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#65

SBI Card ELITE

Keep

Cashback in a points costume — but the lounge-and-forex card underneath is real.

SBI Card·Mastercard·premium
Mastercard Visa — Visa Signature tier benefits Amex
0.5%
Effective reward rate
₹4,999 + GST
Annual fee
₹10,00,000 spend
Fee waiver
₹0.25
SBI Reward Points value →

What it's worth to you — net annual value

₹18,500
at ₹1L/month
₹30,500
at ₹3L/month
₹42,500
at ₹5L/month

Welcome: e-Gift voucher worth ₹5,000 (Yatra, Bata/Hush Puppies, Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop) on joining-fee payment

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

ELITE is a lounge card that hands you points as an afterthought, and the points are the worst thing about it: 2 RP per ₹100 is 0.5% at SBI's fixed 4-RP-to-a-rupee catalogue, and they move to exactly zero airline or hotel programmes. What ₹4,999 actually buys is 1.99% foreign-currency markup — the lowest SBI charges outside its MILES range — eight domestic lounge visits, six Priority Pass entries abroad, and 50,000 bonus points worth ₹12,500 if you push ₹8 lakh through it. Read it as a travel-friction remover with a statement-credit rebate attached and it earns its keep. Read it as a miles card and you have bought the wrong SBI card; MILES ELITE costs the same fee.

What's good

  • 1.99% forex markup — SBI's lowest outside the MILES range
  • 8 domestic lounge visits a year (2 per quarter) + 6 international Priority Pass visits (max 2 per quarter)
  • 50,000 bonus RP a year (₹12,500) across ₹3L / ₹4L / ₹5L / ₹8L annual-spend milestones
  • ₹5,000 welcome e-gift voucher; renewal fee reversed at ₹10L annual spend
  • Complimentary 1-year Club ITC Silver tier, plus movie tickets worth ₹6,000 a year

Watch out

  • Reward Points are fixed at 4 RP = ₹1 and transfer to NO airline or hotel programme — there is no award-ticket path here
  • 0.5% base earn; even the 5X dining / departmental-store / grocery rate lands at 2.5%
  • ₹10 lakh a year to dodge the ₹4,999 renewal — the steepest waiver bar in SBI's lifestyle range
  • Fuel spends earn nothing at all
  • Priority Pass visits past the free 6 cost US$27 + tax each, and the free ones cap at 2 a quarter
  • The old Club Vistara and Trident Privilege tie-ups are gone from SBI's current sheet — Club ITC Silver is what's on the card today

Lounge access

8/year (2/quarter) — full SBI network list, not the Set A/B restriction
Domestic
6/year (Priority Pass, max 2/quarter, outside India; US$27+tax per visit thereafter)
International
Guests paid — US$27+tax per Priority Pass guest visit
Guests

Gate: Priority Pass membership complimentary for the first 2 years only

Opens 692 of 746 tracked lounge doors across 293 airports — see the full map →

DXB ×12 LHR ×12 KUL ×10 BKK ×8 BOM ×8 JFK ×8 LGW ×8 BLR ×7

Can you get it?

The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.

Route Direct application
Income · salaried not published
Income · self-employed not published
Age band not published

Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.

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.

Forex markup 1.99% + GST (SBI names ELITE in the 1.99% exception list; DCC markup also 1.99%)
APR up to 3.75%/mo (45%/yr)
Late fee Nil ≤₹100; ₹100 (₹101–500); ₹500 (₹501–1,000); ₹750 (₹1,001–10,000); ₹950 (₹10,001–25,000); ₹1,100 (₹25,001–50,000); ₹1,300 (>₹50,000); +₹100 after two consecutive missed MADs
Cash advance not published
Add-on card Nil
Overlimit 2.5% of the overlimit amount or ₹600, whichever is higher; once per billing cycle
Redemption fee ₹99 + GST — physical products, statement credit and physically-shipped vouchers only

Fee ₹4,999 joining and renewal, reversed on ₹10L preceding-year spend (MITC + Key Fact Statement). ELITE is one of only five SBI products on the 1.99% foreign-currency tier (with AURUM, Prime NRI Secured, Tata Neu Infinity and MILES ELITE) — every other SBI card pays 3.5%. Utility payments above ₹50,000 a cycle attract a 1% fee. Interest-free period 20–50 days.

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.

  • 31 Mar 2026
    Partner major SBI Card / Etihad Guest
    SBI kills both Etihad Guest co-brands and force-swaps holders into MILES
    Etihad 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 2026
    Lounge moderate SBI Card
    SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry fees
    Uniform 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 2025
    Fee minor SBI Card
    SBI adds 1% on third-party education and wallet loads
    No 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 2025
    Devaluation moderate SBI Card
    SBI 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.

  • 15 Apr 2024
    Devaluation moderate SBI Card
    SBI Card kills reward points on rent
    Rent earned reward points → MCC 6513 excluded — zero points

    After 15 April 2024 no SBI card earns on rent, from SimplySAVE to Aurum. The rent-MCC exclusion is now industry standard; SBI just made it explicit and total.

  • 1 Jul 2023
    Devaluation moderate SBI Card
    SBI kills reward points on rent across its co-brand cards
    Rent payments earned normal Reward Points → Rent payments earn zero Reward Points

    Effective July 1, 2023, SBI Card cut off reward-point accrual on rent payments across a wide swath of its co-branded lineup — Aditya Birla, Apollo, BPCL, the metro cards, Fabindia, IRCTC and Ola Money SBI Cards all lost the category in one stroke. Rent-via-credit-card had been one of the last easy manufactured-spend levers on SBI's ecosystem; this closed it a full nine months before rivals followed with their own rent crackdowns.

  • 1 May 2023
    Devaluation moderate SBI Card
    SBI SimplyClick guts its two best accelerated-earn categories
    10x pts on Lenskart, 5x pts on online rent payments → 5x pts on Lenskart, 1x pt on online rent payments

    SBI's SimplyClick cards took two hits in quick succession in 2023: the 10x Lenskart rate was halved to 5x on April 1, then the 5x rate on online rent payments was gutted to a flat 1x on May 1. Together they stripped out the two easiest ways SimplyClick users padded their monthly reward totals, months ahead of SBI's broader July 2023 rent crackdown across its co-brand cards.

  • 3 Feb 2021
    Launch minor SBI Card
    SBI Card Launches Invite-Only Aurum Metal Card
    No metal flagship in SBI Card's premium lineup → Aurum debuts: 40,000-point welcome bonus, capped domestic lounge

    SBI Card finally answered HDFC Infinia and Axis Magnus with Aurum, an invitation-only metal card carrying a 40,000-point welcome bonus worth roughly ₹10,000 at its 0.25-rupee-per-point redemption rate. Unlimited international lounge access sounds generous until you clock that domestic visits are capped at four a quarter. Solid card, but SBI made you wait for an invite just to get in the door.

Go deeper

SBI Reward Points — the program hub → vs SBI Card MILES ELITE vs SBI Card PRIME Welcome-bonus history → Best-of lists → The full rankings →

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.

Spot an error? Report it →

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