YES Bank RESERV
Downgrade3% online and six international lounges — trapped in a ₹0.25 portal you can't transfer out of.
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 — the lounge stack, not a sign-up bonus, is the pitch
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 ₹16,000 a month
At ₹16,000 a month — ₹1,92,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹2,600 gross (earn ₹2,600) against its ₹2,499 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
The RESERV is YES Bank's cheaper Marquee, and it inherits both the appeal and the trap. Three percent back on online spends, 1.5% offline, a dozen domestic and six international lounge visits — all under a ₹2,499 fee waived at ₹3 lakh — reads like a lot of card for the money. Then you meet YES Rewardz. Those points are worth ₹0.25 only against flight and hotel bookings inside YES's own portal; cash them as statement credit and the rate falls to ₹0.10, turning the 3% into 1.2%. The only airline exit is a decoy 15:1 Maharaja route, the online accelerated rate caps at 36,000 points a cycle, and domestic lounge access demands ₹1 lakh of spend in the previous quarter. If you will genuinely book travel through the YES portal and you want the six international lounges, it earns its keep. Everyone else should look at BOBCARD Eterna, which pays a higher rate as real statement credit at the same fee.
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
₹2,499/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹2,499/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 ₹16,000 a month — ₹1,92,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹1,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹8,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹16,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹48,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹80,100 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% on online spends, 1.5% offline — ₹2,499 fee waived at ₹3L
- Joining fee waived on ₹40,000 spend within 30 days; 8,000-point benefit on paid renewals
- 12 domestic (₹1L prior-quarter gate) + 6 international lounge visits a year
- 2% forex markup — low for a sub-₹2,500 card
- Online accelerated earn up to 36,000 points/cycle (≈₹3L online)
Watch out
- YES Rewardz points are ₹0.25 only on portal flights/hotels (capped 2,00,000 points/month); statement credit pays ₹0.10 (1.2% online)
- The lone Maharaja route (15:1, ≈₹0.07/pt) is a decoy — effectively a closed loop
- Domestic lounge access needs ₹1 lakh of spend in the previous quarter
- No published welcome bonus; points expire 36 months from earning; ₹100 + GST per redemption since 15-Jun-2026
- Outclassed at the same fee by BOBCARD Eterna's 3.75% statement credit
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
13 sourced rules · 6 pay zero
RESERV mirrors Marquee's YES Rewardz architecture: 24 RP/₹200 online (3%), 12/₹200 offline (1.5%), 6/₹200 'select' categories (0.75%). Online accelerated caps at 36,000 RP/statement cycle. Exclusions follow YES's post-Apr-2025 list. Points redeem at ₹0.25 (portal travel) / ₹0.10 (statement). WATCH: Marquee's 15-Jun-2026 exclusion expansion (insurance/education/railways/toll/ferry → zero) is NOT yet confirmed for RESERV — the page's earn T&C won't render; insurance/education kept 'reduced' pending an official read.
- Fuel · excluded Zero RP; 1% surcharge waiver (YES standard) — community, flag
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero RP + 1% rent fee (YES-wide since 1-Apr-2025) — community, flag
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero RP + 1% fee on wallet loads (YES MITC) — community, flag
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · reduced 'Select category' 6 RP/₹200 (0.75%); utility RP capping per YES MITC — community, flag
per YES Bank T&C (community-sourced) · rank every card by spend category →
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 ₹2,499 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 RESERV earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — 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
134 of 793 tracked doors
Gate: ₹1L gate (domestic)
Opens 134 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 70 airports , via DreamFolks, Visa — 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.
Direct application, modest gate: ~₹18L/yr is the community-reported income context, and the official MITC waives the ₹2,499 joining fee on ₹40,000 spend in 30 days. Worth knowing the ancestry: RESERV is the renamed YES First Exclusive — the banking-relationship card — so if you hold a YES First relationship, ask your banker for their pricing before filling the public 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.
Fee ₹2,499 + GST joining and renewal (official MITC fee grid); joining fee waived on ₹40,000 spend in 30 days, renewal waived at ₹3L annual spend. 24 RP/₹200 online (3%), 12/₹200 offline (1.5%), 6/₹200 select (0.75%, utility points capped 750/cycle); online accelerated capped 36,000 RP/statement cycle. YES Rewardz points are ₹0.25 on portal travel (capped 2,00,000 points/month), ₹0.10 as statement credit; the lone Maharaja route at 15:1 is a decoy. 12 domestic lounge (₹1L prior-quarter gate) + 6 international/yr. Reserv was earlier YES First Exclusive. Income/age community.
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 — 5 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page (2.00% forex markup; 2.99%/mo revolving interest; complimentary international lounge access; "previously known as YES FIRST EXCLUSIVE")
- official MITC PDF — ₹2,499/₹2,499 fees, ₹40k/1-month joining + ₹3L annual waivers; forex 2% w.e.f; 15-Jun-2026 + 1% DCC; APR 2.99% premium tier; 750-RP utility cap
- community CardInsider review
- community TechnoFino — renewal network choice MC/Visa/RuPay
- community CardMaven forum — zero RP on UPI for core RuPay cards