HDFC Bank Regalia First
DowngradeThe Regalia without the lounge — 0.45%, and thirty paise a point.
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 ₹9,000 a month
At ₹9,000 a month — ₹1,08,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹500 gross (earn ₹500) against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹1,000 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹1,00,000 a year = ₹500 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 #630
Why #630 The Regalia that lost its lounge access in December 2023 and never got it back — which is the whole story, because the lounge was the reason to pay ₹1,000 for it. What is left is 0.45% and a bonus-points ladder that needs ₹3 lakh a year to start paying.
HDFC publishes the ladder on the product page: ₹0.30 a point on SmartBuy flights and hotel bookings, 0.3 AirMiles on conversion through NetBanking, up to ₹0.25 on products and vouchers, and ₹0.10 as statement cashback — the last of which is a third of the travel rate and the exit most holders actually use. Accrual is capped at 25,000 Reward Points a calendar month, points pay at most 70% of a SmartBuy booking, and a closed card's balance survives 30 days for products and vouchers only.
The take
Regalia First was HDFC's cheap way into the Regalia name and it has been steadily hollowed out. The airport lounge access it was sold on went on 1 December 2023, along with the comprehensive protection benefit, and HDFC says so on the page itself. What remains is a ₹1,000 card earning three Reward Points per ₹200 — 1.5 per ₹100 — at a best published exit of ₹0.30, so 0.45%, and ₹0.10 if you take the statement credit. On top sit bonus Reward Points at annual spend thresholds, and here the page contradicts itself: its headline block advertises 7,500 bonus points at ₹6 lakh and 5,000 more at ₹9 lakh, while the rewards section further down says 5,000 at ₹3 lakh and 2,500 more at ₹6 lakh. Two different ladders on one page is not something we will pick a winner between, so neither is modelled here — a holder should ask HDFC which applies before planning spend around it. The rest is serviceable: up to 20% off restaurant bills through Swiggy Dineout across 20,000-plus restaurants, SmartPay cashback and vouchers on utility bills, a 5% cashback leg on electricity, telecom and tax that is capped at ₹500 and first-year-only, 50 days of interest-free credit, ₹1 crore of accidental air death cover and ₹5 lakh of lost-card liability. HDFC is not taking new applications. If you hold it and the ₹1,000 does not waive at ₹1 lakh of spend, there is very little here worth ₹1,000.
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
₹1,000/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹1,000/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 ₹9,000 a month — ₹1,08,000 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
₹1,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹2,700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹5,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹16,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹27,000 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
- 3 Reward Points per ₹200, redeemable on SmartBuy flights and hotels at ₹0.30 a point
- Up to 20% off restaurant bills via Swiggy Dineout at 20,000+ restaurants
- Bonus Reward Points at annual spend thresholds — though HDFC's page states two different ladders
- SmartPay utility-bill cashback of up to ₹1,800 in year one plus ₹800 of e-vouchers
- ₹1,000 renewal fee waived at ₹1 lakh of spend within 12 months
- ₹1 crore accidental air death cover and ₹5 lakh of lost-card liability
Watch out
- Airport lounge access was DISCONTINUED on 1 December 2023, together with the comprehensive protection benefit
- HDFC is not accepting new applications — "currently unavailable", though it has not called the card withdrawn
- Statement cashback pays ₹0.10 a point, a third of the ₹0.30 SmartBuy travel rate
- The page states TWO different bonus-point ladders — 7,500 at ₹6 lakh and 5,000 at ₹9 lakh in one block, 5,000 at ₹3 lakh and 2,500 at ₹6 lakh in another
- The 5% on electricity, telecom and tax is capped at ₹500 and applies in the first year only
- Wallet loads, EMI and petrol stopped earning on 1 September 2024
- Accrual is capped at 25,000 Reward Points a calendar month
- HDFC has posted a change notice effective 15 May 2026 covering this card
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
2 sourced rules
HDFC's own product page states the leg as one line with one cap and one clock — "5% CashBack on electricity, telecom, tax payments (₹500 max, first year only)" — and the card file carries it as a rung ("Electricity, telecom and tax payments", 5%). Applications are paused; existing holders keep the card. The telecom and government rows are asserted here, in the same no-split shape as HDFC's Pine Labs and Retailio legs: one ceiling over three categories, no published split, and on this card no second year either.
- Government / tax · accelerated 5% cashback on tax payments, capped at ₹500 in total and paid in the FIRST card year only — SHARED with electricity and telecom bills on the same ceiling; HDFC's product page states one cap for the whole leg ("₹500 max, first year only") and publishes no split of that ceiling, so none of it belongs to government or tax alone, and the page names tax payments, not the wider government MCC list; past it, and from the second year on, a tax payment earns the card's ordinary 3 Reward Points per ₹200 (0.45% at the ₹0.30 SmartBuy exit)
- Telecom · accelerated 5% cashback on telecom bills, capped at ₹500 in total and paid in the FIRST card year only — SHARED with electricity and tax payments on the same ceiling, and HDFC publishes no split of it, so none of the ₹500 belongs to a phone bill alone; past it, and from the second year on, a phone bill earns the card's ordinary 3 Reward Points per ₹200 (0.45% at the ₹0.30 SmartBuy exit)
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 ₹1,000 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 Regalia First 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?
the route in — no cutoffs published
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Paused — the issuer has stopped taking new applications for now and has not withdrawn the card; existing cardholders are unaffected.
Not available. HDFC's wording is deliberately softer than its standard withdrawal marker — "New applications for the Regalia First Credit Card are currently unavailable. Existing cardholders will continue to enjoy its features and benefits" — so the product is paused rather than declared dead, and the bank has not said it will return. The live cards in the Regalia line are Regalia Gold at ₹2,500 and Regalia Activ.
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 Regalia First product page — the paused-applications notice, the 1 December 2023 lounge discontinuation, the 3-per-₹200 accrual and the ₹0.30 redemption ladder
- official HDFC's 15 May 2026 rewards, fees and charges update — the revised accrual table that sets "Regalia First" at 3 Reward Points per ₹200
- official Fees and charges — ₹1,000 in the first year and ₹1,000 on renewal, waived on ₹1 lakh of spend within 12 months