ICICI Bank Emeralde
DowngradeUnlimited lounges at ₹12,000, and points worth a quarter of what the name suggests.
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: 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 →
Breaks even only by erasing its fee at ₹89,000 a month
At ₹89,000 a month — ₹10,68,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹9,200 gross (earn ₹9,200) against a fee of ₹0 — the ₹12,000 is waived, the spend having cleared ₹10,00,000 a year = ₹9,200 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 #149
Why #149 A ₹12,000 fee against a 1.0% earn is the worst fee-to-earn ratio on the board — the unlimited lounges are the only thing holding it up.
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. ICICI publishes no per-point figure for this card, and its own membership kit is silent on value where Private Metal's says "Each ICICI Bank Reward Point is equivalent to ₹1" twice; the ₹0.25 is the ICICI Bank Rewards Programme rate stated verbatim in the Rubyx kit — "Each reward point is equivalent to ₹0.25 when redeemed for cash". earn.base bakes the haircut in.
The take
Read the name twice: this is the ORIGINAL Emeralde, not the Emeralde Private Metal we rank at #3. 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.
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
₹12,000/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹12,000/yr
The waiver ₹10,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹83,333 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹89,000 a month — ₹10,68,000 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
−₹9,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
−₹6,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹10,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹31,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹51,900 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
ICICI 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
- 10 Sep 2026 ICICI's September lounge list drops four doors and adds Bhogapuram issuer-wide
- 29 Aug 2026 ICICI un-reserves Mumbai's Adani Silver lounge — the whole Annexure-1 board gets in issuer-wide
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
- 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
- ICICI's own two primary sources disagree on whether this card is still sold: the MITC (mitc_cc.pdf) says sourcing was discontinued 24 Jul 2025, while the product page carries a live Apply Now and no closure banner. We keep it OPEN — the MITC clause reads "…Emeralde and …Emeralde Private Credit Card WITH MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP PLAN", and the natural reading is that the monthly-fee VARIANT went, not the card. Re-verified 2026-08-15; ICICI does post closure banners elsewhere (the MakeMyTrip Signature page carries one), so its absence here is evidence.
What these points actually fly
ICICI Reward Points move to Air India Maharaja Points and iShop (ICICI travel portal) — 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
11 sourced rules · 4 pay zero
Emeralde (the ₹12,000 non-Metal card) sits in the MITC's top cap tier with Emeralde Private, Sapphiro and Rubyx. Base earn is 4 RP per ₹100; the reduced categories pay 1 RP per ₹100. Its caps are twice Coral's, which is the whole argument for the fee.
- Fuel · excluded Zero reward points under the MITC's blanket fuel exclusion; 1% surcharge waiver only
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero on every ICICI card (MCC 6513), plus a 1% rent-pay fee
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero under the E-Wallet Reload exclusion (MCC 6540); 1% fee on loads of ₹5,000+
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 1 RP per ₹100 vs 4 RP per ₹100 on retail, and only on the first ₹80,000 of utility spend a statement cycle — double the Coral tier's ceiling
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹10,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹12,000 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. ICICI Bank states what the ICICI Bank Emeralde earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹10,00,000 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
735 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 735 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 294 airports , via Priority Pass India, Priority Pass Global — see the full map →
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.
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 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.
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
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.
- 10 Sept 2026ICICI's September lounge list drops four doors and adds Bhogapuram
- 29 Aug 2026ICICI un-reserves Mumbai's Adani Silver lounge — the whole Annexure-1 board gets in
- 25 Aug 2026Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus
- 20 Aug 2026IHG Hotels & Resorts becomes a Maharaja Club earning and conversion partner
- 6 Aug 2026MaxCoins' full transfer catalogue surfaces — Accor at 2:1 re-prices the coin to ₹1.08
- 3 Aug 2026SBI drops Etihad Guest from the MILES transfer table — the last SBI door into the programme
- 2 Aug 2026Flipkart SuperCoins into Maharaja Club improve to 2:1
Every ICICI Bank change we've dated → 10 events since 2019, 7 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against ICICI Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 5 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page — ₹12,000 joining + ₹12,000 annual (waived at ₹10L), 4 RP/₹100 (1 on utilities/insurance), unlimited domestic + Priority Pass
- official MITC (last updated 2 Aug 2026) — ₹12,000 joining + ₹12,000 annual, fee reversal at ₹10,00,000; 2% forex mark-up (named exception to the 3.50% standard, w.e.f. 15 Nov 2024)
- official Emeralde membership kit — "4 ICICI Reward Points on every ₹100 spent on all retail transactions except fuel"
- official ICICI RuPay lineup — Coral/Rubyx/Sapphiro/MMT listed, Emeralde absent (no RuPay variant)
- community CardInsider — 1 RP = ₹0.25 for statement credit and gifts; ₹1,000/month fee option; issued to selected customers