Utkarsh Rhodium Credit Card
KeepFour lounge visits a quarter and 1.25% in rupees — from a small finance bank you have to already bank with.
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: it earns nothing on utilities and 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 ₹40,000 a month
At ₹40,000 a month — ₹4,80,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹5,000 gross (earn ₹5,000) against its ₹4,999 fee = ₹0 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 #275
Why #275 Sixteen domestic lounge visits a year on Mastercard's 62-room India list, plus a flat 1.25% in rupees — that is a real benefit stack at ₹4,999. It ranks here because the lounge quota is the entire product: there is no welcome, no milestone and no accelerated category, and the card is invitation-only to existing Utkarsh customers.
The unit is the rupee, credited against the card account: Utkarsh's MITC says "Cash back credited to Your Credit Card Account will be adjusted towards the balance on Your Next Credit Card Statement." So ₹1.00 is floor, value and ceiling alike. Utkarsh publishes no monthly or annual ceiling on the 1.25% — what it publishes instead is a twelve-line list of transactions that earn nothing at all.
The take
This is the only Utkarsh card with anything on it beyond the cashback, and the thing on it is genuinely useful: four complimentary domestic lounge visits per calendar quarter — 16 a year — on Mastercard's own India programme, a published 62-lounge list that reaches Agartala and Varanasi as well as the metros. Utkarsh publishes the list and the terms as a PDF rather than making you find out at the door, which more issuers should do. Entry is by swiping the card at the lounge terminal, with a ₹25 authorisation that reverses instantly; guests are chargeable and cannot draw on your unused visits. Alongside that sits the same flat 1.25% the rest of the Utkarsh shelf pays, credited straight against the next statement balance rather than into a points catalogue — and the same twelve-line exclusion list, which takes railway, transport, fuel, utilities, insurance, education and government spend out by name. The fee is the argument. ₹4,999 from the second year, waived at ₹5,00,000 of annual spend, which is a high bar for a small-finance-bank card; at that spend the 1.25% returns ₹6,250, so above the line the card clearly pays. Below it you are buying 16 domestic lounge visits and a 1.25% rate for ₹4,999, which is a worse deal than several mainstream cards at half the price — except that this one is FD-backed and available from 18, which those are not. The forex is 3%, below India's 3.5% norm, and the finance charge is 2% a month — the lowest on the Utkarsh shelf and unusually low for the segment. There is no international lounge access, no welcome benefit, no milestone and no accelerated category. It is a lounge card with a cashback floor, sold only to people who already bank with Utkarsh.
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 ₹0 joining, then ₹4,999/yr
The waiver ₹5,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹41,667 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹40,000 a month — ₹4,80,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
−₹1,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹6,300 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹12,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹37,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹63,000 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
Utkarsh Small Finance Bank 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.
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 complimentary domestic lounge visits per calendar quarter — 16 a year — on Mastercard's published 62-lounge India list
- Flat 1.25% on all eligible transactions, credited against the card balance on the next statement
- No joining fee at all — Utkarsh prints a separate joining line and it reads Nil
- First year free; the ₹4,999 renewal is waived on ₹5,00,000 of spend in the previous year
- 3% foreign-currency surcharge, below India's 3.5% norm
- Finance charge 2% a month (24% a year) — the lowest rate Utkarsh publishes on any card
- Available FD-backed from age 18, with the fixed deposit becoming the credit limit
Watch out
- No international lounge access at all — the programme is domestic-only, and guests are chargeable and cannot use your unused visits
- Twelve categories earn ZERO: wallet recharges, financial institutions, government services, charities, foreign-currency purchase, insurance, railway, mutual funds, education, transport, fuel and utility payments
- The ₹4,999 renewal needs ₹5,00,000 of annual spend to waive — the highest bar on the Utkarsh shelf, and below it you are paying ₹4,999 for 16 domestic visits and a 1.25% rate
- No welcome benefit, no milestone and no accelerated category — the lounge quota is the whole product
- Utkarsh reserves the right to modify, amend or revoke the lounge programme at any time without prior intimation, and says the lounge list itself is subject to change
- Cash advance costs 5% or ₹500, whichever is higher, and the cash limit is 20% of the credit limit
- Rent payments carry a 1% surcharge, capped at 40% of the credit limit in a billing cycle
- Overlimit is ₹500 or 2.5% whichever is higher, card replacement ₹500, late payment ₹500, and a physical statement ₹50
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes Statement cashback (₹) 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
11 sourced rules · 7 pay zero
- Fuel · excluded Named outright on Utkarsh's 'List of Ineligible transactions for cashback' — zero cashback. The 1% fuel SURCHARGE waiver still applies, on transactions of ₹400 to ₹5,000 and capped at ₹400 a statement cycle, with GST not refunded
- Wallet loads · excluded Named on the ineligible list as 'Wallet recharges' — zero cashback
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded Named on the ineligible list as 'Utility Payments (Electricity, Telephone, Internet, Water etc)' — zero cashback
- Insurance · excluded Named on the ineligible list — zero cashback
per Utkarsh Small Finance Bank T&C · rank every card by spend category →
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹5,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹4,999 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. Utkarsh Small Finance Bank states what the Utkarsh Rhodium Credit Card earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — 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
43 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 43 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 24 airports , via Mastercard India — see the full map →
Can you get it?
