Pillar 05 · track
What changed?
Every card in India is a moving target: fees rise, lounges get gated, transfer ratios get cut on a Tuesday with no press release. So we keep the receipts — 376 sourced events, 397 stories written off them, 4 offers running a countdown right now, and 408 issuer T&C documents a robot re-reads every day. Nothing here is a press release with the adjectives left in.
read the full take fold that back up
372 of 376 tracker events have stories — the desk publishes hourly. RSS →
- sourced tracker events
- 376
- stories on the desk
- 397
- offers live / tracked
- 4/28
- T&C docs under watch
- 408
Everything under News
Or let it come to you — /rss.xml for every story, /pulse.xml for the monthly rollup, .ics for the deadlines.
The stories
397 posts on the desk, newest first — 20 on this page, 20 pages deep.
Axis EDGE adds Accor, Cathay, Hilton, Miles & More — ITC dropped
Axis Bank's Axis EDGE program adds Accor, Cathay Pacific, Hilton, and Miles & More as transfer partners, while removing ITC and keeping Marriott off the grid.
Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and Hilton
Axis Travel EDGE's own terms, re-read 25 September 2026, show Accor back at the punished rates, Club ITC removed, and Cathay, Hilton and Miles & More added. Marriott is still absent.
Wyndham Rewards splits free-night tiers — adds fourth redemption level
Wyndham Rewards introduces four new award-night tiers, abandoning its previous three-tier system of 7,500, 15,000, or 30,000 points per bedroom.
Amex Platinum Travel loses ₹1.9 lakh milestone, ₹7 lakh now gets ₹20,000 Taj voucher
American Express deletes ₹1.9 lakh milestone on Platinum Travel, swaps ₹7 lakh points for a ₹20,000 Taj voucher; cardmembers face reduced rewards.
POPcoins now worth ₹0.10 — a 900.0% boost
POPcoins is now valued at ₹0.10 per point, a 900.0% increase. The new valuation significantly boosts the reward rate of the YES Bank POP-CLUB card.
ICICI's September lounge list drops four doors and adds Bhogapuram
ICICI's 10 September 2026 lounge list drops Bhubaneswar's Bird Lounge, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam's Airr Lounge, and Dehradun's Bird Lounge. Bhogapuram's Encalm rooms are on the list and not yet on this map.
IDFC FIRST Bank zeroes forex markup on every credit card
IDFC's retail credit-card MITC, re-saved 9 September 2026, replaces the per-card forex table with one NIL row for foreign-currency transactions and for dynamic and static currency conversion.
HSBC Live+ switches on its international lounge visit, and adds a 1GB global eSIM
The international lounge visit HSBC promised Live+ holders landed on 1 September 2026 — one a calendar year, claimed off a separate Thriwe platform rather than by tapping the card. A complimentary 1GB global eSIM arrived in the same rewrite, undated. Neither changes what the ₹999 card earns.
the other 12 stories on this page — 1 Sept 2026 and older
HSBC RuPay Cashback welcome suite ends — ₹500 cashback gone
HSBC's RuPay Cashback welcome suite has ended, leaving only a ₹250 Amazon eGift Voucher for new applicants. The ₹499 annual fee is no longer offset by introductory cashback, making the card less attractive.
HSBC RuPay Platinum loses ₹500 cashback — welcome suite lapses
HSBC's RuPay Platinum welcome suite has lapsed, with the ₹500 cashback, EazyDiner Prime, and ₹250 UPI cashback offers ending on 31 August 2026. The only remaining offer is the ₹250 Amazon eGift Voucher.
HDFC SmartBuy cuts Amazon Pay to 1X — 5X accelerated earnings ends
HDFC Bank's SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta Deals, effective 1 September 2026, reducing points earnings for users who previously maximized through this voucher type. The change affects Amazon Pay gift cards specifically, with Flipkart and Amazon Fresh vouchers still paying accelerated rates.
ICICI un-reserves Mumbai's Adani Silver lounge — the whole Annexure-1 board gets in
The August 2026 edition of ICICI's consolidated domestic lounge list drops the asterisk from row 57, Mumbai T2's Adani Silver. One character, and the room goes from three unlimited-tier cards to every card on Annexure 1 — 23 ICICI slugs on our board, up from 2. Read the two limits before you plan around it.
Amex India pauses all new card applications
The Platinum Charge and Platinum Reserve — the only two doors Amex reopened in September 2025 — are shut. Every proprietary card now shows Learn More and no Apply Now.
Kotak Dream Different's reward points expire on 30 September
Kotak's own cardholder agreement says the Reward Points Programme on the Dream Different Credit Card was discontinued on 1 April 2026, the milestone offer with it, and every unredeemed point expires after 30 September 2026. Thirty-three days to spend a balance most holders do not know is on a clock.
Olympus loses its NIL dynamic-currency markup — DCC goes to 1.8%
From 28 August 2026 the Axis Olympus charges 1.8% to let a foreign terminal bill you in rupees, where it charged nothing before. That is exactly the card's own 1.8% foreign-transaction fee, so paying in rupees abroad stops being a trap and stops being an arbitrage. Settled against the 18 August 2026 Key Fact Sheet after a month of the desk refusing to print it.
Amex India discontinues Reward Multiplier
The 5X/3X/2X portal that made Indian Membership Rewards worth hoarding is switched off. Amex's own page carries the notice; ShopWise survives with no published multiplier.
Vietnam Airlines opens a SkyTeam status match — Platinum buys Elite Plus and a lounge +1
Lotusmiles will match status from ~47 airline programmes and 18 hotel chains — Air India Maharaja Club included — for a 12-month grant, up to Platinum. Gold/Titanium confer SkyTeam Elite; Platinum confers Elite Plus, with a guest into SkyTeam lounges. Priced USD 129–359.
Axis rewrites its card terms on 28 August: what actually changes, card by card
Four bank-wide changes land on 28 August — DCC doubles to 3.5%, a ₹1,300 late-fee slab opens above ₹50,000, gift cards stop counting toward fee waivers and milestones, and bridge, road and toll spend stops earning at all. But eleven cards have their own sheet, and three of them say something different. Burgundy Private's lapse fee doubles to ₹1 lakh three days later.
Axis Magnus for Burgundy DCC markup rises to 2% — from 28 Aug 2026
Axis Bank's Magnus for Burgundy card will have a 2% Dynamic Currency Conversion markup from 28 Aug 2026, narrowing the arbitrage against the card's foreign-currency markup. The change takes effect from 28 Aug 2026, and cardholders should review their upcoming transactions to maximize the current rate.
Axis Magnus DCC markup rises to 2% — from 28 August 2026
Axis Bank's Magnus card will have a 2% Dynamic Currency Conversion markup from 28 August 2026, rather than the 3.5% applied to other cards. The change affects international transactions and gift-card purchases.