RBL World Safari
KeepIndia's original zero-forex card. The points are a rounding error.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: ₹3,000 MakeMyTrip voucher — one transaction within 30 days + fee payment in the first cycle; voucher emailed within 60 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
World Safari does exactly one thing better than almost every card in this catalog: 0% forex markup, full stop. Spend abroad and you save the 3.5% + GST everyone else quietly charges — worth more than most reward programs on an international trip. The points themselves are forgettable (~0.5% at ₹0.25 each, nothing on international spend, no transfer partners), so treat this as a travel-money tool, not a rewards card. Pair it with a real miles engine and carry it for the border crossings.
What's good
- 0% forex markup — the entire pitch, and it delivers
- ₹3,000 fee pays for itself after ~₹85k of foreign spend
- Milestones: 25,000 points + ₹10,000 voucher across ₹2.5L/₹5L/₹7.5L annual spend
- 2 domestic lounge visits/quarter (₹35k prior-quarter gate) + 2 international/yr via Priority Pass
- 4 complimentary golf rounds a year + lessons (Mastercard)
Watch out
- 0.5% reward rate; zero points on international spend
- No transfer partners; closed-loop redemptions with a ₹99 + GST fee per redemption day
- Domestic lounge access needs ₹35,000 of spend in the previous quarter
- IDFC Mayura now matches the 0% forex with better earn — compare first
What earns, what doesn't
Official T&C MCC table: Fuel & Auto, Utilities (4900), Insurance (6300/6310), Railways (0066/4011/4112 — also zero-earn, no column here), Real Estate/Rental (6513), Wallet (6540), Miscellaneous (5960). Points are ~0.5% anyway — the card's value is the 0% forex markup, not the earn. Redemptions carry a ₹99+GST fee per redemption day.
- Fuel · excluded 'Fuel & Auto' MCC 0032/2541/4001/5541/5542/5172; 1% surcharge waiver on ₹500–₹4,000 txns, waiver cap ₹250/month (official page)
- Rent & property management · excluded 'Real Estate/Rental' MCC 6513 — zero
- Wallet loads · excluded MCC 6540 — zero
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded MCC 4900 (4814/4816/4899 not listed — same narrow-utilities quirk as HSBC)
Lounge access
Gate: ₹35k prior-quarter spend (domestic)
Opens 73 of 644 tracked lounge doors across 41 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.
RBL 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 RBL 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.
Fee ₹3,000 both years, NO spend waiver. The 0% forex is the whole product — and cashing out the (already thin) points costs ₹99+GST per redemption day. Fuel surcharge waiver 1% on ₹500–₹4,000, capped ₹250/month. RBL publishes no income/age criteria for World Safari.
per the official RBL 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 Jul 2025RBL gates domestic lounges behind ₹35k a quarterComplimentary domestic lounge visits on World Safari, Icon and Platinum Maxima with no spend condition; add-on cards included → ₹35,000 of prior-quarter retail spend unlocks the next quarter's visits; add-on cardholders excluded; nothing in the issuance quarter
RBL joined the spend-gate club: from 1 July 2025, World Safari and Icon holders must put ₹35,000 of retail spend through the card each quarter to keep the next quarter's domestic lounge visits. Add-on cardholders lose access outright, and new cardholders wait out their first quarter at the food court. For World Safari — a card people carry precisely for airports — the free-with-the-fee era is over.
- 15 Oct 2024RBL strips points from education, government and wallet spendsWorld Safari and Icon earned base points on most categories; milestone counters included nearly all retail spend → No points on education-via-apps, government, contracted services, cash and Bills2Pay; milestones exclude 14 categories; 1% fees on utility spends past ₹50k/month, education apps and fuel past ₹10k
A portfolio-wide tightening dressed up as a T&C refresh: from 15 October 2024, RBL cards — World Safari and Icon included — stopped earning on education portals, government payments, wallets, and Bills2Pay, and the milestone counters that justify both cards' fees now exclude fourteen spend categories. Add 1% surcharges on big utility months, education apps and ₹10k+ fuel fills, and the effective reward rate on real-world spend dropped without a single headline number changing.
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 checked 12 Jul 2026
- official MITC PDF checked 13 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider review checked 12 Jul 2026
- official RBL network availability guide checked 12 Jul 2026
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