Air India SBI Signature Card
Keep4 Maharaja Points per ₹100 on everything — India's best-earning airline co-brand, and SBI stopped selling it.
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: 20,000 Reward Points on joining-fee payment (credited within 15 days) + complimentary Air India Maharaja Club membership. Closed to new applications, so this is history unless you already hold the card.
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 for itself at ₹3,000 a month
At ₹3,000 a month — ₹36,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹5,100 gross (earn ₹1,100 + milestones ₹4,000) against its ₹4,999 fee = ₹100 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 #687
Why #687 Held at the tail despite an elite 3.2% base: SBI closed the card to new applications in late 2024 after the Air India–Vistara merger. A card no reader can get doesn't outrank cards they can — but for the holders still carrying one it is India's best-earning airline co-brand, so we price it honestly.
The 3.2% assumes you convert to Air India Maharaja Points — 1 RP = 1 Maharaja Point, our ₹0.80 mark. Leave the points inside SBI's own catalogue and they price at the legacy ₹0.25, turning this into a 1% card. The conversion is one-way and irreversible, runs in blocks of 5,000, and takes up to 7 working days — so the good number here is a decision, not a default.
The take
Nothing else in India earns like this. Four points per ₹100 on every rupee you spend, ten on Air India tickets, and each point walks across to Air India Maharaja Points 1:1 — at our ₹0.80 mark that's a 3.2% everyday card and 8% in the air, before a milestone ladder worth up to 1,00,000 bonus points a year and an unconditional 5,000-point anniversary gift. Then SBI shut the door: issuance stopped in late 2024 as Air India swallowed Vistara, and the product page now runs without an Apply Now button. So this page is for the grandfathered holders asking the only question that matters — keep or kill? Keep, if you fly Air India. The ₹4,999 fee has no spend waiver, but ₹1.6L of ordinary spend already pays for it in points, and the milestones are gravy. Kill it if you don't fly AI, because the exits are ugly: Maharaja Points die 24 months after your last paid Air India segment, you need one flight accrual before you can redeem for yourself and five before you can redeem for anyone else, conversion out of SBI is irreversible, and inside SBI's catalogue the same points are worth ₹0.25. The Priority Pass is a membership, not a benefit — every visit bills you $27. This is a card that pays magnificently to feed one airline, and pays you in a currency that punishes anyone who doesn't.
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 ₹4,999/yr
Break-even ₹3,000 a month — ₹36,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹8,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹33,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹75,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹1,87,300 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹2,59,500 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
SBI Card 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
- 25 Aug 2026 Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus a program these points reach
- 20 Aug 2026 IHG Hotels & Resorts becomes a Maharaja Club earning and conversion partner 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
- 4 Reward Points per ₹100 on everything — 3.2% at our ₹0.80 Maharaja mark, the best base earn of any Indian airline co-brand
- 10 RP/₹100 on Air India tickets booked direct (self or others, Super Saver included) ≈ 8%
- 1 Reward Point = 1 Air India Maharaja Point — a straight 1:1 into the program, no transfer haircut
- Up to 1,00,000 bonus RP a year at ₹5L / ₹10L / ₹20L, plus an unconditional 5,000-RP anniversary gift
- 8 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year (max 2/quarter) via the Visa lounge programme
- Complimentary Air India Maharaja Club membership on joining
Watch out
- Closed to new applications — SBI stopped issuing it in late 2024 after the Air India–Vistara merger; existing holders only
- ₹4,999 renewal fee every year with no spend-based waiver published
- Priority Pass is membership-only — SBI bills $27 per lounge visit, so there is no free international lounge here
- Maharaja Points expire 24 months after your last paid Air India / Air India Express flight — award tickets don't reset the clock
- You need 1 flight accrual before redeeming Maharaja Points for yourself, and 5 before redeeming for family or friends
- RP→Maharaja conversion is irreversible, minimum 5,000 points in multiples of 5,000, up to 7 working days
- Inside SBI's own catalogue the points fall to the legacy ₹0.25 — the airline route is the whole thesis
- 3.5% forex markup — this is not the card for spending abroad
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes Air India Maharaja 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
10 sourced rules · 5 pay zero
Base 4 Reward Points per ₹100 (each worth ₹0.80 as a Maharaja Point at our house value), and 10 per ₹100 on Air India tickets since 31 Mar 2025 — down from 30, the single biggest cut this card has taken. §11.4(c) is an exhaustive exclusion list ("all spending … will be eligible to earn Points except the following"), so a category absent from it earns the base rate. Card is CLOSED to new applications; these rules bind existing holders.
