SBI AURUM
KeepSBI's ₹9,999 metal flagship — a 1% engine wearing a voucher ladder and an unlimited-lounge pass.
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
Read the ₹0.4L figure carefully: ₹6,000 of its ₹10,500 gross is a voucher or a hotel night, not points — worth that only if you would have bought it anyway.
Welcome: 40,000 AURUM Reward Points (₹10,000 at the 4-per-₹1 peg) + a year of Club Marriott, WSJ and Mint
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 ₹36,000 a month
At ₹36,000 a month — ₹4,32,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹10,100 gross (earn ₹4,100 + milestones ₹6,000) against its ₹9,999 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 #196
Why #196 ₹9,999 buys a 1% engine — 4 points per ₹100 at a flat ₹0.25 — and everything above that is pacing: ₹1,500 of Tata CLiQ only in the calendar months you clear ₹1 lakh. Miss the rhythm and the ladder pays nothing. The 2025-26 transfer doors do not rescue it either, because 5 points per mile means spending ₹1.25 of catalogue value to buy a ₹1 mile. Unlimited international lounges and 1.99% forex are real, but they are perks bolted to a card you cannot apply for — and a valuations desk ranks the engine.
Denied or downgraded? The head-to-heads: HDFC Infinia Metal, KrisFlyer SBI Card APEX.
Best real exit: Club ITC at ₹0.20/pt (5:1 transfer).
The take
AURUM is SBI Card's five-year-old answer to Infinia, and it still hasn't answered the only question that matters: the earn. Four points per ₹100 at a flat ₹0.25 each is 1%, full stop. What the card actually sells is pacing — ₹1,500 of Tata CLiQ every ₹1-lakh month, plus ₹5,000 CLiQ Luxury, ₹10,000 Taj and ₹20,000 Apple as the year compounds — which turns a disciplined ₹12L year into roughly ₹45,000 back with the fee officially waived at that exact spend. Add unlimited international lounge access on DreamFolks, four domestic visits a quarter, a 1.99% forex markup and four BookMyShow tickets a month, and it's a comfortable card. The 2025-26 twist is that AURUM points finally transfer — Maharaja Club, Club ITC and BA Avios at 5:1, AirAsia at 4:1 — but five points per mile means handing over ₹1.25 of catalogue value for a ₹1 mile: a door, not a deal, unless you're pointing it at premium-cabin Avios or Maharaja awards. For everyone else the ladder is the product, and the ladder only pays if you pace it.
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
₹9,999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹9,999/yr
The waiver ₹12,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹1,00,000 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹36,000 a month — ₹4,32,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
−₹4,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹8,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹32,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹86,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹1,09,400 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
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
- 21 Aug 2026 Club ITC pays up to 50,000 bonus Green Points for spreading 10 nights across all five brands 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
- ₹9,999 fee with an official ₹12L spend waiver — printed verbatim in SBI Card's MITC
- Milestone ladder worth ~₹33,000 on a paced ₹12L year: ₹1,500 CLiQ per ₹1L month + ₹5k CLiQ Luxury + ₹10k Taj + ₹20k Apple
- Unlimited international lounge access (DreamFolks) + 4 domestic visits/quarter + 1 international guest/quarter
- 1.99% forex markup — SBI's standard 3.5% doesn't apply here
- Transfer doors now open: Maharaja Club, Club ITC and BA Avios at 5:1, AirAsia at 4:1
- AURUM points never expire and redeem free — the MITC's 24-month expiry and ₹99 redemption fee both carve AURUM out by name
- 40,000-point welcome (₹10,000) + Club Marriott, WSJ and Mint for year one; 4 BookMyShow tickets/month (₹250 cap), golf 16 rounds + 12 lessons a calendar year
Watch out
- The engine is 1% — 4 RP/₹100 at a flat ₹0.25/point; everything above that is milestone pacing
- The monthly ₹1,500 CLiQ voucher needs ₹1L in that calendar month — uneven spenders forfeit rungs our annualized model credits
- Transfers cost 5 points per mile (₹1.25 of catalogue value per ₹1 mile) — worse than redeeming except premium-cabin Avios/Maharaja awards; ITC's own grid prints no ratio, the 5:1 is community-reported
- Invite-only — coverage pegs the bar at ₹30–40L income; you can't simply apply
- Domestic lounge is capped at 4 visits a quarter while international runs unlimited — the one direction SBI rations is the one you use most
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 32,500 AURUM Reward Points via Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) at 5:1 the play
- Chennai → Colombo Business 70,000 AURUM Reward Points via Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) at 5:1 the play
- Mumbai → Delhi First 200,000 AURUM Reward Points via Air Canada Aeroplan at 8:1 (through Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) the play
What earns, what doesn't
10 sourced rules · 4 pay zero
Flat 4 RP/₹100 with no category accelerators — the milestone ladder, not MCC, is the earn story. Exclusions follow SBI Card's standard rewards set; AURUM-specific T&C sits behind the WAF-gated aurumcreditcard.com, so category treatments are community-mapped and flagged.
