IDFC FIRST Select
KeepLifetime free, one lounge a quarter, and a 10X that finally points at travel.
Select redeems the IDFC point at a flat ₹0.25 — including on the app's own Travel & Shop platform, which its travel T&C spells out ("Reward Points can be redeemed at 1 Point = ₹0.25"). No ₹0.50 app-travel rate, no ₹1.00 portal rate; earn.base is scaled to the ₹0.25 reality. Points expire 24 months after they're credited.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: ₹500 gift voucher on ₹5,000 spent within 30 days of card generation, plus 5% cashback up to ₹1,000 on your first EMI transaction in the same 30 days
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
Select is the free card IDFC gives its ₹12-lakh-income customers, and on 18 June 2026 it quietly became a better travel card: the old construct paid 10X only on the slice of spend above ₹20,000 a statement, which rewarded volume; the new one pays 10X flat on dining, travel and international purchases, which rewards the reader we write for. That's 1.25% on the categories that matter and 0.375% on everything else — thin, but it costs nothing forever: nil joining fee, nil annual fee, no minimum-spend waiver to chase, straight out of IDFC's own MITC. One domestic airport lounge visit a quarter, four railway lounge visits a quarter, a 1.99% forex markup that undercuts most premium cards, ₹10,000 of trip-cancellation cover and a monthly BOGO movie ticket round it out — and every one of those perks needs ₹20,000 spent the previous month. Two honest deductions: the same June revision cut the app travel bonus from 33%/13% to 20%/10%, and IDFC's own WOW! does 0% forex for the same ₹0. Hold Select for the free lounge and the dining 10X; take WOW! to the airport.
What's good
- Lifetime free — nil joining, nil annual, no spend hoop (IDFC's own MITC says so)
- 10X (10 RP per ₹200) on dining, travel, international and birthday spends since 18 Jun 2026
- 1 domestic airport lounge visit + 4 railway lounge visits every quarter
- 25 RP per ₹100 on app hotel bookings ≈ 6.25% at ₹0.25 a point
- 1.99% forex — cheaper than most cards charging ₹5,000 a year
Watch out
- 0.375% base earn: 3 RP per ₹200 at ₹0.25 a point, and the point never gets better than ₹0.25
- 1.99% forex is good for free — but IDFC's own WOW! does 0% for the same ₹0
- Lounges, railway lounges and the movie BOGO all need ₹20,000 spent the previous month
- 18-Jun-2026 cut the app travel bonus from 33%/13% to 20%/10% and scrapped the old above-₹20k 10X
- Points expire at 24 months, ₹99 + GST a redemption, and there are no transfer partners at all
What earns, what doesn't
Restructured 18-Jun-2026 — 10X now follows CATEGORIES (dining, travel, international, birthday) instead of the old "incremental spend above ₹20,000 a statement cycle". Base is 3 RP/₹200; the rows below are the carve-outs.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP; 1% surcharge waiver on ₹200–₹5,000 txns, cap ₹300/cycle; 1% fee past ₹30,000 of fuel a cycle
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 1 RP/₹200 ≈ 0.13%; 1% fee once utility spends pass ₹20,000/cycle
- Insurance · reduced 1 RP/₹200 ≈ 0.13%
- Telecom · reduced Utility-MCC treatment → 1 RP/₹200
per IDFC FIRST Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Lounge access
Gate: ₹20k spend in the previous calendar month
Opens 93 of 746 tracked lounge doors across 59 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.
IDFC publishes a single criterion on the product page — annual income of ₹12 lakhs or more — and no age band, which makes Select the highest-income lifetime-free card the bank issues. In practice it is also the bank's default upgrade landing spot: TechnoFino and CardMaven threads route Select holders on to FIRST Wealth by a customer-care service request rather than a fresh application, and lifetime-free status carries across.
per the official IDFC FIRST 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.
Lifetime free — joining Nil, annual Nil, no spend waiver to chase; the FAQ says it in as many words ("no joining, membership, or annual fees at any point"). Reward points valid 24 months from credit (named in the MITC). Fuel-surcharge waiver capped ₹300/cycle. 1% fee on utility spends past ₹20,000 a cycle and on rent (min ₹249). IDFC publishes an income floor but no age band for Select — left blank rather than guessed. A "FIRST Select Mastercard Variant" is named in the MITC's image-personalisation exclusions. MITC effective 18-Jun-2026.
per the official IDFC FIRST 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.
