Kotak Air+ Prime
KeepThe Air+ with a car dealership bolted on — and the only Kotak card that reaches Air India and Air Canada from the same balance.
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 Air Miles (₹3,000) on joining-fee payment, credited within 120 days — plus 3,000 Air Miles within 30 days of every annual-fee payment
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 utilities and 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 for itself at ₹15,000 a month
At ₹15,000 a month — ₹1,80,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹3,000 gross (earn ₹3,000) against its ₹3,000 fee = ₹0 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.
1 notes on the card itself: how it is issued
Best real exit: Accor Live Limitless (ALL) at ₹1.07/pt (2:1 transfer, above house value).
The take
Air+ Prime is the card Kotak built after someone asked what the Air+ would look like if it earned on more than Unbox. It is the same ₹3,000, the same ₹1 Kotak Air Miles, the same 2 per ₹100 everywhere and 5 on Unbox flights and hotels, the same four domestic and two international lounge visits, the same 2% foreign-currency markup and the same ₹4,00,000 fee waiver. Three things separate it, and all three run in Prime's favour. The welcome and renewal bonus is 3,000 Air Miles rather than 2,500, so ₹3,000 of a ₹3,000 fee comes back every single year. There is a 5 Air Miles per ₹100 accelerator on auto-dealer merchants (MCC 5013, 5511, 5521 and 5533) that exists on no other Indian travel card we track — capped at 1,500 accelerated Air Miles a statement cycle, which a single ₹30,000 service bill clears. And the transfer sheet is the widest Kotak prints: eight airlines and two hotel groups, including Air India Maharaja Club, which Air+ cannot reach, and Air Canada Aeroplan and Etihad Guest, which the cheaper Kotak Air cannot. The drags are Air+'s drags, unchanged: you earn nothing at all on international spend, so the low markup buys cheap swipes and not miles; every airline runs 2:1 and Marriott 3:1, all of them worse than simply spending Air Miles at ₹1 on Unbox; and four domestic lounge visits gated at two a quarter is thin for the money. If you are choosing between the two ₹3,000 Kotak cards, this is the one: there is no benefit on which Air+ comes out ahead. The only thing the older card can still tell you that this one cannot is which network its plastic runs on.
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
₹3,000/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹3,000/yr
The waiver ₹4,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹33,333 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹15,000 a month — ₹1,80,000 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
₹10,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹20,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹60,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹1,00,800 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
Kotak Mahindra 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
- 8 Sep 2026 Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product a program these points reach
- 25 Aug 2026 Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus 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
- 3,000 Air Miles on joining and again at every renewal (₹3,000 — the whole fee back, every year)
- 5 Air Miles/₹100 (5%) on Kotak Unbox flights & hotels; 5 on auto-dealer merchants; 2/₹100 everywhere else, unlimited
- The only auto-dealer accelerator on any Indian travel card we track — MCC 5013/5511/5521/5533
- Ten transfer partners at 2:1 (Marriott 3:1) — Air India, Air Canada and Etihad all on one sheet, which no other Kotak card manages
- 2% foreign-currency markup — about half the Indian norm and identical to Air+
- ₹3,000 annual fee waived on ₹4,00,000 of retail spend a year (Key Fact Statement)
- 4 domestic (2/quarter) + 2 international Priority Pass lounge visits a year
- 1% fuel-surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹7,500 transactions, capped ₹4,500 an anniversary year
Watch out
- Zero Air Miles on international spends — the 2% markup buys cheap swipes, not miles
- Every airline transfer runs 2:1 and Marriott 3:1 — strictly worse than redeeming at ₹1 on Unbox
- Only 4 domestic lounge visits a year (max 2 per quarter, ₹2 charged at the door) + 2 international
- Insurance earns 2 Air Miles/₹100 only on the first ₹25,000 a statement cycle, then nothing
- Long no-earn list: utility, telecom, insurance MCCs 5960/6381/6399, education, government, rent, fuel, wallet loads, EMI, online gaming, cash advances
- Rent, wallet, utility/telecom and education spends don't count toward the ₹4,00,000 fee waiver
- Air Miles die 3 years from accrual; 200 minimum to book on Unbox, 1,000 to transfer, and points cover at most 80% of a booking
- Instant vouchers pay only ₹0.50 an Air Mile — the product page's '1 Air Mile = ₹5' contradicts the Detailed T&C, which says ₹0.5
- Kotak names no card network for this product anywhere — check the plastic you are offered before you count on Visa or RuPay acceptance
What these points actually fly
You hold this — the numbers below are your own points.
