YES BANK RuPay Virtual
KeepA free virtual card for the QR code — that pays only when the scan is big.
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 — 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
Best real exit: Air India Maharaja Points at ₹0.05/pt (15:1 transfer).
The take
This is YES Bank's own RuPay virtual card, the one it issues under its own name rather than behind FinBooster, Paisabazaar, Uni, AI Inside or Novio. There is no plastic: you link it to a UPI app and spend by scanning. It costs nothing ever — the MITC prints NIL in both fee columns, under the footnote that says that whole block IS the lifetime-free set — and the earn is the standard YES virtual-RuPay construction: four points per ₹200 on UPI transactions above ₹2,000, two per ₹200 on everything else. Read the ₹2,000 floor twice, because it is per transaction and it is where the card quietly stops being interesting. The auto fare, the chai, the kirana bill are all under the line and earn the ordinary quarter-percent. And a YES Rewardz point is ₹0.25 only inside the bank's own flight-and-hotel portal, capped at 70% of the invoice; take the statement credit instead and it is ₹0.10, which turns the headline half-percent into two-tenths of one. The lone airline exit, Maharaja Club at 15:1, prices a point near ₹0.07 and is not a route anyone should walk. What changed in June 2026 is the reason it no longer belongs in any traveller's wallet: the foreign markup went from 2.75% to 3.50%, which is exactly the Indian norm, and the 1% dynamic-conversion fee stacks on top. A year ago this was a cheap free card to carry abroad. Now it is a free card for domestic QR codes, and nothing more.
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.
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's NIL/NIL row, under the footnote that names that block as the lifetime-free set
- 4 YES Rewardz per ₹200 on UPI transactions above ₹2,000 — 0.5% at the portal rate
- 2 per ₹200 on all other eligible spends
- Virtual and RuPay, so it links to any UPI app and spends wherever a QR code is accepted
- No re-issuance fee and no cash-advance fee — the MITC exempts every virtual card from both
Watch out
- Foreign markup rose from 2.75% to 3.50% on 15-Jun-2026, plus a 1% dynamic-conversion fee — the ordinary Indian rate, not a reason to travel with it
- The UPI rung applies only above ₹2,000 a transaction; ordinary scans earn the 0.25% rung
- YES Rewardz pay ₹0.25 only on portal flights and hotels and only up to 70% of the invoice; statement credit pays ₹0.10
- ₹100 + GST per redemption request, plus ₹99 + GST per flight booked with points
- No lounge access — the card appears in neither of the MITC's lounge tables
- Virtual means virtual: there is no card to hand over at a counter that wants one
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
2 sourced rules
The MITC (v18, 07-Aug-2026) names "RuPay Virtual Credit Card" in the lowest band of its utility reward-point table — 150 points a statement cycle. This is a lifetime-free virtual UPI card, so the utility ceiling is most of what there is to know about it on a bill payment. Bank-wide limits from the same document: rent transactions capped at 5 per 30-day period, 1% on third-party wallet loads above ₹2,000, 1% on third-party education payments. Only MITC facts are asserted below — the product page renders in JavaScript.
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · capped Utility spend earns up to 150 reward points a statement cycle and nothing beyond. YES also charges a 1% fee + GST on each utility transaction once cumulative utility spend passes ₹25,000 in the previous calendar month (capped at ₹5,000 a transaction) — note this is a lifetime-free card, so that fee is the whole cost of holding it
- Telecom · capped Shares the 150-point utility ceiling; shares the ₹25,000 fee threshold too — YES puts telecom (MCC 4814, 4816) in its "Utility & Service" block alongside electricity (4900)
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
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.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
Applied for online from YES's own RuPay page; the card is issued in virtual form and linked to a UPI app from YES Mobile or IRIS, after which it works on BHIM, PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm. Only person-to-merchant UPI transactions are permitted — YES says so on the page itself.
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.
Lifetime free — “RuPay Virtual Card” heads the membership-fee grid’s NIL joining / NIL annual row, the row every other virtual card on the shelf is appended to. The forex table names it in the Select / ACE / Klick bracket, which went 2.75% to 3.50% on 15-Jun-2026. Two charges do not reach it: the cash-advance fee, which the MITC withdraws from every Virtual Credit Card, and the re-issuance fee, which it says “is not applicable to all virtual 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
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 MITC (CMITC_V18_07082026) — "RuPay Virtual Card" is NIL joining / NIL annual; forex 2.75% rising to 3.50% on 15-Jun-2026 plus 1% DCC; ₹125 fuel-surcharge cap on UPI
- official Product page — "RuPay Credit Card Get Lifetime Free UPI Rewards"; virtual, UPI-linkable, person-to-merchant transactions only
- community CardInsider — 4 reward points per ₹200 on UPI above ₹2,000, 2 per ₹200 on other spends; virtual only