ICICI Bank Emeralde
DowngradeUnlimited lounges at ₹12,000, and points worth a quarter of what the name suggests.
The original Emeralde redeems ICICI Reward Points at ₹0.25 apiece — the ₹1.00 house value is Emeralde Private Metal's iShop rate, not this card's. earn.base bakes the haircut in.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
How these numbers are computed →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
The take
Read the name twice: this is the ORIGINAL Emeralde, not the Emeralde Private Metal we rank at #4. The difference is the entire argument. Private Metal earns 6 points per ₹200 that redeem near ₹1 on iShop travel — 3%. This one earns 4 points per ₹100 that redeem at ₹0.25 — 1%, for a ₹12,000 fee waived only at ₹10 lakh of spend. You are paying super-premium money for entry-level point value. What survives the arithmetic is the access: genuinely unlimited domestic lounge visits for the primary cardholder, a Priority Pass covering 1,400+ international lounges, up to four golf rounds a month at one per ₹50,000 spent, ₹3 crore of air-accident cover, and a 2% forex markup — well under the 3.5% the rest of ICICI's lineup charges. If your ₹12,000 buys lounge chairs rather than points, it still works. If you're here for the currency, product-swap to Private Metal and triple your return on the identical spend. Downgrade.
What's good
- Unlimited domestic lounge access for the primary cardholder — genuinely uncapped
- Priority Pass membership: 1,400+ lounges in 145+ countries
- 2% forex markup — well under ICICI's 3.5% standard
- Up to 4 golf rounds a month (one per ₹50,000 spent)
- ₹3 crore air-accident cover for the primary cardholder
Watch out
- NOT the Emeralde Private Metal — this card's points redeem at ₹0.25, not ₹1.00
- 1.0% effective return against a ₹12,000 fee; waiver needs ₹10L of spend
- No welcome benefit published
- No airline transfer route — Air India Maharaja Club is Emeralde Private + Times Black only
- Superseded by Private Metal for new super-premium approvals; utilities and insurance earn a quarter
Where the miles go
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
every ICICI Bank route, side by side → · the ICICI Reward Points hub →
Lounge access
Opens 692 of 746 tracked lounge doors across 293 airports — see the full map →
Can you get it?
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.
ICICI's product page is still live with an Apply button and no closure notice, but the honest read is that the Nov-2023 Emeralde Private Metal launch took the super-premium slot: reviewers describe this card as issued "only to selected customers", and the branch route is a relationship conversation, not a form. If you already hold it, the more useful question is the product swap to Private Metal — same ICICI Reward Points pot, ₹499 more a year, and a redemption rate four times higher.
ICICI 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 ICICI Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
THE ORIGINAL NON-METAL EMERALDE — a different card from icici-emeralde-private (Emeralde Private Metal, ₹12,499). Joining ₹12,000; renewal ₹12,000 waived at ₹10L annual spend; CardInsider also documents a ₹1,000/month fee option. Unlimited domestic lounge access + Priority Pass (1,400+ lounges, 145+ countries); up to 4 golf rounds/month at one per ₹50,000 spend; ₹3 crore air-accident cover. Visa and Mastercard variants — Emeralde is absent from ICICI's RuPay lineup page. Product page still live with an Apply button and no closure notice (2026-07-25), but reviewers describe issuance as selected-customers-only post the Nov-2023 Private Metal launch. ICICI publishes no income/age criteria in the MITC — not published.
per the official ICICI Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 1 Jun 2026AU, YES and IndusInd points open transfers to Maharaja ClubAU/YES/IndusInd points locked in closed loops → Maharaja routes: IndusInd Tiger 1:1 (Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1); AU Zenith+ 3:2, other AU cards 6:1; YES Marquee/Reserv 15:1
Three banks joined Air India's transfer roster at once — and the ratios are the whole story. The lifetime-free IndusInd Tiger gets the only honest 1:1 (capped 25k/month); AU Zenith+ lands a genuinely good 3:2 that triples what AU points were worth; everything else — Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1, the AU 6:1 crowd, YES at a punitive 15:1 — is a decoy dressed as a partnership.
