IDFC FIRST Wealth
KeepA truly free Visa Infinite: 0% forex, a 10X that finally points at travel, lounges on a ₹20k leash.
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 gift voucher from a choice of top brands on ₹5,000 spent within 30 days of card generation, plus 5% cashback capped at ₹1,000 on a first EMI transaction — IDFC bills the pair as ₹1,500; a nudge, not a bonus
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 →
Pays from the first rupee
At ₹1,000 a month — ₹12,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹0 gross (earn ₹0) against its ₹0 fee = ₹0 net — at or above ₹0 from the first rung we price. 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 · the network variants
Wealth redeems the IDFC point at a flat ₹0.25 — the house value exactly. Its app-travel perk is 20%/10% BONUS points (hotels/flights), not a higher per-point value like Mayura's ₹0.50. That bonus is ADDITIVE, not a multiplier: IDFC's own rewards T&C tables Base Earn (A) "Up to 5% Reward Points" + Bonus (B) "20% Reward Points" = Total (A+B) "Up to 25% Reward Points", and the product-page FAQ states it in absolute points — "Hotel bookings via the IDFC FIRST Mobile App earn 40 bonus points per ₹200 spent". More points, never dearer ones.
The take
Wealth is the rare card that costs nothing and never asks for a minimum spend to stay free — IDFC's own notice calls it "SUPER-powerful, FREE FOR LIFE," and for once the caps lock is earned. Two things make it worth a wallet slot: a 0% forex markup (bank-wide from 9 Sep 2026) that undercuts almost every card outside the true-zero club, and a June-2026 revision that finally aimed the 10X at the reader we write for. Since 18 June 2026 dining, travel, international and birthday spends earn 10 points per ₹200 from the very first transaction — the old ₹20,000-a-cycle gate is gone — which is 1.25% once you price the point at its honest ₹0.25. Everything else is 3X, or 0.375%, and that is the number to plan around. The one genuinely fat line is the app's FIRST Rewards Gallery (the portal formerly pitched as Travel & Shop): hotels booked there pay 25 points per ₹100 (5 base plus a 20% bonus that IDFC adds, not multiplies) — 6.25%, capped at 8,000 bonus points a month, and down from a 33% bonus before June. The same revision took the points' immortality away: they now expire 24 months after they're credited. Lounges (1 domestic + 1 international a quarter, plus railways) hang on spending ₹20,000 the previous calendar month; golf reads the same ₹20,000 off the statement cycle. Keep it for the forex, the free-forever status and the app portal; don't mistake the base earn for a rewards engine.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
This card is lifetime free. There is no fee due, no renewal to weigh, and nothing to cancel to save.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
nothing due at the anniversary · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹0 — lifetime free
At your spend
₹1,000 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹2,000 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹3,900 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹11,800 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹19,700 a year at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
Everyday earn plus milestones, with no fee to subtract — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
The downgrade
IDFC FIRST 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
- 9 Sep 2026 IDFC FIRST Bank zeroes forex markup on every credit card issuer-wide
- 18 Jun 2026 IDFC FIRST bolts a 24-month expiry onto reward points that were lifetime-valid issuer-wide
- 18 Jun 2026 FIRST Wealth's app-travel bonus falls from 33% to 20%
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
- Lifetime free — no joining fee, no annual fee, no minimum-spend waiver hoop
- 0% forex markup on a Visa Infinite since 9 Sep 2026 — bank-wide MITC NIL
- 10X (10 RP per ₹200) on dining, travel, international and birthday spends from the first transaction since 18 Jun 2026
- 25 RP per ₹100 on app hotel bookings ≈ 6.25% — the bonus is added to the base, not multiplied through it
- 1 domestic + 1 international lounge/quarter + 4 railway/quarter (₹20k prev-month gate)
Watch out
- Points redeem at ₹0.25 flat — no ₹0.50 app-travel value; app travel pays bonus points instead
- Base earn is 0.375%; only dining, travel and international spends reach 1.25%
- Points now expire 24 months after they're credited — the 18-Jun-2026 revision ended the never-expire promise
- The same revision cut the app travel bonus from 33%/13% to 20%/10% — hotels went 38 → 25 RP per ₹100
- Closed loop: no airline or hotel transfer partners at all
- Lounge + golf perks need ₹20k spend the previous month; Jan-2026 moved earn base ₹150 → ₹200
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes IDFC FIRST Reward Points into a programme that publishes an award chart. These points buy catalogue and portal redemptions, not award seats — so this page has no flight to show you, and will not invent one.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
What earns, what doesn't
14 sourced rules · 2 pay zero
Restructured 18-Jun-2026: 10X (10 RP/₹200) now follows CATEGORIES — dining, travel, international and birthday spends, from the first transaction — replacing the old "3X below ₹20k a cycle, 10X above". Base is 3 RP/₹200. The Jan-2026 update moved the earn base ₹150 → ₹200 and dropped FASTag (4784) + railway (4111/4112) to 1X. The category splits below are now OFFICIAL — the live Wealth rewards T&C names "3 reward points on Rent, Government, Wallet Load and Education" and "1 reward point on Insurance, Utilities, Railway, and Fastag". Points redeem at a flat ₹0.25 — every rate is worth half the same rate on Mayura, and that is why each reduced rate is written as "X RP/₹200 vs 3 RP/₹200": earn.base (0.75) carries the ₹0.25 haircut while the notes quote raw RP, so a lone rate would read double.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP; 1% surcharge waiver (community, CardMaven)
- Rent & property management · reduced 3 RP/₹200 vs the 3 RP/₹200 base (~0.38% at ₹0.25) — the full everyday rate, it only loses 10X eligibility; named in the official rewards T&C; the bank-wide 1% rent fee (min ₹249) still applies
- Wallet loads · reduced 3 RP/₹200 vs the 3 RP/₹200 base — one of the few cards earning on wallet loads — official rewards T&C
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 1 RP/₹200 vs the 3 RP/₹200 base (~0.13%) — official rewards T&C; 1% fee once utility spends pass ₹20,000 a cycle (MITC)
per IDFC FIRST Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Lounge access
129 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹20k prior-month spend (airport counts cut to 1+1/quarter w.e.f. 1-Apr-2026)
Opens 129 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 54 airports and 19 railway stations , via DreamFolks, DreamFolks Railway — see the full map →
Can you get it?