- 18 Jun 2026Mayura's app-travel multipliers cut to 40X hotels, 25X flights60 RP/₹150 on app hotels, 40 RP/₹150 on flights (Jun-2025 boost) → 40 RP/₹150 hotels, 25 RP/₹150 flights; movie BOGO needs ₹20k/month; rewards capped at credit limit
The Jun-2025 boost is rolled back: IDFC's 18-Jun-2026 notice re-states the app bonus as '20%/10% Bonus Reward Points' — 30 and 15 bonus RP per ₹150 — dropping hotel bookings from a 20% effective return to 13.3% and flights from 13.3% to 8.3% at the ₹0.50 travel value. The same notice gates the BOGO movie perk on ₹20,000 of previous-month spend and stops rewards on spends beyond your credit limit. The 0% forex and 5X/10X base survive untouched.
- 18 Jun 2026Ashva's app-travel multipliers cut to 40X hotels, 25X flights60 RP/₹150 on app hotels, 40 RP/₹150 on flights (Jun-2025 'up to 50X Bonus' boost) → 40 RP/₹150 hotels, 25 RP/₹150 flights; movie BOGO needs ₹20k/month; rewards capped at credit limit
Ashva rides the same 18-Jun-2026 notice that hit its sibling Mayura: IDFC re-states the mobile-app Travel & Shop bonus as '20% Bonus Reward Points on hotels, 10% on flights' over the base earn — landing at 40 and 25 total RP per ₹150, down from the Jun-2025 boost's 60/40. At Ashva's ₹0.40 app-travel value that drops app hotels from ~16% to ~10.7% and flights from ~10.7% to ~6.7%. The same notice stops rewards on spends beyond the credit limit and gates the Buy-One-Get-One movie perk on ₹20,000 of previous-month spend. The 1% forex and 5X/10X base survive; the 15,000 bonus-RP/month cap is unchanged.
- 18 Jun 2026IDFC FIRST bolts a 24-month expiry onto reward points that were lifetime-validIDFC FIRST reward points never expired — lifetime validity was a headline feature → Points earned from 18 Jun 2026 expire 24 months from crediting (FIRST Wealth, Millennia, WOW! and more); existing WOW! points valid until Jul 2028
The same June-2026 revamp that clipped Mayura and Ashva's app-travel multipliers took a quieter but broader swing: IDFC FIRST's celebrated 'points never expire' promise is dead. Points earned from 18 June 2026 now carry a 24-month expiry from the crediting date across FIRST Wealth, FIRST Millennia, FIRST WOW! and the wider stack, with existing WOW! balances grandfathered only until July 2028. Pair it with the portfolio-wide move to stop earning beyond your credit limit and the ₹20,000-spend gate on the movie perk, and IDFC's whole 'lifetime-valid, low-friction rewards' identity is being sanded down. The lifetime-validity era is over — burn IDFC points, don't hoard them.
- 18 Jun 2026IDFC FIRST Select's 10X moves to categories, app travel bonus cut3X up to ₹20,000 a statement cycle and 10X on every rupee above it; 33% bonus RP on app hotels, 13% on flights → 10X only on dining, travel, international and birthday spends; 3X on everything else; app bonus cut to 20% hotels, 10% flights
IDFC rebuilt the free Select card's reward engine on 18 June 2026 and the answer depends on how much you spend. The old construct paid 10X (10 RP per ₹200) on the incremental spend above ₹20,000 a statement cycle, which rewarded volume; the new one pays 10X on dining, travel, international and birthday spends and 3X on the rest. At ₹50,000 a month that's a straight cut — roughly 0.9% blended down to 0.55% — while a ₹15,000-a-month diner comes out ahead. What isn't ambiguous is the travel portal: the bonus on app hotel bookings dropped from 33% to 20% and flights from 13% to 10%, taking app hotels from 8.25% to 6.25% at the ₹0.25 point. The same date capped rewards at your credit limit per billing cycle across the IDFC range.
