Shoppers Stop HDFC Bank
KeepA department-store card whose points are only worth a rupee inside the department store.
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 Shoppers Stop voucher, redeemed instantly at the till on any Shoppers Stop purchase, plus a complimentary Shoppers Stop Silver Edge membership worth ₹350
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 →
Pays for itself at ₹16,000 a month
At ₹16,000 a month — ₹1,92,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹300 gross (earn ₹300) against its ₹299 fee = ₹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.
2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · why it ranks #256
Why #256 Three points per ₹100 at Shoppers Stop, and those points are a rupee each back inside Shoppers Stop — but the tap closes at 500 points a month, which is ₹16,667 of store spend, and everywhere else this is a 0.25% card.
One point, five prices, and only one of them is good. HDFC's own redemption table for this card reads: 1 Reward Point = ₹1 against Shoppers Stop vouchers, ₹0.25 on the product catalogue, ₹0.25 as Airmiles, ₹0.20 as cashback and ₹0.20 on Unified SmartBuy flights and hotels. So the headline 3% is real only if you spend the points back inside Shoppers Stop; step outside and the card is worth a quarter of what it looks like. Statement credit also costs ₹50 and needs 500 points; a catalogue redemption costs ₹99 + taxes; SmartBuy travel pays at most 50% of a booking. Points lapse two years after they accrue.
The take
The base Shoppers Stop card costs ₹299 with no spend waiver anywhere — HDFC's own FAQ answers "Is Shoppers Stop Credit Card free?" with "No" — and what it buys is a ₹500 welcome voucher redeemed at the till, a Silver Edge membership worth ₹350, and 3 Reward Points per ₹100 in Shoppers Stop stores. Those points are a full rupee each against Shoppers Stop vouchers, so inside the store this is a genuine 3%, plus a ₹500 bonus once a month for any single weekend purchase over ₹15,000. Two ceilings decide whether that matters. The 3% stops at 500 points a calendar month — ₹16,667 of store spend — and the 1% on everything else stops at 1,000 points a month. And the moment those points leave Shoppers Stop they collapse: HDFC's own table prices them at ₹0.25 on the catalogue and as Airmiles, and ₹0.20 as cashback or against SmartBuy flights. A regular Shoppers Stop shopper clears the ₹299 in the first two months. Everyone else is holding a 0.25% card with an unusually aggressive exclusion list — supermarkets, insurance, bakeries and liquor stores all earn nothing.
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
₹299/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹299/yr
Break-even ₹16,000 a month — ₹1,92,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹1,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹2,700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹2,700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
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 ₹100 at Shoppers Stop, worth ₹1 each as Shoppers Stop vouchers — a real 3% inside the store
- ₹500 Shoppers Stop welcome voucher, taken straight off the bill at the till
- 500 bonus Reward Points for a single weekend Shoppers Stop purchase of ₹15,000 or more, once a month
- Complimentary Shoppers Stop Silver Edge membership worth ₹350, which earns First Citizen points on top
- 1% fuel surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions, up to ₹250 a statement cycle
Watch out
- NO spend-based fee waiver — ₹299 every year, and HDFC's own FAQ says the card is not free
- The 3% caps at 500 Reward Points a calendar month, which is ₹16,667 of Shoppers Stop spend
- The 1% on everything else caps at 1,000 Reward Points a calendar month
- A point is ₹1 ONLY as a Shoppers Stop voucher — ₹0.25 on the catalogue and as Airmiles, ₹0.20 as cashback or on SmartBuy flights
- Every transaction must be ₹150 or more to earn anything at all
- The exclusion list is unusually long: fuel, rent, government, wallet, supermarkets, tax, all EMI, insurance, liquor stores, bakeries and vending machines
- 3% is matched on Shoppers Stop's own terminal and merchant IDs — if an ID has not been shared with HDFC, the points do not accrue
- Statement-credit redemption costs ₹50 and needs 500 points; a catalogue redemption costs ₹99 + taxes
- No lounge access of any kind, and points lapse 2 years after they accrue
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
8 sourced rules · 8 pay zero
HDFC's "3%" and "1%" here are POINT COUNTS — its own worked illustration posts 90 points on a ₹3,000 Shoppers Stop purchase and 20 on a ₹2,000 non-store one. The points are ₹1 each only as Shoppers Stop vouchers; ₹0.25 on the catalogue and as Airmiles, ₹0.20 as cashback or on SmartBuy travel. Both tiers are capped by the calendar month — 500 points on Shoppers Stop spend, 1,000 on everything else — and no transaction under ₹150 earns at all. The exclusion list is unusually wide.
- Fuel · excluded Zero points; the 1% surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹5,000 transactions (max ₹250 a statement cycle) is all fuel gets
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero points, and HDFC's bank-wide 1% rent fee applies
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero points on wallet loads
- Insurance · excluded Zero points — insurance is named outright in the exclusion list
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.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
Openly available with a live Apply Now funnel on HDFC's own product page as of 2026-08-17 — this is the ₹299 base tier, a distinct product from the ₹4,500 Shoppers Stop BLACK HDFC Bank card, which sits on its own page with its own fee row in the MITC.
HDFC Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
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.
The whole fee statement is one line — "Joining/renewal membership fee: ₹299 plus applicable taxes" — because HDFC's fee table has a single combined joining/annual column. There is NO spend-based waiver: the page publishes none and the bank-wide MITC leaves this row's waiver column empty. HDFC's own FAQ on the same page answers "Is Shoppers Stop Credit Card free?" with "No". Reward Points are ₹1 only against Shoppers Stop vouchers — ₹0.25 on the catalogue and as Airmiles, ₹0.20 as cashback or on SmartBuy travel — and they 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.
- 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 The card's own Terms & Conditions — the 3% / 1% table with its 500 and 1,000 monthly caps, the ₹150 minimum transaction, the exclusion list and the five different redemption values
- official The card's own fees page — "Joining/renewal membership fee: ₹299 plus applicable taxes", one figure for both, and HDFC's own answer that the card is not free
- official Product page — 3% Reward Points on Shoppers Stop purchases, 1% elsewhere, the ₹500 welcome voucher and the ₹500-a-month weekend benefit
- official HDFC's bank-wide MITC, Version 4.6 dated August 2026 — "Shoppers Stop HDFC Bank ₹ 299" in the single combined joining/annual column, with the waiver column left empty