last decided.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹2,500/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹2,500/yr
The waiver ₹3,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹25,000 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹23,000 a month — ₹2,76,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹300 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹10,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹18,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹41,300 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹63,900 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
- 12 complimentary lounge visits a year inside India, domestic AND international terminals — availed by swiping the card, with no quarterly spend gate
- Up to 6 Priority Pass visits a year outside India, shared with the add-on holder, after 4 retail transactions
- 15,000 milestone points (₹7,500) by ₹8 lakh of anniversary-year spend — 10,000 at ₹5 lakh
- Insurance spends earn at the full 4 RP per ₹200, which most premium cards have stopped doing
- ₹2,500 fee waived on ₹3 lakh of anniversary-year spend
- ₹1 crore air-accident death cover, ₹15 lakh emergency overseas hospitalisation, ₹9 lakh lost-card liability
Watch out
- Closed to new applications — HDFC's own page: "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped"
- 15-May-2026: earn cut from 4 RP/₹150 to 4 RP/₹200, a 25% haircut to an effective 1.0%, with no fee reduction
- Points cap at ₹0.50 — half the HDFC house value — on SmartBuy flights, hotels and the airmiles route; ₹0.35 on products and vouchers
- HDFC's own documents disagree on cashback: the product page still says ₹0.20 a point, the Aug-2026 MITC says 15 paise since 1 Nov 2025
- Priority Pass used INSIDE India is billed at US$27 + GST a visit, and so is every visit past the sixth
- A guest needs their own add-on card and their own Priority Pass — there is no free guest visit
- Transfers reach only KrisFlyer, and at a 2:1 toll — the other 21 HDFC partners are Infinia / Diners Black / Regalia Gold / BizPower only
- UPI earn caps at 500 Reward Points a calendar month and groceries at 2,000
- Forex 3.5% + GST, and the DCC markup rose to 1.75% on 15 May 2026
- Cards sourced from 1 Nov 2020 can be cancelled after 6 continuous months of no transactions, on prior written notice
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
7 sourced rules · 5 pay zero
The Rewards Points Program T&C hosted on Regalia Activ's own product page — the card's own document, not the bank-wide inference the plain Regalia block runs on.
- Fuel · excluded "Reward points will not be accrued for fuel transactions" — clause 2
- Rent & property management · excluded "With effect from 1st Jan'23, Reward points will not be accrued for rental pay transactions, property management services like rent, maintenance, packers & movers"; a 1% fee also applies from the second rent transaction of a calendar month
- Wallet loads · excluded "EasyEMI and e-wallet loading transactions will not accrue Reward points" — clause 4
- Insurance · capped "Reward points accrued for Insurance transactions will have a maximum cap of 2,000 per month" — clause 7, and it is a monthly cap, not a daily one. 2,000 RP a month at 4 RP per ₹200 is about ₹1,00,000 of insurance premium a month
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹3,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹2,500 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 Regalia Activ earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver and the milestones — the ₹3,00,000 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
728 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: Priority Pass must be requested via phone banking after 4 retail transactions; the 12 domestic visits are ungated
Opens 728 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 291 airports , via Priority Pass India, Priority Pass Global — 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.
Closed to new applications — existing cardholders keep the card; there is no way in.
Closed. HDFC states it on the product page itself — "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped. Existing customers of this card will continue to enjoy the benefits" — and there is no apply flow. Existing holders are grandfathered, so the only way to have one today is to already have one. For the record of how they got it: the card was sold with a net monthly income floor of ₹25,000, a credit limit set at roughly 2.5 times take-home pay, and a sourcing offer HDFC's own FAQ describes as "no joining and renewal fee for the first 3 years", after which the ₹2,500 applies and waives at ₹3 lakh of anniversary-year spend. Activation had to happen within 37 days of card setup.
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
7 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Fee ₹2,500, waiver at ₹3L anniversary-year spend; closed to new applications. Sits in the swipe-at-the-lounge group with Infinia and Diners Black, not the spend-gated Regalia Gold group. Priority Pass used inside India is billed $27 + GST. DCC markup 1.75% w.e.f. 15-May-2026.
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 HDFC Bank's Regalia Activ product page — the "Sourcing of this Credit Card has been stopped" banner, the 12 + 6 lounge structure, and the redemption grid
- official "UPDATES ON YOUR CREDIT CARD REWARDS, FEES & CHARGES" — the change notice HDFC links from the Regalia Activ page, effective 15 May 2026
- official HDFC Bank personal-cards MITC, version 4.6 dated August 2026 — Regalia Activ in the swipe-at-the-lounge group, at ₹2,500 with a ₹3 lakh waiver
- community pointsmath's HDFC tier grid — only Infinia, Diners Club Black, Regalia Gold and BizPower hold the full transfer roster