income, age and the route in
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.
The official line says ₹36L/yr; the door most people actually use is the upgrade desk. TechnoFino and CardMaven threads consistently show existing IDFC cardholders converted to Wealth via a customer-care service request ("card upgrade without limit enhancement"), with approvals reported at limits as low as ₹2.5–5L — and lifetime-free status carries over. Persistence is part of the documented process: declined on call one, approved on call three. Cold applications face the ₹36L bar; upgrades commonly don't.
per the official IDFC FIRST 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.
Lifetime free — no joining, annual or minimum-spend condition (official Dec-2025 notice). Reward points are valid 24 months from credit — the 18-Jun-2026 revision ended the never-expire promise, and the MITC now names FIRST Wealth in its 24-month list. Effective 18-Jan-2026 the earn base moved ₹150 → ₹200, and RP are forfeited for any cycle where the Minimum Amount Due goes unpaid; FASTag past ₹10k or railway past ₹25k per cycle draw a 1% fee. Lounge/golf revised 1-Apr-2026, gated on ₹20k previous-month spend. Income ₹36L/yr from official eligibility; age community.
per the official IDFC FIRST 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.
- 9 Sept 2026IDFC FIRST Bank zeroes forex markup on every credit cardA per-card markup table — Nil on a few premium cards, 1% to 3.5% on the rest → NIL on foreign-currency transactions and on dynamic and static currency conversion, bank-wide
IDFC's retail credit-card MITC, re-saved 9 September 2026, replaces the old per-card forex table with one NIL row covering foreign-currency transactions and dynamic and static currency conversion. The commercial and corporate MITCs, re-saved 7 September, print Nil or 0% for the business and corporate cards. Ashva's brochure, re-issued 10 September, says the same and also cuts that card's international earn from 5 reward points per ₹150 to 2X. A widely reported 26 October cut to international reward earning is not in any of those documents, so it is not on the cards. Cards that were already Nil — Mayura, Gaj, WOW, WOW Black, FIRST Private, Diamond Reserve — did not move.
- 18 Jun 2026Mayura's app-travel multipliers cut to 40X hotels, 25X flights
- 18 Jun 2026LIC IDFC FIRST Select's app-travel bonus cut to 20% hotels, 8% flights
- 18 Jun 2026Ashva's app-travel multipliers cut to 40X hotels, 25X flights
- 18 Jun 2026IDFC FIRST bolts a 24-month expiry onto reward points that were lifetime-valid
- 18 Jun 2026IDFC FIRST Select's 10X moves to categories, app travel bonus cut
- 18 Jun 2026Gaj stops earning past your credit limit
- 18 Jun 2026FIRST Wealth's app-travel bonus falls from 33% to 20%
Every IDFC FIRST Bank change we've dated → 11 events since 2023, 7 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against IDFC FIRST Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 11 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Bank-wide MITC (reissued 9 Sep 2026) — Wealth Nil joining/annual; forex NIL bank-wide ("Markup Charges on Foreign currency transactions and Dynamic & Static Currency Conversion Transactions** — NIL")
- official Domestic lounge list — the 48 rooms the quarterly visit can be spent at, addresses and terminals included
- official Product page + FAQs (lifetime free, Visa Infinite; page may still say 1.5% forex — MITC NIL; income ₹36L+)
- official Rewards T&C PDF (10 RP/₹200 on dining/travel/international, 3 RP/₹200 other incl. rent/government/wallet/education)
- official Superseded rewards T&C, archived 13-Feb-2026 (the pre-Jun-2026 construct — 10 RP/₹200 on incremental spends above ₹20,000 a cycle; Table 2.3 Base Earn (A) "Up to 5%" + Bonus)
- official 18-Jun-2026 change notice PDF ("Earlier, 10X rewards were only unlocked after spending ₹20,000 in a billing cycle" — now from the first eligible dining/travel/international)
- official Jan-2026 change notice PDF — (base ₹150→₹200; 1.5% forex; FASTag past ₹10k and railway past ₹25k a cycle draw a 1% fee; lounge/golf 1+1+1 per quarter on a ₹20k previous-month)
- community CardInsider review
- official FIRST Digital RuPay add-on (UPI) page
- community TechnoFino — Select→Wealth customer-care upgrade route
- community CardMaven — upgrade SR ("without limit enhancement"), low-limit approvals, LTF carries