- Fuel · excluded No reward points on fuel (SBI Card standard; surcharge waiver applies instead — community, flag)
- Rent & property management · excluded Rent excluded across every SBI card since 15 Apr 2024 (official issuer-wide notice)
- Wallet loads · excluded Wallet loads earn no points (SBI Card standard, community, flag)
- Government / tax · excluded Government/tax spends excluded from rewards (SBI Card standard exclusion list, community, flag)
per SBI Card T&C (community-sourced) · rank every card by spend category →
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹12,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹9,999 fee. 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 SBI AURUM earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver and the milestones — the ₹12,00,000 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.
Where the miles go
4 programs
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
every SBI Card route, side by side → · the AURUM Reward Points hub →
Lounge access
139 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 139 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 72 airports , via DreamFolks, Visa, Mastercard India — 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.
Invite-only — there is no public application form. The bank calls you.
Invitation-only — SBI Card extends AURUM to its top clients; there is no public application. CardInsider (Jun 2026) pegs eligibility around ₹40L annual income (21+ salaried, 25+ self-employed); CardExpert's earlier hands-on cited ₹30L+ income or a ₹5L+ limit on another bank's card. Fee ₹9,999 + GST, and the renewal is officially waived on ₹12L annual spends in the preceding year — the one number SBI prints in its own MITC.
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.
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
- 21 Aug 2026Club ITC pays up to 50,000 bonus Green Points for spreading 10 nights across all five brands
- 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
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 — 7 of them, each with the day we read it
- official AURUM microsite — 4 ARP per ₹100 on every non-fuel spend at 1 ARP = ₹0.25, 40,000-point welcome worth ₹10,000 on first annual fee, points never expire
- official AURUM benefits page — complimentary DreamFolks membership with UNLIMITED international lounge access plus one guest visit a quarter
- official MITC — AURUM ₹9,999 annual and ₹9,999 renewal waived on ₹12L preceding-year spend; foreign-currency fee 1.99%; AURUM Reward Points never expire and carry no ₹99 redemption fee
- official SBI Card consolidated MITC PDF — AURUM annual fee ₹9,999, renewal ₹9,999 "Waived off on annual spends of Rs.12 Lakh or more in the preceding year"
- official Club ITC's official AURUM partner page — transfer route confirmed (min 500 AURUM Reward Points, increments of 500, up to 5 working days)
- community CardInsider (upd. 29-Jun-2026) — 4 RP/₹100, 4 RP = ₹1, 40,000-pt welcome + Club Marriott/WSJ/Mint, CLiQ/Taj/Apple milestones
- community CardExpert review (4/5) — corroborates ₹12L waiver, 40,000-pt welcome, ₹0.25/pt, milestone ladder, 4/qtr domestic + unlimited intl (DreamFolks), 4 BMS tickets/month ₹250 cap