Club Vistara SBI Card
KeepFree to keep, 1.2% into Air India, and every ticket it once handed out has been withdrawn.
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
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied. 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 from the first rupee
At ₹1,000 a month — ₹12,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹100 gross (earn ₹100) against its ₹0 fee = ₹100 net — at or above ₹0 from the first rung we price. 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 #690
Why #690 Closed to new applications and priced accordingly: 1.2% and four lounge visits is thin, but it is thin for free, which is why the verdict is still keep.
Priced at the ₹0.80 Air India Maharaja house value, because that is the programme the points now live in. SBI's card copy still says "CV Points" — same points, two names, one of which belongs to an airline that stopped flying in November 2024.
The take
The entry Club Vistara card was never the exciting one — three points per ₹200, four lounge visits, an Economy ticket on renewal — and SBI has since taken the ticket away. Its own terms discontinued the renewal Economy voucher and the ₹1,25,000 / ₹2,50,000 / ₹5,00,000 ticket ladder for every card renewing after 31 March 2025, and waived the ₹1,499 in the same breath. Then it stopped issuing the card: SBI's product record flags it unavailable online and the page renders with no Apply Now button. So what is a holder left with? A card that costs nothing, earns 1.5 points per ₹100 on everything including fuel — 1.2% at our ₹0.80 Maharaja mark — opens four domestic lounge doors a year at one a quarter, and pays a ₹5,000 Yatra hotel voucher at ₹5,00,000 of annual spend. The Priority Pass is a membership, not a benefit: every visit bills US$27, so treat the "worth US$99" line as decoration. Keep it — a zero-cost card that earns a real airline currency is not something to close — but do not spend on it to chase a milestone. Anything above ₹5,00,000 a year belongs on a card that still pays for volume.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
This card charges nothing at the anniversary — its one fee was taken at issue. There is no renewal decision to make; keeping it costs ₹0 a year.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
nothing due at the anniversary · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹0/yr · ₹1,499 joining (one-time)
At your spend
₹3,600 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹12,200 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹19,400 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹48,200 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹77,000 a year at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
Everyday earn plus milestones, with no fee to subtract — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
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
- Renewal fee is nil — SBI's own FAQ: “There is no Renewal Fee from second year onwards”
- 3 points per ₹200 on all retail including fuel — 1.5 per ₹100, 1.2% at our ₹0.80 Maharaja mark
- 4 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year, max 1 a quarter
- ₹5,000 Yatra hotel e-voucher at ₹5,00,000 of annual spend — the one milestone that survived
- Up to 4 flight-cancellation claims a year at ₹3,500 each, plus baggage and travel-document cover
Watch out
- Closed to new applications — SBI's own product record sets this card unavailable online and the page carries no Apply Now button; existing holders keep it
- The renewal Economy ticket voucher and the whole ₹1,25,000 / ₹2,50,000 / ₹5,00,000 ticket ladder are discontinued for every card renewing after 31 March 2025
- Your CV Points are Air India Maharaja Points now: Club Vistara folded into Maharaja Club on 12 November 2024 and SBI's card copy was never rewritten
- The Priority Pass membership carries ZERO free visits — US$27 plus taxes for every lounge, and the same for guests
- Maharaja Points expire 24 months after your last paid Air India or Air India Express flight; award tickets do not reset the clock
- 3.5% forex markup — SBI's low-markup exception list names ELITE and AURUM, not this card
- From 10 January 2026 every SBI domestic lounge visit carries a ₹2 authorization charge and a ₹25 validation hold
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
7 sourced rules · 4 pay zero
The base Club Vistara tier accrues 3 CV Points per ₹200 against the PRIME's 4, on the same ₹200 unit and the same exclusion clause. Fuel is absent from that clause here too. Card is CLOSED — Vistara has merged into Air India.
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero CV 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 CV Points — e-wallet loading under MCC 6540 and 6541, w.e.f. 1 Jul 2020
- Government / tax · excluded Zero CV Points — MCC 9399 and 9311, discontinued w.e.f. 15 Jul 2024
- EMI conversions / merchant EMI · excluded Zero CV Points — Flexipay and merchant EMI; points already credited are reversed, and a foreclosure never restores them
Does your spend count toward the milestones?
not published — and we say which
₹5,00,000 a year is the bar for the first milestone. 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 Club Vistara SBI Card earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the milestones — the ₹5,00,000 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.
Lounge access
16 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 16 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 8 airports — 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's own machine-readable product record sets this card unavailable online, and the page renders the full benefit list with no application CTA — the same signature the Air India SBI co-brands carry. Existing holders are grandfathered, keep earning, and pay nothing to renew. No replacement exists: Air India's partner directory lists one co-brand family, the SBI–Air India pair, which is itself closed, and no Indian bank has launched a Maharaja Club co-brand since the merger. The live route into Maharaja Points is a transferable bank currency.
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
3 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
CLOSED TO NEW APPLICATIONS — SBI's own product record flags the card as unavailable online and the live page carries no Apply Now CTA; existing holders are grandfathered. A JOINING-ONLY fee shape: ₹1,499 + taxes once, renewal nil, add-on nil, and SBI's FAQ says so plainly ("There is no Renewal Fee from second year onwards"). SBI's own terms: "Renewal benefit (1 Economy Ticket Voucher) and Milestone benefit (1 Economy Ticket each, on annual spend of Rs.1.25 Lakhs, Rs.2.5 Lakhs and Rs. 5 Lakhs) will be discontinued for all cards due for renewal after 31st March 2025. The Renewal Fee of Rs.1499 will be waived off during card renewal in such cases." The ₹5,000 Yatra hotel e-voucher at ₹5,00,000 of annual spend is not named in that clause and remains on the live benefits list. Priority Pass: membership complimentary for 24 months and worth nothing on its own — US$27 + taxes for every visit, cardholder and guest alike, so there are ZERO free Priority Pass visits on this card. Complimentary domestic lounge access is 4 visits a year, max 1 a quarter, and unutilised quarterly access lapses. Earn is 3 points per ₹200 on all retail including fuel; SBI still labels them CV Points, and Club Vistara folded into Air India Maharaja Club on 12 November 2024. APR, late-fee slabs and over-limit follow SBI Card's standard MITC and were NOT separately machine-verified for this co-brand.
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 — 7 of them, each with the day we read it
- official SBI Card product page — ₹1,499 + taxes annual fee, renewal nil, 3 points per ₹200 on all retail including fuel, 4 domestic lounge visits (max 1 a quarter), ₹5,000 Yatra hotel voucher
- official SBI's own product record behind that page — the card is flagged as not available online, which is the issuer's own evidence that it is withdrawn from sale
- official Club Vistara terms booklet — the renewal Economy voucher and the ₹1,25,000 / ₹2,50,000 / ₹5,00,000 ticket ladder are discontinued for cards renewing after 31 March 2025
- official SBI's MITC fee table still prints "Club Vistara SBI Card / 1,499 / 1,499" — the generic row the card-specific booklet overrides, which is why this card renews at nothing
- official Air India Maharaja Club partner directory — the SBI–Air India co-brand is the only co-brand listed; no Club Vistara SBI entry exists
- community SBI Card's domestic lounge rules from 10 January 2026 — tiered lounge lists, with this card named in the wider Set A tier, plus a ₹2 authorization charge and ₹25 validation hold a visit
- official SBI Airport Lounge Access — "Club Vistara SBI Card" is named in SET A, the 16-room roster w.e.f. 10 Jan 2026