These points feed 21 programmes that publish an award chart. Cheapest verified seat per cabin, priced in YOUR points with this card's own ratio already applied:
- Bengaluru → Colombo Economy 13,000 Kotak Air Miles via Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) at 2:1 the play
- Delhi → Mumbai Business 25,000 Kotak Air Miles via Air Canada Aeroplan at 2:1 the play
- Mumbai → Hyderabad First 50,000 Kotak Air Miles via Air Canada Aeroplan at 2:1 the play
What earns, what doesn't
11 sourced rules · 10 pay zero
Prime earns 2 Air Miles/₹100 unlimited, 5/₹100 on Kotak Unbox flight and hotel bookings (accelerated leg capped 15,000 Air Miles a statement cycle) and 5/₹100 at auto-dealer merchants MCC 5013/5511/5521/5533 (capped 1,500 a cycle). Kotak states the earn exclusions by 4-digit MCC, which is why the codes below are quoted rather than inferred.
- Fuel · excluded MCC 5172/5541/5542/5552/5983 earn no Air Miles; 1% surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹7,500 transactions, max ₹4,500 an anniversary year. Not on the waiver-exclusion list, so fuel spend still counts toward the ₹4,00,000
- Rent & property management · excluded MCC 6513 earns nothing and is excluded from the fee-waiver count; a separate 1% fee applies to every rent transaction
- Wallet loads · excluded MCC 6540 earns nothing and is excluded from the waiver count; 1% fee above ₹10,000 of wallet loading a statement cycle
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded "Utility/Telecom" MCC 4812/4814/4899/4900 earn nothing and are excluded from the waiver count; 1% fee above ₹75,000 of utility spend a statement cycle
per Kotak Mahindra Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
8 of 15 categories answered
₹4,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹3,000 fee. A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Put your number in
₹80,000 a month of rent & property management is ₹9,60,000 a year that counts ₹0 toward the fee waiver.
The Detailed T&C names the fee-waiver exclusions in full and they are a SHORTER list than the earn exclusions — four categories, not eleven. Verbatim: "Subject to customer making annual spends of ₹4 Lakhs in an anniversary year, annual fees will be waived off. Spends done on following transaction categories will not be counted under spends based annual fee waiver calculation: Rent / Wallet / Utility-Telecom / Education". The KFS repeats the same threshold and adds Transportation to the excluded list; where the two differ we render the union, and the difference is called out here rather than smoothed. Fuel, insurance, government and gaming earn NOTHING but DO count toward the waiver — the T&C's waiver list does not name them.
8 of 15 categories answered · per Kotak Mahindra Bank's own document · in force since 2026-04-24
Where the miles go
10 programs
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
every Kotak Mahindra Bank route, side by side → · the Kotak Air Miles hub →
Lounge access
728 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 728 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 291 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.
Open to apply — Kotak lists Air+ Prime alongside Air and Air+ on its public credit-card page, and the product page carries a live application flow. Kotak's RBI-mandated Key Fact Statement (version KFSA+P24042026) is the document of record: ₹3,000 joining, ₹3,000 annual, joining-fee waiver "NA", and an annual-fee waiver at ₹4,00,000 of retail spend an anniversary year, with rent, wallet, utility/telecom and education stripped out of that calculation. Kotak publishes no separate income or age cutoff for Air+ Prime. If you already hold a Kotak card, the Detailed T&C confirms an upgrade carries your existing reward balance across — and warns that Kotak White holders must redeem any White Pass as statement credit BEFORE upgrading, because Prime has no cashback redemption at all.
Kotak Mahindra 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 Kotak Mahindra 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.
