SBI Card devaluation history — every nerf and buff, dated.

SBI Card Travel Credits transferred 1:1 into Etihad Guest, one of eighteen airline partners in §3 of the MILES rewards T&C. At the ₹1/partner-mile anchor that was a full-value exit, and it was the only route left after the two Etihad Guest SBI co-brands were retired. No Etihad route at all. The MILES rewards T&C now lists seventeen airline partners and Etihad is not one of them — the word does not appear anywhere in the seven-page document. Every other SBI partner survives at the same ratio.

SBI Card's own MILES rewards T&C, re-fetched on 22 August 2026 and carrying a 3 August 2026 ModDate inside the PDF, has one fewer airline in it than the edition this desk read on 2 August. The deletion is provable from the numbering rather than from absence alone: the table's first seven rows are unchanged (Air Canada 3, Air France-KLM 4, Air India 5, British Airways 6, Cathay 7), and every row from position eight onward has moved up exactly one — Thai from 14 to 13, Qantas from 17 to 16. Position eight was Etihad Airways / Etihad Guest / 1:1. All twenty-four other partners we carry, airline and hotel, are still there at the same ratios, so this is Etihad being dropped and not SBI narrowing transfers. The timing matters more than the ratio. SBI phased out the Etihad Guest SBI and Etihad Guest SBI Premier cards from December 2025 and reissued holders onto MILES products, and the transfer route was what made that migration survivable — a Premier holder who had spent six years earning Etihad miles could keep feeding the same account through Travel Credits. That is now closed, and India's remaining pipes into Etihad Guest run through BOBCARD's Etihad co-brands, not through SBI. If you hold SBI Travel Credits earmarked for an Abu Dhabi business seat, they are Aeroplan, Flying Blue, Avios or Maharaja points now. ON THE DATE: SBI publishes no notice and no cut-off. The date here is the day the desk read the change out of SBI's own document; the PDF's internal ModDate puts the edition at 3 August 2026, which is the earliest day we can prove, not an announcement.

Scan & Pay and online UPI accrued Reward Points under the ordinary spend tiers From 1 Jul 2026 only Scan & Pay inside the PhonePe app accrues — at 1% value back

One sentence in the card's own e-kit, Rewards Program cl. 6: "W.E.F 1st July 2026, Scan and Pay or Online UPI transactions outside PhonePe would not accrue any reward point." Clause 5 keeps paying 1% value back on Scan & Pay inside the PhonePe app, so this is not a UPI exclusion at all — it is a fence around the co-brand. Link the card to any other UPI app and every rupee through it earns zero. That matters more here than it would on an ordinary card, because a point on this one really is a rupee: SBI redeems it as statement credit with no redemption fee, unlike the ₹0.25 catalogue scrip ELITE, PRIME and Titan pay. What survives is 10 points per ₹100 on PhonePe recharges, utilities, bills, insurance and travel — capped at 1,500 a month, 500 of that insurance — 5 per ₹100 on other online spend to 1,000 a month, and 1 per ₹100 on the rest, itself capped at 2,000. On a ₹1,499 card sold through a payments app, fencing off the payments is a quiet cut with a lot of weight behind it.

Scan & Pay and online UPI accrued Reward Points under the ordinary 3/2/1 tiers From 1 Jul 2026 only Scan & Pay inside the PhonePe app accrues — at 1% value back

The same sentence SBI put in SELECT BLACK's e-kit sits in PURPLE's, Rewards Program cl. 6: "W.E.F 1st July 2026, Scan and Pay or Online UPI transactions outside PhonePe would not accrue any reward point." Clause 5 keeps 1% value back on Scan & Pay inside the app, so this is a fence around the co-brand rather than a UPI exclusion — link the card to any other UPI app and every rupee through it earns zero. It lands harder on the cheaper card. PURPLE is the ₹499 rung with no lounge, sold to people who live in the payments app, and its whole case is that a point here is a RUPEE — SBI redeems it as statement credit with no redemption fee, unlike the ₹0.25 catalogue scrip ELITE, PRIME and Titan pay. What survives is 3 points per ₹100 inside PhonePe on recharges, utilities, bills, insurance and travel — capped at 750 a month, plus 250 on insurance — 2 per ₹100 on other online spend to 750 a month, and 1 per ₹100 on everything else, capped at 1,000 and only on transactions of ₹100 or more. Every tier is capped by the calendar month, so fencing off the payments narrows the one rung a heavy PhonePe user was actually filling.

Etihad Guest SBI Card (₹1,499) and Etihad Guest SBI Premier (₹4,999) earning Etihad Guest Miles directly — up to 6 miles/₹100 on etihad.com Cards deactivated; holders reissued an SBI MILES card earning SBI Travel Credits instead

SBI's own product pages carry the notice: from December 2025 the Etihad Guest SBI Credit Cards were phased out and holders were issued 'an equally rewarding Miles SBI Credit Card', with the Etihad plastic deactivated either when the replacement was activated or on 31 March 2026, whichever came first. Spend already made on the Etihad card counts toward the new card's fee-reversal milestone in the same annual fee cycle — a decent piece of housekeeping around a bad outcome. The substance is that India's only direct 6-miles-per-₹100 line into Etihad Guest was replaced with a generic transferable currency, and Etihad Guest lost its biggest Indian issuer months after Amex closed its own Etihad transfer route. BOBCARD's two Etihad co-brands, launched January 2026, are now the only cards in the country that earn Guest Miles from the swipe.

