YES First Business
Keep2% on travel, six international lounges and a golf waiver, for ₹999 a business spends away.
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 — and a business card's accelerator is usually the point. This card is not on the board, which ranks personal cards only; it is ranked against other business cards on /best/business, where the tax, GST and vendor-payment rungs ARE credited and its ₹ 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 ₹9,000 a month
At ₹9,000 a month — ₹1,08,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹1,000 gross (earn ₹1,000) against its ₹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.
2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · why it ranks #475
Why #475 A business card carried, not ranked — but no longer carried blind. Read in a real browser on 23 August 2026, the product page publishes the rate the 42-page MITC never did: 8 YES Rewardz Points per ₹200 base, doubled to 16 on air, hotel, dining, travel agents and car hire. Add a 2.00% forex markup, six international lounge visits a year and a golf green-fee waiver, and ₹999 that ₹3 lakh of spend erases.
Best real exit: Air India Maharaja Points at ₹0.05/pt (15:1 transfer).
The take
YES First Business is the bank's upper business card and, since a browser finally rendered its product page on 23 August 2026, it is a card we can price. The rate is a three-rung ladder: 8 YES Rewardz Points per ₹200 on ordinary spend, doubled to 16 per ₹200 on airlines, airports, travel agents, hotels and restaurants, and cut to 4 per ₹200 on the "Select" block — utilities, insurance, school and college fees, groceries, tolls and local transport. At YES Rewardz's ₹0.25 house value that is 1.00% everywhere, 2.00% on travel and dining and 0.50% on the select block. The travel rung is capped in YES's own words at "INR 3000 Points per statement", which is about ₹37,500 of accelerated spend a month — generous for a card at this price, and a ceiling to know about before routing a company's whole travel budget through it. The two things a business card is actually bought for are both here and both good. Foreign currency costs 2.00% — raised from 1.75% on 15 June 2026, and still a percentage and a half under India's 3.5% norm — which on a company routing overseas travel or foreign supplier payments through one card is worth more than any rewards rate on this shelf. And the card carries SIX complimentary international lounge visits a calendar year, primary cardmember only, through Priority Pass on Visa and Mastercard or LoungeKey on RuPay. That is the third-highest international quota YES publishes, above YES First Preferred's four and level with RESERV's six. A domestic lounge door opens separately once ₹75,000 has cleared in the previous calendar quarter. Golf comes as a green-fee waiver whose round count YES does not publish, so we will not print one. The price is ₹999, and it is one charge rather than two: the product page reads "First Year Membership Fee of INR 999" and "Renewal Membership Fee of INR 999", so year one costs ₹999 and each year after costs ₹999. Both are escapable — ₹20,000 of spend inside the first month clears the entry charge, ₹3,00,000 across the twelve months before an anniversary clears the renewal. Push past ₹12 lakh in an anniversary year and 20,000 points land, another ₹5,000 of value at house rate. For a working expense card at ₹25,000 a month this is free, and then some. Two cautions. Eligibility is narrow in an unusual direction: YES wants self-employed individuals, proprietors or partners with a ₹10 lakh income-tax return, and explicitly refuses anyone already holding a YES BANK credit card. And YES Rewardz is the weakest major bank currency on this board — ₹0.25 is a catalogue-and-flight-booking value, not a transfer value, and it has been trending down.