A DIFFERENT CARD from kotak-air-plus at the same ₹3,000 — its own product page, its own KFS (KFSA+P24042026 vs Air+'s KFSA+12032026), its own Detailed T&C and its own transfer-ratio PDF. Joining ₹3,000, annual ₹3,000, no joining-fee waiver, annual fee waived on ₹4,00,000 of retail spend an anniversary year with rent, wallet, utility/telecom and education excluded from that count. Earn 2 Air Miles per ₹100 unlimited, 5 per ₹100 on Kotak Unbox flight/hotel bookings (accelerated leg capped 15,000 Air Miles a statement cycle) and 5 per ₹100 at auto-dealer merchants MCC 5013/5511/5521/5533 (capped 1,500 a cycle); insurance MCC 6300 earns 2 per ₹100 only up to ₹25,000 of cumulative spend a cycle. Nothing earns on utility/telecom, insurance MCC 5960/6381/6399, education, government, rent, fuel, wallet loading, gaming, EMI, cash advances or international spends. 1 Air Mile = ₹1 on Kotak Unbox travel and ₹0.5 on instant vouchers (the product page's "₹5" contradicts the Detailed T&C and is a page typo); 200 minimum to book, 1,000 to transfer, 80% booking cap, 3-year expiry. 1% fuel-surcharge waiver on ₹400–₹7,500 transactions, capped ₹4,500 an anniversary year. 1% fees on rent, on wallet loads above ₹10,000, on fuel above ₹50,000, on utility above ₹75,000 and on skill-based gaming above ₹10,000 a statement cycle, plus 1% on education payments through third-party apps. Kotak publishes no income, age or card-network detail for this product.
per the official Kotak Mahindra 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.
- 30 Sept 2026Dream Different's unredeemed reward points expire after 30 September 2026Reward points accrued on the Dream Different Credit Card up to 31 March 2026 sitting in the account with no stated expiry date → A hard forfeiture date — "After 30th September, 2026, any unredeemed Reward Points will automatically expire"
The second half of the note that closed the programme is the part holders can still act on. Kotak's cardholder agreement gives every Dream Different point accrued up to 31 March 2026 a six-month redemption window that shuts on 30 September 2026, after which unredeemed points are forfeited outright. At the agreement's own conversion rate of 25 paise per point, a year of the card's headline 4-points-per-₹100 online earn on ₹1 lakh of online spend is roughly 4,000 points, about ₹1,000 — small money, but money that becomes zero on 1 October. Points redeem against the Kotak catalogue (flights, hotels, vouchers, merchandise) or as a statement credit through the rewards portal or the contact centre, each with its own minimum, so a last-week redemption risks missing the date on processing alone.
- 23 Sept 2026Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and Hilton
- 8 Sept 2026Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product
- 1 Sept 2026Kotak's Dream Different joining fee goes ₹250 → ₹424 and the waiver disappears
- 1 Sept 2026Kotak halves dynamic currency conversion on Dream Different, 3.5% to 2%
- 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
- 17 Aug 2026ALL Accor+ adds a ₹2,500 dining voucher for sign-ups through 7 September
Every Kotak Mahindra Bank change we've dated → 8 events since 2022, 5 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against Kotak Mahindra 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 Key Fact Statement — Kotak Air+ Prime Credit Card (version KFSA+P24042026) — joining ₹3,000, annual ₹3,000, joining-fee waiver NA, annual fee waived at ₹4,00,000 retail spend
- official Kotak Air+ Prime Detailed T&C PDF — 3,000 welcome + 3,000 renewal Air Miles, 5/₹100 on Unbox travel and auto dealers, 2/₹100 elsewhere, and the ten-partner transfer table
- official Air Miles Transfer Ratio for Kotak Air+ Prime — Air India, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Air France, United, Qatar, Air Canada and Etihad all 2:1; Accor 2:1, Marriott 3:1
- official Kotak Air+ Prime official product page — 5/5/2 Air Miles per ₹100, 4 domestic + 2 international lounge visits, 2% foreign-currency markup, 3,000 welcome + renewal Air Miles
- official Kotak credit-card list — Air+ Prime live alongside Kotak Air and Kotak Air+