- 18 Jun 2026Gaj stops earning past your credit limitReward points on every eligible spend in a billing cycle → Reward points only on spends up to your credit limit per billing cycle
The same 18 June 2026 sweep that cut Mayura's app multipliers left Gaj's earn structure alone — 5 RP per ₹150 flat, 50 and 25 RP per ₹150 on app hotels and flights, points still worth ₹1 on in-app travel — and took exactly one thing: pay down mid-cycle and re-spend, and the second lap earns nothing. IDFC's notice is explicit that rewards accrue only on spends up to your credit limit per billing cycle. On a card sold to private-banking clients with limits to match it is a small thing; on a card whose whole pitch is 33% back on app hotel bookings, it quietly caps how much of that you can farm in a month.
- 6 Jan 2026IDFC FIRST launches zero-forex Diamond Reserve cardNo 0%-forex travel card at the ₹3,000 fee tier → Diamond Reserve: 0% forex, 4 lounge visits/quarter
IDFC FIRST's Diamond Reserve, launched 6 January 2026 at ₹3,000+GST, undercuts the premium travel-card field with genuinely 0% forex markup, 60 RP per ₹150 on app hotel bookings and 40 RP per ₹150 on flights (both worth ₹0.25/point), plus 2 domestic and 2 international lounge visits every quarter and lifetime-valid points. In a year dominated by devaluations from HDFC, Axis, ICICI and SBI, this is one of the rare cards actually adding value at a mid-premium fee point rather than taking it away.
- 29 Dec 2025IDFC FIRST unveils Gaj, an invite-only ₹12,500 metal flagshipPrivate banking metal tier topped out below super-premium → Gaj: launched atop Ashva-Mayura-Gaj trilogy, ₹12,500 fee
Gaj: is invite-only for IDFC FIRST Private Banking clients, carries a ₹12,500+GST joining and annual fee, and offsets it with 12,500 Reward Points (1RP=₹1) redeemable on in-app travel bookings — plus 0% forex and 1:1 earn rate. It's a niche launch that won't matter to most readers, but it signals IDFC FIRST is chasing the HNI segment HDFC Infinia and Axis Reserve have owned for years, right as those two incumbents are busy cutting benefits.
- 11 Jul 2023IDFC First and Club Vistara team up on a travel credit cardNo IDFC First travel card tied to an airline programme → Club Vistara IDFC FIRST Card: CV Points, lounge, golf perks
IDFC FIRST Bank, Club Vistara and Mastercard announced a new co-branded travel card on July 11, 2023, bundling CV Points earning with lounge access, golf benefits and trip-cancellation cover. It was a modest entrant next to the HDFC and Axis Vistara cards already in market, but it gave IDFC First — still building out its premium lineup — a genuine travel-rewards product for the first time.
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 + FAQs (lifetime free — "no joining, membership, or annual fees at any point"; 1.99% forex; annual income ₹12L+; 10X on dining/travel/international/birthday and 3X elsewhere w.e.f 18-Jun-2026, 1X on utilities/insurance/railways/FASTag; 1 domestic lounge visit and 4 railway lounge visits per quarter on a ₹20k previous-month gate; ₹500 voucher on ₹5,000 in 30 days) checked 25 Jul 2026
- official Travel & Shop bonus T&C PDF ("Effective June 18, 2026" — 20% bonus RP on hotels, 10% on flights; base earn up to 5% = 5 RP/₹100, total up to 25%/15% RP per ₹100; 8,000 bonus RP/month cap; 1 point = ₹0.25; 70% of booking value; 1,00,000/month and 2,00,000/year redemption caps) checked 25 Jul 2026
- official Bank-wide MITC (FIRST Select joining Nil / annual Nil, add-on ₹499; forex 1.99%; ₹199 cash advance; ₹99 redemption fee; over-limit 2.5% min ₹550; fuel-surcharge waiver capped ₹300/cycle; points valid 24 months; a "FIRST Select Mastercard Variant" exists) checked 25 Jul 2026
- official Privileges T&C PDF (up to 1 complimentary airport lounge visit per quarter, ₹20,000 previous-month eligible-spend gate; movie, railway lounge, roadside assistance and insurance terms) checked 25 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider review — corroborates the Visa network, nil fees, 1.99% forex and the 10X dining/travel/international construct checked 25 Jul 2026
Spot an error? Report it →