- Fuel · excluded Zero points — MCC 5172, 5541, 5542 and 5983. The clause above the list says it twice, naming "Petrol spends" alongside cash withdrawals, balance transfers and Flexipay
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero points — MCC 6513, discontinued w.e.f. 15 Apr 2024, and SBI's MITC charges ₹199 + taxes per rent transaction on top
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero points — e-wallet loading under MCC 6540 and 6541, w.e.f. 1 Jul 2020
- Government / tax · excluded Zero points — MCC 9399 and 9311, discontinued w.e.f. 15 Jul 2024
Does your spend count toward the milestones?
not published — and we say which
A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Not published. SBI Card states what the Air India SBI Signature Card earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the milestones . 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
72 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 72 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 40 airports , via Visa — 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.
Closed to new applications — existing cardholders keep the card; there is no way in.
There is no way in. SBI stopped issuing the Air India co-brands in late 2024 as the Air India–Vistara merger closed, and its own product record now flags the card as unavailable online — the page renders benefits but no Apply Now button, unlike every live SBI travel card on the same template. Existing holders are grandfathered and keep earning. If you want an Air India-facing card today, the honest answer is that India has not yet been given a replacement Maharaja Club co-brand; feed Maharaja Points through a transferable currency instead.
SBI Card publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
per the official SBI Card 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
2 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
CLOSED TO NEW APPLICATIONS — SBI stopped issuing the Air India co-brands in late 2024 after the Air India–Vistara merger; existing holders grandfathered. Visa Signature. Annual fee ₹4,999 + taxes, renewal ₹4,999 + taxes from year two, add-on nil, NO spend-based waiver published. Earn 4 RP/₹100 general and 10 RP/₹100 on Air India tickets booked direct; 1 RP = 1 Air India Maharaja Point, converted in blocks of 5,000 within 7 working days and irreversible once done. 8 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year (max 2/quarter) via the Visa lounge programme; Priority Pass is membership-only with a $27 per-visit usage fee. Forex 3.5% is the SBI Card standard (community — CardInsider/CardExpert); APR, late-fee slabs, cash-advance and over-limit follow SBI Card's standard MITC and were NOT separately machine-verified for this co-brand — verify before quoting. Income and age criteria were never published for this card and are left blank rather than guessed.
per the official SBI Card 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.
- 23 Sept 2026Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and HiltonAccor and Marriott off the grid since 2 April 2026; Club ITC live; no Cathay, Miles & More or Hilton → Accor live at the punished rates; ITC removed; Cathay, Hilton and Miles & More live; Marriott still gone
Axis's own Travel EDGE terms, re-read 25 September 2026, already show the grid that went live on 23 September. Accor ALL is back, and not at the old Atlas 1:2: EDGE Miles convert at 2:1 (Olympus 1:2) and EDGE Rewards at 5:1, with Magnus for Burgundy at 5:2 and only Burgundy Private still at 5:4. Club ITC is off the table. Three partners are new. Cathay Asia Miles sits on that same punished grid. Hilton Honors is the ordinary one: EDGE Miles 1:2, EDGE Rewards 5:2, Burgundy 5:4. Lufthansa Miles & More is the exception on Atlas, which converts 1:1 there while every other standard airline on that card is 1:2; the EDGE Rewards side of Miles & More is the ordinary 5:2. Marriott stays removed. Qatar Privilege Club was already back. Flying Blue, Air India and Qantas moved into Group A, which is the capped group. The Axis Rewards credit card's Amex network is advertised as joining-fee and annual-fee nil for a limited period; there is no separate Amex variant on this board, so that offer is not modelled as a fee change.
- 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
- 6 Aug 2026MaxCoins' full transfer catalogue surfaces — Accor at 2:1 re-prices the coin to ₹1.08
- 3 Aug 2026SBI drops Etihad Guest from the MILES transfer table — the last SBI door into the programme
- 2 Aug 2026Flipkart SuperCoins into Maharaja Club improve to 2:1
- 26 Jul 2026Air India's quiet network retreat: Tokyo moves, Paris and San Francisco go, Malé pauses
- 1 Jul 2026PhonePe SBI SELECT BLACK stops paying on UPI outside PhonePe
Every SBI Card change we've dated → 19 events since 1998, 13 of them nerfs — worst year 2025.
Verified against SBI Card's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 6 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Official SBI product page — ₹4,999 annual + ₹4,999 renewal, no spend waiver, 20,000 RP welcome on joining-fee payment, 4 RP/₹100 general, 10 RP/₹100 on Air India tickets
- official SBI's own product record behind that page — isOnline "no", re-confirmed 26-Jul-2026 against the ten other SBI travel cards on the identical template
- official SBI's MITC — Air India SBI Signature Card ₹4,999 annual and ₹4,999 renewal with no spend reversal, and a 3.5% foreign-currency transaction fee
- official Airport Lounge Access — this card is in neither Set A nor Set B, so its domestic lounge quota runs on Visa's own programme and Visa's own room list
- community CardInsider — filed as discontinued by SBI Card, "no new applications will be entertained"
- community CardExpert review — issuance of the SBI Air India co-brands stopped around September–October 2024 on the back of the Air India–Vistara merger and the application link went