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Credit card changes in October and November 2026: what to do before each date

Dated changes on Indian cards between 6 October and 30 November 2026: Amex ends Membership Rewards pooling on 15 November (moved from 11 October), Ashva and IndiGo IDFC earn less abroad from 26 October (IDFC withdrew its bank-wide cut), Axis puts a ₹25,000 spend gate on its movie perks from 1 November and makes memberships opt-in from 15 November, and Aeroplan's expiry pause ends on 30 November. One action per date.

Every month somebody publishes a list of what changes on Indian credit cards. A list is the easy half. The useful half is the one thing to do before each date, because almost every change below has a window where acting costs you nothing and waiting costs you money. These are the fourteen rows our tracker held between 6 October and 30 November 2026, grouped by date, each with its own full story linked. One of them, IDFC’s bank-wide cut on 26 October, has since turned out to be withdrawn; that section says so. The raw feed, updated as rows land, lives at Coming up.

One reading note. Not every row rests on the same evidence. IDFC, Axis, PNB and SBM printed theirs in their own notices, product pages or fee statements. The two Amex rows were first reported by two independent sites from the same cardmember notice; since 10 October Amex’s own consumer-updates page dates them too, though its programme terms are not reissued yet. Aeroplan rests on press reporting of Air Canada’s announcement. Each section says which.

15 November (moved from 11 October) — Amex splits your points by card

Update, 10 October 2026. Amex pushed both of its rows back five weeks. Its own India consumer-updates page now dates the end of transfers between cards, and the MRCC’s 50% waiver, “effective 15 November 2026”. Postponed, not cancelled, so this section keeps its place and gains five weeks of runway.

What changes. From 15 November each proprietary Amex card keeps its own Membership Rewards balance, with no moving points between cards. Today one Basic Cardmember has one pooled balance. Supplementary-card earn still rolls into its Basic Card. The full story.

Who it hits. Anyone holding two Amex cards: the MRCC or Gold Charge feeding the same pot as a Platinum. That pairing was the whole engine of Indian MR.

Before 15 November. If a transfer you are planning needs both cards’ points together, make it before then, while the pot is still one pot. Amex also warns that points may post late between 12 and 16 November, so do not leave it to that week. After the 15th, the second card’s balance is a separate, smaller balance that has to clear a transfer on its own.

Same date, MRCC only. The 50% renewal waiver for ₹90,000 to ₹1,49,999 of yearly spend goes. The full waiver at ₹1,50,000 stays. If your card year lands in that middle bracket, you now pay ₹2,250 more: the full ₹4,500 instead of half. Either push the year to ₹1,50,000 or treat ₹4,500 as the card’s real price and decide whether it still earns it. Amex’s own product page and MITC still printed both waiver levels on 2 October. The MRCC story.

23 October — SBM’s two zero-fee cards grow fees

novio. From 23 October it stops being lifetime free: ₹499 a year for physical cards, ₹299 for virtual-only, waived at ₹50,000 of spend in the preceding year. The new schedule also adds ₹599 to cancel within two years of activation. What to do: if you will not put ₹50,000 a year through it, decide before 23 October. The schedule in force today has neither the annual fee nor the cancellation charge. The novio story.

ZET. The flat ₹299 late fee becomes 5% of the total outstanding, with a ₹50 floor and a ₹1,000 ceiling. A small missed balance gets cheaper and a large one costs up to three times more. What to do: set up autopay for at least the minimum due before your first statement after 23 October. The ZET story.

26 October — Ashva and IndiGo IDFC earn less abroad

Update, 26 October 2026. This section first led with a bank-wide cut: IDFC’s 9 September cardholder notice said international transactions would stop earning reward points from 26 October, and we called it the biggest change in the window. It is not happening. IDFC withdrew it four days later — its 13 September notice says reward points “will continue to be earned as applicable for the respective cards on international transactions” — and we missed the withdrawal until today. Select, Wealth, Millennia, Classic and every other IDFC card keep earning abroad at their own rates, with zero forex markup. The original story carries the same correction.

Two cards do take a cut abroad on this date, each printed on its own product page:

  • Ashva drops from 5 to 2 reward points per ₹150 on international spends, from about 1.33% to about 0.53% at the ₹0.40 app-travel value. On ₹1 lakh spent abroad that is roughly 2,000 fewer points, about ₹800. The Ashva story.
  • IndiGo IDFC FIRST drops from 3 to 1 BluChip per ₹100 abroad, from 1.5% to 0.5%. On ₹1 lakh that is about 2,000 fewer BluChips, worth ₹1,000. The IndiGo IDFC story.

