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ICICI Times Black card
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ICICI Times Black

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ICICI's experiences flagship — a lifestyle card wearing a miles costume.

ICICI Bank·Visa·super-premium
Visa
2.0%
Effective reward rate
₹20,000 + GST
Annual fee
₹25,00,000 spend
Fee waiver
₹1.00
ICICI Reward Points value →

What it's worth to you — net annual value

₹34,000
at ₹1L/month
₹1,22,000
at ₹3L/month
₹1,70,000
at ₹5L/month

Welcome: ₹12,000 Lohono / ₹10,000 EaseMyTrip stay voucher + ₹10,000 visa-services wallet (Atlys/OneVasco) + Toni&Guy ₹3,000 + Interflora ₹1,000 + Zomato Gold — application windows via timesblack.com

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

Times Black is ICICI's invite-only answer to the super-premium metal club: 2% domestic, 2.5% international, a 1.49% forex markup that undercuts most of the segment, unlimited Priority Pass, and a ₹50,000 milestone ladder — Klook at ₹2L, a BLADE helicopter or chauffeured-sedan transfer wallet at ₹5L, Tata CLiQ Luxury at ₹10L, a resort night at ₹20L (yes, the helicopter is real). What it is not is a transfer engine — Air India Maharaja at 1:1 is the only loyalty route, so your points mostly live and die at iShop's ₹1. The Emeralde Private earns harder for ₹7,500 less; you take Times Black for the doors it opens, not the maths.

What's good

  • 2% domestic / 2.5% international at ₹1/point on iShop
  • 1.49% forex — among the lowest non-zero markups
  • Unlimited Priority Pass lounges
  • Air India Maharaja 1:1 with no minimum-points gate

Watch out

  • Invite-only; ₹20,000 + GST fee needs ₹25L spend to waive
  • One transfer partner — this is not a miles card
  • Emeralde Private out-earns it at a third of the fee
  • Redeeming for statement credit pays just ₹0.40/point — iShop or vouchers are the ~₹1 routes

What earns, what doesn't

Official page + timesblack.com FAQ publish category treatment but no MCC codes. The 5,000 RP/statement-cycle cap wording ('monthly cap of 5000 reward points on following categories') is ambiguous between per-category and combined — TechnoFino reads it as combined ≈ ₹2.5L/month of capped-category spend; treat the combined reading as the planning number.

Fuel excluded — Zero RP (official page); 1% fuel surcharge waiver up to ₹1,000/statement cycle — CardInsider/CardExpert
Rent & property management excluded — Zero RP (official page); points earned on rent are reversed
Government / tax capped — Earns the full 2% but inside the 5,000 RP/cycle cap (property tax, advance tax, fees, court/postal payments per official page); cap shared with utilities/insurance/education — wording ambiguous, flag
Utilities (electricity/water/gas) capped — 2% up to the 5,000 RP/cycle cap bucket (official page + FAQ)
Insurance capped — 2% up to the 5,000 RP/cycle cap bucket — rare insurance earn at this fee tier
Education capped — 2% up to the 5,000 RP/cycle cap bucket
Wallet loads excluded — ICICI-wide e-wallet-load exclusion (5-Feb-2024) + 1% fee on loads ≥₹5k (15-Jan-2026); Times Black docs don't restate it — community mapping, flag
Groceries & supermarkets full — 2% — no grocery cap published; inferred from absence in official docs — flag
Telecom capped — Likely inside ICICI's utility bucket → same 5,000 RP/cycle cap — community mapping (as on Sapphiro), flag
Jewellery / gold full — No published exclusion — inferred from absence, flag
Forex / international spends full — 2.5% RP on international spends; 1.49%+GST markup (≈1.76% all-in) → rare net-positive card abroad — official page + CardExpert
UPI (RuPay-on-UPI only) not applicable — Visa Infinite only — UPI not supported
EMI conversions / merchant EMI excluded — Official: no RP on transactions converted to EMI; earned points reversed
  • Fuel · excluded Zero RP (official page); 1% fuel surcharge waiver up to ₹1,000/statement cycle — CardInsider/CardExpert
  • Rent & property management · excluded Zero RP (official page); points earned on rent are reversed
  • Wallet loads · excluded ICICI-wide e-wallet-load exclusion (5-Feb-2024) + 1% fee on loads ≥₹5k (15-Jan-2026); Times Black docs don't restate it — community mapping, flag
  • Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · capped 2% up to the 5,000 RP/cycle cap bucket (official page + FAQ)

per ICICI Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →

Where the miles go

Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.

