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HSBC points now ₹2, Bonvoy ₹0.50, Maharaja ₹1 — what our re-mark did to your card

We re-marked three currencies on 10 October 2026. HSBC Reward Points ₹1.00 → ₹2.00 (1:1 into Accor), Marriott Bonvoy ₹0.65 → ₹0.50, Air India Maharaja ₹0.80 → ₹1.00. HSBC TravelOne goes from 2% to 4% and tops the travel board; HDFC Marriott Bonvoy drops from 0.9% to 0.67%; IndusInd Tiger rises from 0.8% to 1%. The boards now rank for spend fit and count bonus channels everywhere.

Cards this affects

IndusInd Tiger credit card

IndusInd Tiger

IndusInd Bank

₹32,000 a year at ₹75,000 a month

Keep

We moved three house values on 10 October 2026 and changed how the boards rank on 11 October. None of the programmes changed a rule. HSBC’s transfer grid is the same, Marriott still has no chart, Air India’s April repricing is six months old. What changed is our desk. We now price these points the way Indian holders actually use them, and every card that earns them moved with the mark.

CurrencyWasNowWhat the mark is reasoned from
HSBC Reward Points₹1.00₹2.001:1 into Accor ALL, the best mainstream door
Marriott Bonvoy₹0.65₹0.50the figure Indian reviewers price every point at
Air India Maharaja₹0.80₹1.00the ₹1-a-mile anchor, now that the April chart cut most awards
Flipkart SuperCoins₹0.40₹0.50its 2:1 door into Maharaja, re-derived

HSBC: ₹1.00 → ₹2.00

Every bank currency on this site is marked at its best mainstream transfer. On HSBC we had made an exception and held the ₹1 airline-mile exit. That exception is gone. HSBC’s own TravelOne rewards table, re-read on 10 October, prints Accor ALL at 1 reward point to 1 loyalty point. The Premier table prints the same. Accor is a near-fixed €40 per 2,000 points, which we mark at ₹2.15. We take a small haircut for the fact that Accor only pays out against a hotel stay, and land at ₹2.00.

The community got there first. CardExpert’s TravelOne review prints the card twice, ~2% as airline miles and ~3.6% via Accor. Card Maven: “worth roughly ₹2 each”. Airline miles at 1:1 are still the ₹1 exit, and HSBC’s redemption page is the floor. The floor moved from ₹0.25 to ₹0.50.

What it did to the cards, at ₹1 lakh a month on our everyday mix (the figure each card page prints):

  • HSBC TravelOne: reward rate 2% → 4%, ₹20,200 → ₹40,300 a year. At ₹3 lakh a month, ₹70,500 → ₹1,41,000. It is now #1 on the travel board at ₹40,000 a month, worth ₹11,100 a year there after the fee, and the answer on the home page. Axis Miles & More World Select held that spot before.
  • HSBC Premier: 3% → 6%, ₹13,800 → ₹47,700. At ₹3 lakh a month, ₹81,500 → ₹1,83,000. You still need an HSBC Premier relationship to hold it: ₹50 lakh in quarterly balances or ₹3 lakh a month in salary credit.
  • HSBC Visa Platinum and RuPay Platinum: 0.67% → 1.33%, ₹6,700 → ₹13,400. They transfer at 2:1, so the half is baked into the card, not the mark.
  • HSBC Privé: 3.33% → 6.67%. At ₹2,75,000 a year it is still under water at ₹1 lakh a month (−₹1,95,100). It only clears its fee at ₹5 lakh a month (+₹1,24,600).

The catch has not moved. A 4% card is a 4% card only if the points end in an Accor stay. Move them to KrisFlyer or Avios and TravelOne is a 2% card.

Marriott Bonvoy: ₹0.65 → ₹0.50

Marriott has had no award chart since 2022, and its redemption page still has none. Our ₹0.65 came from US blog valuations, a redemption pattern Indian holders rarely see. The Indian reviewers all print ₹0.50. CardExpert’s HDFC Marriott review computes the card “assuming 1 MB point = 50ps”, up to ₹1 at good properties. Card Maven and CardExpert on the Amex Platinum Charge say the same. It also fixes an inconsistency of ours. Amex Membership Rewards sat at ₹0.50 and moves 1:1 into Bonvoy at ₹0.65. Both are ₹0.50 now.