income, age and the route in
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.
Not a public application. Utkarsh's eligibility block reads "For our existing customers who are holding an active Current Account, Savings Account, FD Account & Loan Account", followed by "Eligible Customers will receive a Pre-Approved/Pre-Qualified Credit Card link on their personal registered email id with the Bank." A relationship first, an invitation second. Two age doors for two variants: 21 to 65 unsecured, 18 to 65 FD-backed, where a fixed deposit becomes the credit limit. No additional documents beyond current KYC. The card must be activated within 30 days of issuance or it is closed under the RBI's rule, and activation runs through Utkarsh's separate credit-card portal rather than its banking app. Utkarsh publishes no income criterion for any of its credit cards, which is consistent with a relationship-gated and deposit-backed shelf.
per the official Utkarsh Small Finance Bank 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
7 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
our published-nil-fee rule TWO-ROW FEE SHAPE — a separate "Joining Fee — No joining fee" row beside the renewal figure, in the product page's Limits and Charges table, the MITC v2.1 fee grid and the KFS alike. Annual fee ₹4,999 from the second year, waived at ₹5 lakh of spend in the previous year; first year free. The 2%-a-month finance charge is the lowest Utkarsh publishes on any card. Cashback is STATEMENT CREDIT per MITC v2.1 §(m). THE ONLY UTKARSH CARD WITH LOUNGE ACCESS: MITC §(d), "Rhodium Credit Card Domestic Lounge Access Program — 62 airport lounge access to all Rhodium Cardholders, they are allowed free lounge access at select airports up to 4 times in a calendar quarter", on Mastercard's published India list (Lounge Group MASTER_GROUP_EXTENDED_3), entered by card authorisation with a ₹25 hold that reverses instantly. Guests are chargeable and cannot use the cardholder's unused visits. Domestic only — nothing in the programme grants access outside India. Twelve categories earn zero (wallet, financial institutions, government, charities, forex purchase, insurance, railway, mutual funds, education, transport, fuel, utilities). Rent 1% surcharge capped at 40% of the credit limit a cycle; fuel surcharge waiver 1% on ₹400–₹5,000, capped at ₹400 a cycle. Utkarsh publishes no income criterion; the gate is an existing banking relationship plus a pre-approved invitation.
per the official Utkarsh Small Finance Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
nothing tracked yet — which is itself a fact
No tracked devaluations or changes yet — this card's history starts here.
Verified against Utkarsh Small Finance Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 4 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Key Fact Statement — Utkarsh Rhodium: Mastercard, first year free and ₹4,999 from the second, waived at ₹5 lakh, 3% foreign-currency surcharge, and 2%-a-month interest
- official Utkarsh Rhodium product page — the 1.25% flat cashback, the lounge quota, the separate "Joining Fee — No joining fee" row, and the invitation-only eligibility
- official Rhodium Credit Card Domestic Lounge Access Program — the Mastercard 62-lounge India list and its terms: 4 free visits a calendar quarter, one entry per visit, guests chargeable
- official Utkarsh Small Finance Bank Credit Card MITC v2.1 — cashback is adjusted against the next statement balance, and §(d) records the 62-lounge Rhodium programme