What to do. On Ashva or IndiGo IDFC, foreign spend you could bring forward belonged on the card by 25 October. Afterwards keep using them abroad anyway: the markup is still zero, which saves ₹3,500 on every ₹1 lakh against a 3.5% card. On every other IDFC card, nothing changes.

1 November — Axis puts a spend gate on the movie perk, and PNB raises the ATM toll

Axis movie offers. From 1 November the movie buy-one-get-one (or, on NEO, the BookMyShow discount) unlocks only after ₹25,000 of settled spend in the previous three calendar months. Our tracker holds it on four cards’ own notices:

  • Privilege, where the movie offer is one of the two reasons to hold the card, the other being its eight lounge visits
  • IndiGo Axis Premium
  • My Zone, where the lounge already needs ₹50,000 over the same window
  • NEO, where the prize is at most ₹100

What to do. For a November ticket, the three months are August, September and October. Settlement can lag a swipe by up to five working days, so get the October spend in by the third week. EMI purchases count only at the instalment billed, not the full ticket. New cards are exempt for the month of issue plus three calendar months. An upgrade between variants does not reset that. On NEO, do the arithmetic and walk away: ₹1,00,000 a year of spend to unlock ₹100 discounts is money that belongs on a better card.

PNB EaseMyTrip. The cash-advance charge goes from 2% or ₹100 to 2.5% or ₹400, whichever is higher, plus GST. A ₹5,000 ATM withdrawal goes from ₹100 to ₹400 before interest, which on cash runs from day one. What to do: nothing, as long as you never use this card at an ATM. If you must, do it before 1 November. The PNB story.

15 November — Axis memberships stop renewing on their own

What changes. From 15 November the complimentary memberships tied to Axis Reserve stop renewing unless you give explicit consent: Club ITC Culinaire, Accorplus, Club Marriott Asia Pacific, EazyDiner Prime and Priority Pass. Axis says it will send the consent details closer to each renewal. The Reserve notice puts Select, Magnus, Magnus for Burgundy, Burgundy Private, Olympus and both Miles & More cards on the same list. The full story.

What to do. Write down every membership’s renewal month now, and treat any Axis message in the weeks before each one as something to answer, not delete. An opt-in fails silently. Miss the email and you keep paying a ₹50,000 Reserve fee for a card whose Accorplus has quietly lapsed.

30 November — Aeroplan points can expire again

What changes. Air Canada’s pause on Aeroplan expiry runs out, as reported by CTV News. From 30 November, a balance with no eligible activity in 18 consecutive months expires, and per Prince of Travel’s reading the 18 months look backwards from that day. No Indian card earns Aeroplan on spend, so any balance fed from a bank and untouched since before about June 2025 is exposed. The full story.

Before 30 November. Make one qualifying transaction. The smallest transfer your bank allows will do it. Five Indian card currencies reach Aeroplan directly: HDFC Reward Points and Kotak Solitaire Air Miles at 2:1, SBI Travel Credits at 1:1, Axis EDGE Miles at 1:2 and EDGE Rewards at 5:2. A redemption or a points donation also resets the clock.

Just past the window

Asiana leaves Star Alliance on 16 December as it folds into Korean Air. We logged the change for 17 December, so it falls outside this calendar. Read it now if you hold Asiana miles or were planning a Star Alliance award on Asiana metal.

The pattern

Only three of these fourteen rows cut an earn rate, and all three are IDFC’s international points. The rest work on the conditions: whose points can be combined, what renews by default, which perk needs a spend bar first, what a missed payment or a cash withdrawal costs. The rate on the comparison table stays the same, while the terms underneath it change.

More on this story

  1. Aeroplan's expiry pause ends on 30 November — 18 months idle and the balance lapses

  2. Amex ends Membership Rewards pooling — now from 15 November 2026

  3. PNB EMT's cash advance charge goes to 2.5%, minimum ₹400

  4. PNB raises late, cash, bounce and redemption charges on every credit card

  5. Amex Platinum Travel loses ₹1.9 lakh milestone, ₹7 lakh now gets ₹20,000 Taj voucher

  6. Aeroplan re-cut the partner column of its award chart

Air Canada Aeroplan

Sources

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