Air India SBI Signature Card
Keep4 Maharaja Points per ₹100 on everything — India's best-earning airline co-brand, and SBI stopped selling it.
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.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
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.
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
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.
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
Lounge access
Opens 72 of 746 tracked lounge doors across 40 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.
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 ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
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
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 1 Jun 2026AU, YES and IndusInd points open transfers to Maharaja ClubAU/YES/IndusInd points locked in closed loops → Maharaja routes: IndusInd Tiger 1:1 (Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1); AU Zenith+ 3:2, other AU cards 6:1; YES Marquee/Reserv 15:1
Three banks joined Air India's transfer roster at once — and the ratios are the whole story. The lifetime-free IndusInd Tiger gets the only honest 1:1 (capped 25k/month); AU Zenith+ lands a genuinely good 3:2 that triples what AU points were worth; everything else — Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1, the AU 6:1 crowd, YES at a punitive 15:1 — is a decoy dressed as a partnership.
- 1 Apr 2026Maharaja Club gets cheaper awards and faster creditingHigher award costs; slow points crediting → Domestic awards from 1,500 pts; credited within 2 hours
A rare buff. Air India's post-merger programme drops domestic award flights to 1,500 points, cabin upgrades to 4,000, credits Star Alliance miles within two hours, and eases Platinum to 60 flights. The transfer target Indian card geeks care about actually got better.
- 31 Mar 2026SBI kills both Etihad Guest co-brands and force-swaps holders into MILESEtihad Guest SBI Card (₹1,499) and Etihad Guest SBI Premier (₹4,999) earning Etihad Guest Miles directly — up to 6 miles/₹100 on etihad.com → Cards deactivated; holders reissued an SBI MILES card earning SBI Travel Credits instead
SBI's own product pages carry the notice: from December 2025 the Etihad Guest SBI Credit Cards were phased out and holders were issued 'an equally rewarding Miles SBI Credit Card', with the Etihad plastic deactivated either when the replacement was activated or on 31 March 2026, whichever came first. Spend already made on the Etihad card counts toward the new card's fee-reversal milestone in the same annual fee cycle — a decent piece of housekeeping around a bad outcome. The substance is that India's only direct 6-miles-per-₹100 line into Etihad Guest was replaced with a generic transferable currency, and Etihad Guest lost its biggest Indian issuer months after Amex closed its own Etihad transfer route. BOBCARD's two Etihad co-brands, launched January 2026, are now the only cards in the country that earn Guest Miles from the swipe.
- 10 Jan 2026SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry feesUniform domestic lounge list, free swipe-in access → Set A/Set B lounge tiers by card, plus ₹2–25 entry charges
From 10 January 2026, SBI Card sorts its domestic lounge network into a Set A (top cards like Club Vistara SBI Card, Apollo SELECT) and a broader Set B (PRIME, Pulse, Titan SBI Card and others) — and bolts on a non-refundable ₹2 authorization charge plus a ₹25 validation hold on every visit. It's marketed as an expansion since more airports are covered, but the fine print is a two-tier system with new friction at the gate, right after SBI had already pulled complimentary air accident insurance six months earlier.
- 1 Nov 2025SBI adds 1% on third-party education and wallet loadsNo fee on education / wallet loads → 1% fee via third-party apps
Pay tuition straight to the college and you're fine; route it through CRED/Paytm and SBI now clips 1%. Wallet loads get the same treatment. Another door on manufactured spend quietly shut.
- 15 Jul 2025SBI Card pulls free air accident insurance from its top cards₹50L–₹1Cr complimentary air accident cover on top cards → Cover discontinued entirely, no replacement offered
SBI Card Elite, Miles Elite, Miles Prime, Prime and Pulse all lost their complimentary air accident insurance on 15 July 2025 — cover that ran as high as ₹1 crore on the top-end cards. No like-for-like replacement was offered; it's a straight benefit removal that quietly thins out what used to be a genuine differentiator for SBI's premium travel lineup versus HDFC and Axis.
- 1 Dec 2024HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles cardNo mainstream HSBC airmiles card in India → ₹4,999 card, 4X travel/forex, 1:1 to Avios & KrisFlyer
HSBC's serious play for Indian miles chasers: 4 points per ₹100 on flights, travel aggregators and forex, and instant 1:1 transfers to British Airways and Qatar Avios plus ~20 airline/hotel partners including KrisFlyer and Air India — all from the app. A genuine sub-₹5k alternative to Atlas. (Welcome-offer window opened 1 Dec 2024.)
- 12 Nov 2024Vistara flies its last; Club Vistara becomes Maharaja ClubClub Vistara (Vistara) → Maharaja Club (Air India), points 1:1
Vistara's final flight was 11 November 2024. Over 4.5 million Club Vistara members — and the single most-loved transfer target for Indian card points — folded into Air India's Maharaja Club at 1:1. The premium-cabin sweet spots Indian miles chasers plan around all moved house overnight.
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 Official SBI product page (JS-rendered) — ₹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, 1 RP = 1 Air India Maharaja Point, milestones 20,000/30,000/50,000 RP at ₹5L/₹10L/₹20L (cap 1,00,000 a year), 5,000 RP anniversary gift, 8 domestic lounge visits a year (max 2/quarter), Priority Pass membership with a $27 per-visit usage fee, redemption in blocks of 5,000 within 7 working days and irreversible, 1 flight accrual to redeem for self / 5 for others checked 25 Jul 2026
- official SBI's own product record behind that page — isOnline: "no" (live SBI travel cards on the same template read "yes") and no APPLY NOW CTA; the issuer's machine-readable evidence that the card is withdrawn from sale. cardLaunchDate 2020-12-01, productType AIRS. checked 25 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — filed as discontinued by SBI Card, "no new applications will be entertained"; ₹4,999 joining + annual with no waiver, 20,000 welcome, 4 points/₹100 general and 10 on Air India, ₹5L/₹10L/₹20L milestone ladder plus 5,000 anniversary points, 8 domestic lounge visits a year, 3.5% forex markup checked 25 Jul 2026
- 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 dead; 4 RP/₹100 general, ₹4,999 fee with no renewal waiver, 5,000 renewal points, 2 domestic lounge visits per quarter, 3.5% + tax forex, points transfer to Air India 1:1 checked 25 Jul 2026
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