Air India Maharaja Club
1:1 5 working days
The only airline transfer, and only on two cards — Emeralde Private Metal & Times Black at 1:1. Sapphiro/Rubyx have no airline route; iShop/catalogue only. Domestic + Star Alliance.
iShop travel portal
1:1
Flights/hotels at ~₹1/point of ₹ value, no transfer hassle — the default for most ICICI cards.

Lounge access

Unlimited
Domestic
Unlimited (Priority Pass)
International
check T&C
Guests

Opens 581 of 644 tracked lounge doors across 242 airports — see the full map →

DXB ×12 LHR ×12 KUL ×9 JFK ×8 LGW ×8 BLR ×7 BOM ×7 CAI ×7

Can you get it?

The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.

Route Invite-only
Income · salaried Invite-led; ~₹2L+/month reported (community)
Income · self-employed ~ITR ₹24L+/yr reported (community)
Age band 21+ (community)

Invite-only — there is no public application form. The bank calls you.

"Invite-led" is the branding; the practical door is the Times Black site itself, which opens application windows with a video-KYC flow. TechnoFino application logs show existing ICICI customers sailing through — some report approval in under a minute with no fresh document asked — and a live ICICI banking relationship is the commonly reported grease. Community chatter puts the income context near ₹2L/month; the bank publishes nothing.

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.

Forex markup 1.49% + GST (card-specific carve-out in the MITC; standard ICICI rate is 3.5%)
APR 3.75%/mo (45%/yr)
Late fee Nil <₹100; ₹100 (₹100–500); ₹500 (₹501–1,000); ₹600 (₹1,001–5,000); ₹750 (₹5,001–10,000); ₹900 (₹10,001–25,000); ₹1,100 (₹25,001–50,000); ₹1,300 (>₹50,000)
Cash advance Nil — Times Black expressly excluded from the 2.5% (min ₹500) fee
Add-on card ₹3,500 + GST one-time per supplementary card
Overlimit 2.5%, min ₹550
Redemption fee Nil — Times Black exempt from the ₹99 redemption handling fee

Fee ₹20,000 joining and annual, reversed at ₹25L spend (rent/govt/education excluded). Shares Emeralde Private Metal's fee-exemption club — no cash-advance or redemption fees — but card replacement costs ₹3,500 and each add-on ₹3,500. DCC 1.49% (matches forex). Fuel surcharge waiver at all pumps up to ₹4,000/txn, ₹1L/cycle. Invite-only; income/age not in MITC — community. MITC last updated 05-Mar-2026.

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 2026
    Partner moderate Air India
    AU, YES and IndusInd points open transfers to Maharaja Club
    AU/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 2026
    Buff moderate Air India
    Maharaja Club gets cheaper awards and faster crediting
    Higher 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 2026
    Devaluation minor ICICI Bank
    ICICI gates its BookMyShow movie perk behind quarterly spend
    Complimentary 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 2026
    Devaluation major ICICI Bank
    ICICI caps transport rewards and excludes rent, tax, fuel spends
    Emeralde/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 2026
    Lounge moderate SBI Card
    SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry fees
    Uniform 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 2024
    Launch moderate HSBC
    HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles card
    No 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 2024
    Devaluation major ICICI Bank
    ICICI's November purge: rewards, lounges and 1% fees
    Broad 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 2024
    Partner major Air India
    Vistara flies its last; Club Vistara becomes Maharaja Club
    Club 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

ICICI Reward Points — the program hub → vs HDFC Infinia Metal vs Axis Magnus (legacy) vs IDFC FIRST Mayura Welcome-bonus history → Best-of lists → The full rankings →

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.

Spot an error? Report it →

Model this card in the calculator →