YES Bank ELITE+
DowngradeThree international lounges with no spend gate, for ₹999 — then the earn rate turns up.
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
Welcome: None published
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 ₹13,000 a month
At ₹13,000 a month — ₹1,56,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹1,100 gross (earn ₹1,100) against its ₹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.
2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · the network variants
Best real exit: Air India Maharaja Points at ₹0.05/pt (15:1 transfer).
The take
Sold as YES Premia, then YES BANK ELITE, now ELITE+ — the bank says in its own words that all three are one card, which is why half the reviews you will find describe something that no longer exists. What survives is a genuinely unusual proposition at ₹999: three complimentary international lounge visits a year for the primary cardmember, with no spend threshold attached to them at all, plus domestic access once you clear ₹50,000 in the previous quarter. Almost nothing under ₹1,000 opens an international lounge door. Everything else is thin. Offline spend earns 0.75%, online 1.5% up to 12,000 points a cycle, and those points are YES Rewardz — worth ₹0.25 only inside YES's own flight-and-hotel portal, ₹0.10 as statement credit, with a 15:1 Maharaja Club route that pays about ₹0.07 and is therefore a trap rather than an exit. Forex went from 2.75% to 3.00% on 15 June 2026, which puts it at the Indian norm rather than below it. Hold it for the lounge, waive the fee at ₹2 lakh, and put your actual spend somewhere else.
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
₹999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹999/yr
The waiver ₹2,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹16,667 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹13,000 a month — ₹1,56,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹2,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹4,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹8,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹24,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹40,800 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
YES 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.
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
- 3 complimentary international lounge visits a year — and the spend gate does not apply to them
- Domestic lounge access once you spend ₹50,000 in the previous calendar quarter
- ₹999 joining waived at ₹20,000 in the first month; ₹999 renewal waived at ₹2 lakh a year
- 12 RP/₹200 online ≈ 1.5% at ₹0.25 (capped 12,000 points a statement cycle)
Watch out
- Forex rose from 2.75% to 3.00% on 15-Jun-2026 — no longer below the Indian norm
- YES Rewardz are ₹0.25 only on portal flights/hotels; statement credit pays ₹0.10, turning 1.5% into 0.6%
- The lone airline route (Maharaja Club, 15:1 ≈ ₹0.07/pt) loses money — treat these as portal credit
- Zero points on rent, wallet, fuel, government, marketing, insurance, education, railways, toll, ferry AND jewellery since 15-Jun-2026
- Utility points capped at just 300 a statement cycle; the whole card caps at 12,000
- ₹100 + GST per redemption request, plus ₹99 + GST on any flight booked with points
- International visits are primary-cardmember only — add-on holders and guests pay
What these points actually fly
YES Rewardz (YES CC Rewardz) move to Air India Maharaja Points — and that programme prices every award dynamically. There is no published chart to quote, so we quote nothing: an estimate is not a seat.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
What earns, what doesn't
10 sourced rules · 8 pay zero
Same 15-Jun-2026 rebuild as Select, one tier up: 12 points per ₹200 online, 6 offline, 4 on the two surviving Select categories. Whole card capped at 12,000 reward points a statement cycle.
- Fuel · excluded Zero YES Rewardz Points (MCCs 5172, 5541, 5542, 5983, 9752), plus YES's own 1% fee on a fuel transaction above ₹10,000
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero points (MCC 6513); 1% fee, minimum ₹199 above ₹1,000, on at most 5 rent transactions per 30 days
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero points (MCC 6540); 1% fee on a third-party wallet load above ₹2,000
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced A Select category at 4 points per ₹200 vs 6 points per ₹200 on ordinary offline spend, and capped at 300 points a statement cycle (MCC 4900); 1% + GST on every utility transaction once last month's utility spend passed ₹25,000
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹2,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹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. YES Bank states what the YES Bank ELITE+ earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹2,00,000 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
1 program
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
every YES Bank route, side by side → · the YES Rewardz (YES CC Rewardz) hub →
Lounge access
728 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹50,000 spend in the previous calendar quarter for domestic visits (international ungated)
Opens 728 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 291 airports , via Priority Pass India, Priority Pass Global — 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.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
A straight public application, and a low bar for a card that opens an international lounge: ₹1 lakh a month net salary or a ₹9 lakh ITR, age 21 to 60. There is a second door most people miss — YES issues Elite+ against a fixed deposit of ₹2,00,000 and above, at a branch, in select cities, and the FD variant carries a materially cheaper 2.49%/month interest rate against the standard card's 3.99%. The usual YES catch applies: if you already hold any YES Bank credit card you are not eligible through the online form.
per the official YES 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.
₹999 joining waived at ₹20,000 within a month, ₹999 renewal waived at ₹2,00,000 a year. Domestic lounge access gated on ₹50,000 of spend in the previous calendar quarter; international access carries no spend gate. Utility points capped at 300 per statement cycle and the whole card at 12,000; utility 1% transaction fee past ₹25,000/month. Also issued against a fixed deposit of ₹2,00,000+. "Elite+ was earlier known as YES Premia".
per the official YES Bank 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
- 15 Jun 2026YES's ₹100 redemption fee reaches Marquee and Reserv
Every YES Bank change we've dated → 7 events since 2023, 6 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against YES Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 3 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page — 12 RP/₹200 online, 6 offline, 4 on select categories; ₹999 fees waived at ₹20,000 and ₹2,00,000; 12,000-point statement-cycle cap; eligibility ₹1L/month or ₹9L ITR
- official MITC (CMITC_V18_07082026) — ₹999/₹999 with ₹20,000 and ₹2,00,000 waivers; forex 3.00% w.e.f; 15-Jun-2026 (2.75% before); domestic lounge gate ₹50,000 a quarter; utility points capped 300
- official YES BANK International Lounge Program — Elite+: 3 complimentary international visits per calendar year, primary cardmember only, all guest visits chargeable