- 1 Apr 2026Maharaja Club gets cheaper awards and faster creditingHigher award costs; slow points crediting → Domestic awards from 1,500 pts; credited within 2 hours
A rare buff. Air India's post-merger programme drops domestic award flights to 1,500 points, cabin upgrades to 4,000, credits Star Alliance miles within two hours, and eases Platinum to 60 flights. The transfer target Indian card geeks care about actually got better.
- 1 Feb 2026ICICI gates its BookMyShow movie perk behind quarterly spendComplimentary BookMyShow ticket offer, no spend condition → Needs ₹25,000 spend in the preceding quarter
ICICI didn't kill the BookMyShow benefit outright — Instant Platinum loses it entirely from 1 February 2026, while other cards keep it only if you've spent ₹25,000 in the prior quarter. It's a small perk on paper, but it's part of the same February devaluation wave that also killed several reward categories, and it signals ICICI is done handing out 'free' lifestyle perks with no spend attached.
- 15 Jan 2026ICICI caps transport rewards and excludes rent, tax, fuel spendsEmeralde/Sapphiro earned on unlimited transport; 1.99% DCC → Transport rewards capped at ₹20,000/month; DCC to 2%
From 15 January 2026, Emeralde, Emeralde Private, Sapphiro and Rubyx only earn points on the first ₹20,000 of monthly transport spend, and government services, fuel, rent, tax and third-party wallet loads earn nothing at all — categories that used to be reliable point-farming ground. Layer on a DCC fee hike to 2% and a new ₹3,500 add-on card fee, and this is one of the broadest single-day devaluations any Indian issuer has run across its premium metal tier.
- 10 Jan 2026SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry feesUniform domestic lounge list, free swipe-in access → Set A/Set B lounge tiers by card, plus ₹2–25 entry charges
From 10 January 2026, SBI Card sorts its domestic lounge network into a Set A (top cards like Club Vistara SBI Card, Apollo SELECT) and a broader Set B (PRIME, Pulse, Titan SBI Card and others) — and bolts on a non-refundable ₹2 authorization charge plus a ₹25 validation hold on every visit. It's marketed as an expansion since more airports are covered, but the fine print is a two-tier system with new friction at the gate, right after SBI had already pulled complimentary air accident insurance six months earlier.
- 1 Dec 2024HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles cardNo mainstream HSBC airmiles card in India → ₹4,999 card, 4X travel/forex, 1:1 to Avios & KrisFlyer
HSBC's serious play for Indian miles chasers: 4 points per ₹100 on flights, travel aggregators and forex, and instant 1:1 transfers to British Airways and Qatar Avios plus ~20 airline/hotel partners including KrisFlyer and Air India — all from the app. A genuine sub-₹5k alternative to Atlas. (Welcome-offer window opened 1 Dec 2024.)
- 15 Nov 2024ICICI's November purge: rewards, lounges and 1% feesBroad earn; easy spend-based lounge access → Rent/gov/education excluded; grocery capped; 1% ed/utility fee; spend-gated lounges
The single worst day of 2024 for ICICI holders, Emeralde Private included. Rent, government and education spends stop earning and stop counting toward fee waivers, grocery rewards get capped, a 1% fee lands on third-party education/utility, and lounge access is restructured behind prior-spend gates.
- 12 Nov 2024Vistara flies its last; Club Vistara becomes Maharaja ClubClub Vistara (Vistara) → Maharaja Club (Air India), points 1:1
Vistara's final flight was 11 November 2024. Over 4.5 million Club Vistara members — and the single most-loved transfer target for Indian card points — folded into Air India's Maharaja Club at 1:1. The premium-cabin sweet spots Indian miles chasers plan around all moved house overnight.
Go deeper
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these documents — the issuer's own paperwork first. Spot something stale? The PDF wins, and we re-verify.
- official Product page — ₹12,000 joining + ₹12,000 annual (waived at ₹10L), 4 RP/₹100 (1 on utilities/insurance), unlimited domestic + Priority Pass, 4 golf rounds/mo, 2% forex, ₹3cr air cover checked 25 Jul 2026
- official MITC PDF checked 25 Jul 2026
- official ICICI RuPay lineup — Coral/Rubyx/Sapphiro/MMT listed, Emeralde absent (no RuPay variant) checked 25 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — 1 RP = ₹0.25 for statement credit and gifts; ₹1,000/month fee option; issued to selected customers checked 25 Jul 2026
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