IndiGo IDFC FIRST Secured
KeepThe IndiGo dual card without the ₹4,999 cheque — a ₹50,000 FD, assured approval, and no fee until year two.
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: 3,000 IndiGo BluChips on ₹1,00,000 of spend within the first 90 days. NOT the 5,000-BluChip voucher or the meal voucher — those are bought by the joining fee this variant does not pay, and they start arriving from the first ₹4,999 annual fee in year two
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied. 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 for itself at ₹17,000 a month
At ₹17,000 a month — ₹2,04,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹5,600 gross (earn ₹3,100 + milestones ₹2,500) against its ₹4,999 fee = ₹600 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 #376
Why #376 The same card as indigo-idfc-first, entered through a ₹50,000 fixed deposit instead of a ₹4,999 cheque — assured approval, no credit history, and no year-one fee. It ranks a shade below the fee-paid twin because skipping the joining fee also skips the 5,000-BluChip voucher and the meal voucher that fee buys.
The take
This is the same card as the IndiGo IDFC FIRST Dual — the same two plastics, Mastercard and RuPay, on one limit and one statement; the same 3 BluChips per ₹100; the same 1.49% forex; the same milestone ladder of five 5,000-chip vouchers to ₹12 lakh. The difference is the door. Instead of a ₹4,999 joining fee you put down a fixed deposit of at least ₹50,000, and the approval is assured: no credit history, no income proof, the deposit is your limit and it goes on earning interest. What the deposit does not buy is the joining benefit. Pay the ₹4,999 and IDFC hands over a 5,000-BluChip voucher and a meal voucher on day one; take the FD route and you start with nothing but the early-activation grant — 3,000 BluChips for ₹1,00,000 of spend inside 90 days. From the second year the two cards are indistinguishable, because the ₹4,999 annual fee applies to both and buys the same renewal voucher on both. So the FD route is worth about ₹2,500 less in year one and identical thereafter — which is a good trade if you could not get approved for the fee-paid version, and a bad one if you could. The rest of the card's shortcomings travel with it. No lounge access at any fee. UPI, rent, utilities, fuel, insurance and wallet loads earn 0.5 BluChips per ₹100, which is a quarter of a percent. The headline "22 BluChips" needs a high IndiGo loyalty tier — the card itself pays 6 on IndiGo bookings. And BluChips redeem for IndiGo flights and nothing else.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
Here is the fee, the spend that clears it, and everything that has moved under this card since you last decided.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹4,999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹0 joining, then ₹4,999/yr
Break-even ₹17,000 a month — ₹2,04,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹2,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹9,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹25,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹61,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹97,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
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
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
- 10 Jul 2026 BluChip ↔ Accor ALL ratios surface — 6:1 in, 3:2 out, live 13 July a program these points reach
- 18 Jun 2026 Axis adds IndiGo BluChip to the EDGE transfer roster a program these points reach
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
- ₹0 joining fee — the fee is replaced by a fixed deposit of ₹50,000 or more, which keeps earning interest
- Assured approval: no credit history and no income proof, with the FD as the credit limit
- 3 BluChips per ₹100 on general spend — 1.5%, the best base in the IndiGo family
- 1.49% forex markup, one of the lowest on any Indian co-brand
- Up to 22 BluChips/₹100 on IndiGo bookings (6 from the card + IndiGo tier chips)
- Up to 25,000 milestone BluChips a year (₹2L/₹5L/₹8L/₹10L/₹12L)
- Dual Mastercard + RuPay cards on one limit — UPI plus global acceptance
Watch out
- The ₹4,999 annual fee still applies from year two, with no spend waiver — only the FIRST year is free
- The FD route skips the joining benefit: no 5,000-BluChip voucher and no meal voucher in year one
- Your credit limit is capped by your deposit, and the deposit is under lien until the card is closed
- No lounge access at all — a glaring gap at this fee
- UPI, rent, utilities, fuel, insurance, wallet, FASTag, education, railway and government spends earn 0.5 BluChips/₹100 (0.25%)
- The '22 BluChips' headline needs a high IndiGo loyalty tier; the card itself pays 6
- BluChips redeem only for IndiGo flights; no IDFC card has a transfer partner
- Milestone vouchers expire 6 months from issue
What these points actually fly
IndiGo BluChip move to Accor Live Limitless (ALL) — and that programme prices 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
2 sourced rules
The FD-backed edition of the IndiGo co-brand. IDFC names it only in an MITC footnote and publishes no separate product page, so its earn table is the unsecured card's, read off the one page both routes are sold on. The education and government rows are asserted here.
- Government / tax · reduced 0.5 points/₹100 vs the 3 points/₹100 the card pays on ordinary spend — BluChips, 0.25% at ₹0.50 apiece, and government services close IDFC's published carve-out band, verbatim "0.5 On insurance, fuel, utility, rent, wallet, FASTag, education, railway spends & govt. services". The band is stated once above both application routes, so it governs the FD-backed edition too. No cap is published on it
- Education · reduced 0.5 points/₹100 vs the 3 points/₹100 the card pays on ordinary spend — BluChips, and education sits in IDFC's published carve-out band, verbatim "0.5 On insurance, fuel, utility, rent, wallet, FASTag, education, railway spends & govt. services". The band is stated once above both application routes, so it governs the FD-backed edition too. No cap is published on it
per IDFC FIRST Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Does your spend count toward the milestones?
not published — and we say which
₹2,00,000 a year is the bar for the first milestone. A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Not published. IDFC FIRST Bank states what the IndiGo IDFC FIRST Secured earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the milestones — the ₹2,00,000 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
0 of 793 tracked doors
No lounge access. This card opens exactly 0 of 793 tracked lounge doors — board with the crowd, or find a card that doesn't →
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.
One application, two cards, and a fixed deposit instead of a fee. IDFC's own words: "Option 2: ₹0 Joining Fee with FD — Free for the 1st year with min ₹50k FD — Assured approval - Fixed deposit backed card and no credit history needed." Open or link the deposit online, complete video KYC, and both the Mastercard and the RuPay card ship in one kit on a shared limit and a single statement.
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.
THE FEE SHAPE LIVES IN A FOOTNOTE, not a row. MITC §1 prices "IndiGo IDFC FIRST Credit Card** · ₹4,999 · ₹4,999 · ₹499", and the footnote reads verbatim: "Joining fee is not applicable for FD backed- IndiGo IDFC FIRST Secured Credit Card. Annual Fee of ₹4,999 is applicable on FD backed- IndiGo IDFC FIRST Secured Credit Card." That is our published-nil-fee rule's renewal-only shape in the issuer's own words, and it is the only difference between this card and `indigo-idfc-first`. The product page corroborates from the other side: "Option 2: ₹0 Joining Fee with FD — Free for the 1st year with min ₹50k FD". Minimum deposit ₹50,000. Fuel-surcharge waiver: "Not Applicable".
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.
- 10 Jul 2026BluChip ↔ Accor ALL ratios surface — 6:1 in, 3:2 out, live 13 July
- 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 2026Axis adds IndiGo BluChip to the EDGE transfer roster
- 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
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 — 2 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page — the two application routes side by side: ₹4,999 joining fee, or ₹0 joining with a ₹50,000 FD, both at ₹4,999 annual from year two; the earn table and 1.49% forex
- official Bank-wide MITC — the footnote that gives this variant its own fee shape: no joining fee, ₹4,999 annual, ₹499 add-on, 1.49% forex