YES Bank Marquee
Keep4.5% on everything online — from the bank you have to trust to pay it out.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: 40,000 YES Rewardz points (₹10,000) on the ₹9,999 joining fee; 20,000 more each renewal
How these numbers are computed →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
The take
On paper the Marquee embarrasses the establishment: 36 points per ₹200 online is 4.5% back, unlimited international lounges, 1% forex, all under a ₹10,000 door charge. The asterisks are structural. YES Rewardz points are worth ₹0.25 only against flight and hotel bookings inside YES's own portal, capped at 70% of the invoice and 3 lakh points a month — the lone airline exit, Maharaja Club at 15:1 (≈₹0.07/point), is a decoy, and statement credit pays ₹0.10. Offline spend earns half, and since June 2026 every redemption costs ₹100 plus a ₹99 flight-booking fee. Treat it as a 4.5%-online-spend engine that settles in discounted travel, not a miles card — strong if you genuinely route spend online and redeem in the portal, ordinary (2.25%) the moment you swipe offline or cash out as statement credit.
What's good
- 36 RP/₹200 online ≈ 4.5% — the highest online earn rate in the catalog
- Unlimited international lounges (primary + add-on) plus 24 domestic visits/yr
- 1% forex markup — rare under a ₹5,000 renewal fee
- 40,000-point welcome, 20,000-point renewal bonus; renewal fee waived at ₹10L
Watch out
- ₹0.25/point only on YES Rewardz flights/hotels, capped at 70% of invoice — the lone Maharaja route (15:1, ≈₹0.07/pt) is a decoy; statement credit pays ₹0.10
- Offline spends earn half (2.25%); utilities/insurance/education just 1.25%
- Fuel, rent, wallet and government spends earn zero since 1-Apr-2025
- Domestic lounge access needs ₹1L spend in the previous quarter
- ₹100 + GST per redemption since 15-Jun-2026, plus ₹99 per flight booking
- Online accelerated points capped at 1,00,000/statement cycle (≈₹5.5L spend)
What earns, what doesn't
Marquee's earn is channel-split (36 RP/₹200 online, 18 offline, 10 on select categories), so a category's rate also depends on HOW you pay. Apr-2025 devaluation added government + marketing/advertising to the exclusion list; 15-Jun-2026 MITC added the ₹100 redemption fee.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP; 1% surcharge waiver on ₹500–₹5,000 txns, cap ₹1,000/cycle (official MITC); 1% fee past ₹10k/txn or ₹50k/month
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero RP since 1-Apr-2025; 1% rent fee (min ₹199 above ₹1,000), max 5 rent txns/30 days (official MITC)
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero RP; 1% fee on wallet loads above ₹2,000 (official MITC)
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 10 RP/₹200 (1.25%) as a 'select category'; RP capped 1,250/statement cycle for Marquee (official MITC table); 1% fee past ₹50k/month
Where the miles go
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
Lounge access
Gate: ₹1L spend in the previous calendar quarter for domestic visits (international ungated)
Opens 72 of 644 tracked lounge doors across 40 airports — see the full map →
Can you get it?
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.
The public form works — community-reported bars sit around ₹3L/month or a ₹24L ITR — but the cheaper door is the upgrade: YES First Preferred holders commonly report Marquee conversion with the ₹9,999 joining fee waived, and a YES First banking relationship generally means warmer pricing than a cold application. One documented quirk: if you already hold a YES card, the online form tends to bounce you — the upgrade desk is your route.
per the official YES Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Joining ₹9,999 (40,000-point welcome), renewal ₹4,999 waived at ₹10L spend. Rent 1% fee (min ₹199 above ₹1,000; max 5 rent txns/30 days); wallet loads >₹2,000 1%; third-party education apps 1% (cap ₹5,000/month); utility 1% past ₹50k/month (cap ₹5,000/txn). Card replacement ₹199 from 15-Jun-2026. Income/age not in MITC — community.
per the official YES Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 15 Jun 2026YES's ₹100 redemption fee reaches Marquee and ReservMarquee and Reserv exempt from the ₹100-per-redemption fee; card reissuance ₹100–₹200 by variant → ₹100 fee on every redemption request, premium cards included, plus a ₹99 booking fee on YES Rewardz flights; reissuance ₹199; fuel-surcharge waiver window revised
The exemption that let Marquee and Reserv holders pretend the ₹100 redemption fee was someone else's problem is gone. From 15 June 2026 every YES card pays ₹100 per redemption request, and booking a flight through YES Rewardz — the only place the points are worth their ₹0.25 — stacks a ₹99 booking fee on top. On a card whose whole pitch is settling 4.5% online earnings in portal travel, YES now charges you twice at the exit.
