ICICI's November purge: rewards, lounges and 1% fees
ICICI excludes rent, government and education from rewards, caps grocery earn, adds a 1% education/utility fee and gates lounge access behind prior spend — across the portfolio, Emeralde Private included.
Call it what it is: the single worst day of 2024 for ICICI cardholders. In one sweep, rent, government and education spends stop earning reward points — and stop counting toward fee waivers. Grocery earn gets capped. A 1% fee lands on third-party education and utility payments. And complimentary lounge access is restructured behind prior-spend gates — no qualifying spend in the previous quarter, no lounge.
Nothing was spared. Even Emeralde Private, ICICI’s top-of-the-line card, takes the same medicine as the rest of the portfolio. The bank that opened 2024 by killing rent and wallet-load rewards in February has now closed the year by rebuilding its entire terms sheet around exclusions.
The lounge change is the sneakiest piece. Access you used to simply have is now something you earn quarter by quarter — a spend treadmill dressed up as a benefit.
Our take: this is a portfolio-wide repricing, not a trim. If your ICICI card’s case rested on broad earn and easy lounges, that case just collapsed. Re-run the maths before the renewal fee hits.