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 ₹3,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹25,000 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹9,000 a month — ₹1,08,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹2,900 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹5,700 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹16,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹39,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹62,000 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
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
- 16 YES Rewardz Points per ₹200 on air, hotel, dining, travel agents and car hire — 2.00% at house value
- 6 complimentary international lounge visits a calendar year, primary cardmember only
- 2.00% foreign-currency markup — a percentage and a half under India's 3.5% norm
- 20,000 points at ₹12 lakh of spend in an anniversary year
- ₹999 a year, reversed by ₹3,00,000 of spend in the twelve months before an anniversary
- Green fee waiver on golf rounds, through the card network's own course list
Watch out
- The 16-point travel rung is capped, in YES's own words, at "INR 3000 Points per statement" — roughly ₹37,500 of accelerated spend a month
- International lounge visits are PRIMARY CARDMEMBER ONLY and every guest visit is chargeable; a $1 refundable authorisation is taken at the door
- Domestic lounge access needs ₹75,000 of net spend in the PRECEDING calendar quarter, and rent, wallet and fee payments do not count toward it
- The forex markup went UP on 15 June 2026, from 1.75% to 2.00%
- You are NOT eligible if you already hold any YES BANK credit card — the product page says so outright
- YES does not publish how many golf rounds the green-fee waiver covers, and the course list is the network's to change without notice
- YES Rewardz is worth ₹0.25 and trending down; the points redeem against a catalogue and YES Rewardz travel bookings, not an airline programme
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
3 sourced rules
YES First Business sits in the 300-point band of the MITC's "Reward Points Capping on Utility Spends" table (v18, 07-Aug-2026) — the same band as Elite+ and YES First Preferred. That matters more on a business card than a personal one, because utilities are exactly what a small business puts on plastic. Bank-wide from the same MITC and inherited here: rent transactions are capped at 5 per 30-day period, third-party wallet loads above ₹2,000 carry 1%, education through a third-party site carries 1% (free direct to the institution). The utility and telecom rows below are MITC facts. The education row is not — its rate comes from YES's own product page, read in a rendered browser on 2026-08-23, and the MITC's 300-point band is written against UTILITY spends and is not extended to it.
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced Utility spend earns YES's select-category rate — 4 points per ₹200 vs 8 points per ₹200 on ordinary retail — up to 300 reward points a statement cycle and nothing beyond it. YES also charges 1% + GST on each utility transaction once cumulative utility spend passes ₹25,000 in the previous calendar month, this card being in the "All other cards" band, capped at ₹5,000 a transaction
- Education · reduced 4 RP/₹200 vs the 8 RP/₹200 the card pays on ordinary retail — education is MCC 8211, 8220, 8241, 8244, 8249 and 8299 inside YES's "Select categories" group *b, which earns half the everyday rate. The MITC's 300-point band is written against UTILITY spends only and is not extended to education, so none is recorded here. Education routed through a third-party site carries a 1% fee + GST; paid direct to the institution or at its POS machine there is no such fee
- Telecom · capped Shares the 300-point utility ceiling; shares the ₹25,000 fee threshold too. YES's "Utility & Service" MCC block puts telecom (4814, 4816) with electricity (4900), so a business phone bill and a power bill draw on one pot
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹3,00,000 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 First Business earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver and the milestones — the ₹3,00,000 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: ₹75,000 spend in the previous calendar quarter for domestic visits (international ungated); domestic spend excludes fee payments, reversals, cancelled transactions, rent and wallet loads. ₹2 refundable authorisation at the domestic door, $1 at the international one
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?
the route in — no cutoffs published
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.
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.
Joining and annual membership fee both ₹999 + GST: waived in year one at ₹20,000 of spend within a month of card set-up, and at renewal on ₹3,00,000 in the 12 months before the anniversary — a ₹3 lakh bar on a ₹999 card, three times what Elite+ asks for the same money. It is the cheapest card in the MITC’s 2.00% forex bracket, sharing that row with Reserv and YES First Preferred, and the only one of the four not also carrying a 2.49%/mo FD-backed twin. Domestic lounge access is gated on ₹75,000 of prior-quarter spend. Utility spends attract 1% + GST past ₹25,000 in the previous calendar month.
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 YES BANK's YES First Business product page — the three-rung reward ladder, the ₹12 lakh milestone, both membership fees and their waiver bars, and the eligibility rule
- official YES BANK International Lounge Program — YES First Business at 6 complimentary international visits a calendar year, primary cardmember only
- official YES BANK MITC (CMITC_V18_07082026) — YES First Business at ₹999 with both waiver bars, the 2.00% foreign-currency markup and the ₹75,000 domestic lounge threshold