YES First Preferred
DowngradeA 2% markup and four international lounges — on a card the bank stopped selling.
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 ₹12,000 a month
At ₹12,000 a month — ₹1,44,000 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
YES First Preferred is a held card, not a gettable one: the bank's own MITC footnotes it "joining fees is not applicable since cards are no longer sourced", which is how a bank says closed without saying closed. If you have one, it is quietly the most travel-shaped thing on the YES shelf under ₹1,000. Four complimentary international lounge visits a year for the primary cardmember with no spend gate on them, domestic access once you clear ₹75,000 in the previous quarter, and a 2.00% foreign-currency markup that is meaningfully below the 3.5% Indian norm even after the June 2026 hike from 1.75%. The earn is a flat 8 points per ₹200 on everything outside a two-MCC select list — 1.0% at the portal value, and portal value is the only value: YES Rewardz pay ₹0.25 against flights and hotels booked inside YES's own site, ₹0.10 as statement credit, and the one airline route out (Maharaja Club at 15:1) is worth about ₹0.07 a point, which is less than doing nothing. Keep it for the markup and the lounges, spend on it abroad, and do not build a points balance you cannot get out of.
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 ₹2,50,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹20,833 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹12,000 a month — ₹1,44,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹2,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹4,400 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹8,900 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹26,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹44,400 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
- 2.00% forex markup — well under the 3.5% Indian norm, even after the June 2026 hike
- 4 complimentary international lounge visits a year, primary cardmember, no spend gate
- Domestic lounge access after ₹75,000 of spend in the previous calendar quarter
- Flat 8 RP/₹200 ≈ 1.0% at ₹0.25, with no online/offline split to game
Watch out
- Closed to new applications — the MITC says the card is no longer sourced
- Forex went from 1.75% to 2.00% on 15-Jun-2026; a separate 1% DCC applies if a foreign merchant bills you in rupees
- YES Rewardz pay ₹0.25 only on portal flights/hotels; statement credit pays ₹0.10, halving the effective rate
- The Maharaja Club exit at 15:1 (≈₹0.07/pt) pays less than not transferring at all
- Utility points capped at 300 a statement cycle; select categories earn just 0.5%
- ₹100 + GST per redemption request since 15-Jun-2026, plus ₹99 + GST per flight booked with points
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
Preferred's Select-category list is a different list from Select's and Elite+'s, and that is the point of reading each card's own glossary: after 15-Jun-2026 it holds taxis (4121), buses (4131), utilities (4900), groceries (5411) and convenience stores (5499). Groceries earn HALF here and full rate on Elite+.
- Fuel · excluded Zero Reward Points (MCCs 5172, 5541, 5542, 5983, 9752); 1% fuel-surcharge waiver instead, capped ₹250 a statement cycle
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero points (MCC 6513); 1% fee, minimum ₹199 above ₹1,000, capped at 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 8 points per ₹200 on every other eligible 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
₹2,50,000 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 Preferred earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹2,50,000 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)
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.
Closed to new applications — existing cardholders keep the card; there is no way in.
You cannot get this one. YES stopped sourcing YES First Preferred — along with its NRI and fixed-deposit siblings — and the MITC records that by dropping the joining fee for a card nobody can join. The product page is still live because existing holders need it. If you hold it, the two things worth knowing are that the renewal fee still waives at ₹2,50,000 of annual spend, and that the upgrade desk is the only route onward: YES First Preferred holders are the population Marquee's conversion offers are aimed at, usually with Marquee's ₹9,999 door charge waived.
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.
CLOSED — the MITC footnotes this card, its NRI sibling and the FD variant with "Joining Fees is not applicable since cards are no longer sourced". Fees on the books are ₹999/₹999, the joining waiver at ₹50,000 within THREE months (the rest of the shelf gets one) and the annual waiver at ₹2,50,000. Domestic lounge gate ₹75,000 a quarter — its own tier. Utility points capped at 300 per cycle.
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 — 8 RP/₹200 on all categories outside the select list, 4 RP/₹200 on select; ₹999 fees with a ₹50,000 three-month joining waiver and a ₹2,50,000 renewal waiver
- official MITC (CMITC_V18_07082026) — "Joining Fees is not applicable since cards are no longer sourced"; forex 2.00% w.e.f. 15-Jun-2026, up from 1.75%; domestic lounge gate ₹75,000 a quarter
- official YES BANK International Lounge Program — YES First Preferred: 4 complimentary international visits per calendar year, primary cardmember only, all guest visits chargeable