- 1 Jun 2026AU, YES and IndusInd points open transfers to Maharaja ClubAU/YES/IndusInd points locked in closed loops → Maharaja routes: IndusInd Tiger 1:1 (Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1); AU Zenith+ 3:2, other AU cards 6:1; YES Marquee/Reserv 15:1
Three banks joined Air India's transfer roster at once — and the ratios are the whole story. The lifetime-free IndusInd Tiger gets the only honest 1:1 (capped 25k/month); AU Zenith+ lands a genuinely good 3:2 that triples what AU points were worth; everything else — Pinnacle 2:1, Legend 4:1, the AU 6:1 crowd, YES at a punitive 15:1 — is a decoy dressed as a partnership.
- 1 Apr 2026Maharaja Club gets cheaper awards and faster creditingHigher award costs; slow points crediting → Domestic awards from 1,500 pts; credited within 2 hours
A rare buff. Air India's post-merger programme drops domestic award flights to 1,500 points, cabin upgrades to 4,000, credits Star Alliance miles within two hours, and eases Platinum to 60 flights. The transfer target Indian card geeks care about actually got better.
- 10 Jan 2026SBI Card splits domestic lounges into tiers, adds entry feesUniform domestic lounge list, free swipe-in access → Set A/Set B lounge tiers by card, plus ₹2–25 entry charges
From 10 January 2026, SBI Card sorts its domestic lounge network into a Set A (top cards like Club Vistara SBI Card, Apollo SELECT) and a broader Set B (PRIME, Pulse, Titan SBI Card and others) — and bolts on a non-refundable ₹2 authorization charge plus a ₹25 validation hold on every visit. It's marketed as an expansion since more airports are covered, but the fine print is a two-tier system with new friction at the gate, right after SBI had already pulled complimentary air accident insurance six months earlier.
- 1 Apr 2025YES lounge gate triples to ₹1 lakh on Marquee and Reserv₹35,000 of quarterly spend unlocked domestic lounge access → ₹1,00,000/quarter for Marquee and Reserv; ₹75,000 for First Preferred/Business; ₹50,000 for Elite+, Select and BYOC
The quarterly spend needed to keep domestic lounge access nearly tripled overnight — ₹35,000 to a flat ₹1 lakh on Marquee and Reserv. That's ₹4 lakh a year of spend just to hold on to a benefit the brochure still lists as complimentary. The unlimited international access survives, but the domestic doors now belong to YES's heaviest spenders only.
- 1 Apr 2025Government and ad spends stop earning on 13 YES cardsGovernment, marketing and advertising transactions earned reward points → Zero points on those categories across Private, Marquee, Reserv, Elite+, Select and eight more; the overlimit facility dies 1 May 2025
Another quiet trim: from 1 April 2025, government, marketing and advertising payments earn nothing on thirteen YES cards, Marquee and Reserv included. A month later the bank switched off the overlimit facility entirely — transactions past your limit now simply decline. Individually small, but it's the fourth exclusion round in eighteen months, and the direction of travel is unmistakable.
- 1 Dec 2024HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles cardNo mainstream HSBC airmiles card in India → ₹4,999 card, 4X travel/forex, 1:1 to Avios & KrisFlyer
HSBC's serious play for Indian miles chasers: 4 points per ₹100 on flights, travel aggregators and forex, and instant 1:1 transfers to British Airways and Qatar Avios plus ~20 airline/hotel partners including KrisFlyer and Air India — all from the app. A genuine sub-₹5k alternative to Atlas. (Welcome-offer window opened 1 Dec 2024.)
- 1 Dec 2024YES caps travel redemptions at 70% of the invoiceFlights and hotels on YES Rewardz bookable fully with points → Points cover at most 70% of any booking; monthly redemption caps of 3 lakh (Marquee), 2 lakh (Reserv), 1 lakh (others); finance charges hiked to 3.99%/month on many cards
The one redemption that makes YES Rewardz points worth ₹0.25 — portal flights and hotels — now legally cannot settle a full booking: 70% of the invoice is the ceiling, so every redemption forces cash out of your pocket alongside the points. Monthly caps (3 lakh points on Marquee, 2 lakh on Reserv) box in the big balances, and finance charges quietly climbed to 3.99% a month. The earn rates YES advertises didn't move; the exits all narrowed.
Go deeper
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these documents — the issuer's own paperwork first. Spot something stale? The PDF wins, and we re-verify.
- official Product page (₹9,999 joining / ₹4,999 renewal waived at ₹10L; 36 RP/₹200 online) checked 12 Jul 2026
- official MITC PDF (V18, 23-Jun-2026) checked 11 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider review checked 12 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — Maharaja transfer ratios checked 11 Jul 2026
- community CardMaven review — Visa & Mastercard variants checked 11 Jul 2026
- community CardExpert — YES First Preferred upgrade route with joining-fee waiver; online cap 1,00,000 RP/cycle then throttles to uncapped offline base checked 13 Jul 2026
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