Amex India strips Membership Rewards points off EMI purchases
Effective March 15, 2020, American Express India stops awarding Membership Rewards points on EMI plans selected at merchant terminals or websites. Only SafeKey-routed EMI still earns.
American Express India just closed one of the quieter tricks in the Indian points playbook. Effective today, any EMI plan you select at a merchant’s terminal or on their website earns zero Membership Rewards points. Until yesterday, those conversions earned MR normally.
This was the move: put a big Amazon or Croma purchase on EMI at the point of sale, collect the full points haul, pay it off in instalments. Amex loyalists ran that play for years, and Amex just took the ball home.
There’s a carve-out — EMI routed through SafeKey still earns — but call it what it is: cold comfort. Most in-store EMI never touches SafeKey, so for the typical big-ticket purchase the exception is decorative.
Our take: a devaluation aimed squarely at the people who read terms and conditions for sport. If you’re financing a big purchase on an Amex, check how the EMI is routed before you assume points are coming — and if it’s POS or web EMI, they aren’t. The era of getting paid to split payments is over.