  • Marriott Bonvoy HDFC Bank: reward rate 0.9% → 0.67%, ₹36,000 → ₹27,000 a year at ₹1 lakh a month, ₹51,600 → ₹39,000 at ₹3 lakh. Each Free Night Award is now 15,000 points at ₹0.50, ₹7,500 (was ₹9,750). The card drops from #9 to #31 in our overall order. Keep it if you sleep at Marriotts twice a year. The free night still pays the ₹3,000 fee more than twice over.

Air India Maharaja: ₹0.80 → ₹1.00

We set the ₹0.80 haircut for the old chart. On 1 April 2026 Air India cut award prices on about 90% of routes, and CardExpert called it on 3 April: a point is now “as good as 1INR in many cases and even more at times”. Air India publishes no chart. Its redemption page sells every award as a cheap Value fare or a dear Prime fare. Every Maharaja corridor on our award-flight board is priced on the post-April Value fares, so the mark moves to our ₹1 airline-mile anchor.

IndusInd’s own points did not move. They stay at ₹0.80, because only two of the 27 IndusInd cards get the 1:1 Maharaja door. Those two now carry the ₹1 in their own earn:

The Air India and Vistara co-brands are all closed to new applicants, but holders gain a quarter. The SBI Air India Signature goes 3.2% → 4%, ₹75,100 → ₹95,100 a year at ₹1 lakh a month. Axis Vistara Infinite and IDFC Club Vistara go 2.4% → 3%.

Two coins re-derive off the same door. Flipkart SuperCoins move 2:1 into Maharaja, so they go from ₹0.40 to ₹0.50, and the paused Flipkart Axis Super Elite goes 0.8% → 1%. Jupiter Jewels keep their ₹0.20 mark. Only their floor moved, ₹0.13 → ₹0.14.

The ranking changed too

Two rules changed on the best-card boards, both to match how Indian readers pick a card:

  1. Spend fit. Below ₹1 lakh a month, invite-only and relationship-gated cards no longer sit in a top five. A card whose own terms demand more spend than your band to keep it ranks lower, and its row says why. HDFC Infinia needs ₹18 lakh a year to keep. Below ₹1.5 lakh a month it now ranks under every card without such a bar, and its row says so.
  2. Bonus channels everywhere. Each card’s best published accelerator (SmartBuy, an online category, a portal) now counts on every board, the travel board and the home page included, at a stated share of spend. One rule, everywhere.

Two smaller changes. A free night paid in points counts at full value, and brand-locked rupee vouchers still count at half. Card pages now print a “Reward rate X%–Y%” range, base to best accelerator, the number the reviews use. Our ranked figure is still ₹ a year, after the fee, at your spend.

What we held

Not every gap moved a mark. HDFC Regalia Gold keeps its ₹0.65 catalogue value, because HDFC’s own product page prints it. Etihad Guest, Standard Chartered 360° and Miles & More hold until we have a document or a priced Indian redemption to move them on. One blog line does not move a programme.

Every mark, with its floor, ceiling and the sources behind it, is on the valuations page and each programme page linked above. The how is on methodology.

Comparisons this changes

HSBC Premier (Metal) vs HSBC TravelOne

Same points, same ~20 partners, one bank — TravelOne wins up to ₹50k a month; above that the ₹50L-relationship metal's 3 points per ₹100 mostly takes over.

HSBC Premier (Metal) vs HDFC Infinia Metal

Infinia leads below ₹75k a month; Premier out-earns it from ₹75k a month, its 3 points per ₹100 priced at our ₹2 Accor-door mark. Infinia still opens nearly every lounge door we track, where Premier opens a few dozen. Premier's answer: British Airways and Qatar Avios at 1:1 where Infinia pays 2:1 (its only 1:1 Avios door is Finnair's), and a renewal fee HSBC waives for Premier clients.

HSBC Premier (Metal) vs Axis Magnus for Burgundy

Two cards for the already-rich: 3 points per ₹100 flat and effectively free vs 4.8% behind a ₹30,000 fee — Burgundy out-earns it only from ₹2.5 lakh a month, and Premier's case is the fee.

More on this story

  1. Maharaja Points now worth ₹1.00 — a 25.0% increase

  2. HSBC Reward Points now worth ₹2.00 — a 100.0% increase

  3. HSBC stretches its zero-forex window to 31 October

  4. RBL's Miles Transfer Programme opens 12 airline and hotel partners to five cards

  5. HSBC zeroes the forex mark-up on every card it sells — for 32 days

  6. India gets its first co-branded hotel credit card

HSBC Reward PointsMarriott BonvoyAir India Maharaja Points

Sources

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