#324

YES Bank FinBooster

Keep

Free forever, and a quarter of a percent for the privilege.

₹1,200

a year at ₹40,000 a month, after the fee

Verified · 2 documents

Skip the arithmetic — the board, ranked → · nothing to sign up for

What it's worth to you, after the fee

₹800
at ₹0.25L/month
₹1,200
at ₹0.4L/month
₹3,000
at ₹1L/month

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 ₹0 gross (earn ₹0) against its ₹0 fee = ₹0 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.

2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · the network variants

YES Bank · Visa · entry

Visa — every accelerated rung is defined by "Merchant Category Codes as defined by VISA"
₹0 + GST
Annual fee1
None
Fee waiver

Best real exit: Air India Maharaja Points at ₹0.05/pt (15:1 transfer).

The take

FinBooster costs nothing — the MITC prints NIL in both fee columns and the page repeats it in words — and that is most of the case for holding it. The earn grid is a 5X/3X ladder that reads better than it pays: 10 YES Rewardz per ₹200 on online dining, 6 on online grocery and apparel, 2 on everything else retail. At the ₹0.25 a point YES Rewardz fetch inside the bank's flight-and-hotel portal that is 1.25%, 0.75% and 0.25%, and the base rung is where most spend lands. The multipliers are defined by published Visa MCC lists rather than by adjectives, which is to the card's credit, but the exclusion list eats the rest of a household budget: fuel, rent, wallet loads, government, marketing and utilities all earn nothing. Forex is 3.50%, there is no lounge access at any spend, and a ₹100 + GST redemption fee comes off every request — on a card whose base rate is a quarter of a percent, that fee is a real fraction of a year's earn. Take it because it is free and put your dining online through it; do not make it the card you swipe by default.

Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel

This card is lifetime free. There is no fee due, no renewal to weigh, and nothing to cancel to save.

the whole desk — your spend, what changed, the downgrade →

Keep, downgrade or cancel

nothing due at the anniversary · 5 spend bands

The charge ₹0 — lifetime free

At your spend

₹800 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend

₹1,500 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend

₹3,000 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend

₹9,000 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend

₹15,000 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

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

  • Lifetime free — the MITC prints NIL in both fee columns and the page says the same in words
  • 10 YES Rewardz per ₹200 on online dining — 1.25% at the portal rate
  • 6 per ₹200 on online grocery and apparel — 0.75%
  • Every accelerated rung is defined by a published Visa MCC list

Watch out

  • The base rate is 0.25% — 2 YES Rewardz per ₹200 on ordinary retail spend
  • YES Rewardz pay ₹0.25 only on portal flights and hotels, and only up to 70% of an invoice; statement credit and vouchers pay ₹0.10
  • ₹100 + GST per redemption request, plus ₹99 + GST per flight booked with points
  • Fuel, rent, wallet loads, government, marketing and utility spend earns nothing
  • Forex is 3.50% since 15-Jun-2026, plus 1% dynamic currency conversion
  • No lounge access — FinBooster is in neither of the MITC's lounge tables
  • Fuel surcharge waiver caps at ₹100 a statement cycle

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 →

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.

Air India Maharaja Club
15:1 up to 7 working days
Exists, barely — 15 Rewardz points per Maharaja point is ₹0.07/pt against the ₹0.25 booking rate. A decoy for Marquee/Reserv; listed so nobody discovers it the expensive way.

every YES Bank route, side by side → · the YES Rewardz (YES CC Rewardz) hub →

Lounge access

0 of 793 tracked doors

No lounge access. This card opens exactly 0 of 793 tracked lounge doors — board with the crowd, or find a card that doesn't →

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.

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.

YES Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.

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.

Forex markup 3.50% + GST w.e.f. 15-Jun-2026 (3.40% before that revision), plus a separate 1% DCC markup on INR-billed foreign transactions
APR 3.99%/mo (47.88%/yr) on revolving credit, cash advances and overdue amounts — the MITC's “Other Credit Cards” tier
Late fee Nil while the current outstanding (statement balance plus unbilled) is ₹500 or less; above that, 10% of the statement balance or ₹1,350, whichever is LOWER, per statement
Cash advance 2.5% or ₹650, whichever is higher, w.e.f. 15-Jun-2026 — the floor was ₹500 before that; billed in the next statement and accruing finance charges from the withdrawal date
Add-on card Nil
Overlimit ₹550 + GST flat on any transaction that exceeds the assigned limit; the overlimit facility was reintroduced 1-Jun-2026 and is granted on the bank’s own risk view
Redemption fee ₹100 + GST per redemption request regardless of how many points are redeemed, plus a ₹99 + GST convenience fee on flights booked with points

Lifetime free: FinBooster sits in the membership-fee grid’s NIL joining / NIL annual row, in a string of fourteen virtual and co-brand cards. The forex table names it in the group that went from 3.40% to 3.50% on 15-Jun-2026 — the same revision that moved the Prosperity, POP-CLUB and Paisasave cards. Utility spends attract 1% + GST past ₹25,000 in the previous calendar month. Absent from the domestic-lounge threshold table.

per the official YES Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026

What's changed for this card

8 dated changes

Full tracker →

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 2026
    Partner major Axis Bank
    Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and Hilton
    Accor 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 2026
    Partner moderate Vietnam Airlines
    Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus
  • 20 Aug 2026
    Partner moderate Air India (Maharaja Club)
    IHG Hotels & Resorts becomes a Maharaja Club earning and conversion partner
  • 6 Aug 2026
    Buff minor Maximize
    MaxCoins' full transfer catalogue surfaces — Accor at 2:1 re-prices the coin to ₹1.08
  • 3 Aug 2026
    Partner major SBI Card
    SBI drops Etihad Guest from the MILES transfer table — the last SBI door into the programme
  • 2 Aug 2026
    Buff minor Air India
    Flipkart SuperCoins into Maharaja Club improve to 2:1
  • 26 Jul 2026
    Partner moderate Air India
    Air India's quiet network retreat: Tokyo moves, Paris and San Francisco go, Malé pauses
  • 15 Jun 2026
    Fee moderate YES Bank
    YES'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.