School and education spends accrued Reward Points at the card's 1% value-back rate From 9 Mar 2026 eleven school and education MCCs accrue nothing

SBI filed this one where it belongs — in the list of transactions "not eligible for accruing Points", alongside balance transfers and cash advances: "W.e.f. 9th March 2026, accrual of Reward Points on spends made on School & Education will be discontinued." Eleven merchant category codes go dark on a best-effort basis — 5111, 5192, 5942, 5943, 5947, 8211, 8220, 8241, 8244, 8299, 8351 — and that list reaches well past tuition into book shops, stationers and card and gift shops, so the cut is wider than its name. On this card it switches off a 1% line paid in points worth a full rupee each rather than SBI's usual ₹0.25 scrip, and it joins wallet loads and fuel on an exclusion list that keeps lengthening. School fees are one of the few large recurring bills an Indian household can put on a card, and on a ₹499 product whose MITC prints no fee waiver at any spend level, they were one of the easier ways to earn the fee back.

School and education spends accrued Reward Points at the card's 1% value-back rate From 9 Mar 2026 eleven school and education MCCs accrue nothing

The SELECT booklet carries the identical sentence, with one telling difference in where it sits: on the base card SBI buried it in the general exclusions list, while here it is Points Accumulation cl. 7, printed in the rewards section itself — "W.e.f. 9th March 2026, accrual of Reward Points on spends made on School & Education will be discontinued." Same eleven codes, best-effort: 5111, 5192, 5942, 5943, 5947, 8211, 8220, 8241, 8244, 8299, 8351, which sweeps in book shops, stationers and gift shops as well as schools. The damage is the same 1% base line in rupee-valued points, and it lands on a ₹1,499 card that needs ₹2,00,000 of annual spend before the fee is waived — so the household bill most likely to get a Paytm user there is now the one bill that pays nothing back. The 5% on Paytm Travel, the four domestic lounge visits and the ₹4 lakh and ₹6 lakh milestone vouchers are untouched.

Uniform domestic lounge list, free swipe-in access Set A/Set B lounge tiers by card, plus ₹2–25 entry charges

From 10 January 2026, SBI Card sorts its domestic lounge network into a Set A (top cards like Club Vistara SBI Card, Apollo SELECT) and a broader Set B (PRIME, Pulse, Titan SBI Card and others) — and bolts on a non-refundable ₹2 authorization charge plus a ₹25 validation hold on every visit. It's marketed as an expansion since more airports are covered, but the fine print is a two-tier system with new friction at the gate, right after SBI had already pulled complimentary air accident insurance six months earlier.

OLA Money SBI Card, live since 15 May 2019 — 1% Reward Points on all spends, swept into an OLA Money wallet run by Zipcash Card Services rather than onto the card account "W.e.f. Dec'25, Ola Money SBI Credit Card has been discontinued", with holders "replaced with the equally-rewarding SimplyCLICK / SimplySAVE SBI Credit Card"

SBI Card's own product record carries the notice in its Important Message block, and it is two sentences: "W.e.f. Dec'25, Ola Money SBI Credit Card has been discontinued." and "To this effect, your Ola Money SBI Credit Card will be replaced with the equally-rewarding SimplyCLICK / SimplySAVE SBI Credit Card." That is a forced migration, not a closed-to-new-applicants notice, and it ends the last of the big Indian cab co-brands after six and a half years. SBI publishes the month and not the day, so this row is dated to the first of December 2025 and no more precision than that is claimed. Two things the notice does not tell you, and both are worth acting on. First, the replacement is chosen by SBI, not by you, and SimplyCLICK and SimplySAVE are general-purpose house cards with a completely different bargain — check the fee, which survives at nothing to join and ₹499 a year from year two, reversed outright on ₹1,00,000 of annual spend. Second, and this is the one that costs money: everything this card ever paid you went into an OLA Money wallet governed by Ola's terms, not onto the card account. Closing the card does not fetch that balance back. Open the wallet and spend it down before the replacement plastic arrives.

No fee on education / wallet loads 1% fee via third-party apps

Pay tuition straight to the college and you're fine; route it through CRED/Paytm and SBI now clips 1%. Wallet loads get the same treatment. Another door on manufactured spend quietly shut.

₹50L–₹1Cr complimentary air accident cover on top cards Cover discontinued entirely, no replacement offered

SBI Card Elite, Miles Elite, Miles Prime, Prime and Pulse all lost their complimentary air accident insurance on 15 July 2025 — cover that ran as high as ₹1 crore on the top-end cards. No like-for-like replacement was offered; it's a straight benefit removal that quietly thins out what used to be a genuine differentiator for SBI's premium travel lineup versus HDFC and Axis.

A renewal ticket voucher plus a spends-milestone ladder that paid out in complimentary tickets. For cards renewing after 31 Mar 2025 the renewal ticket voucher and the whole ticket ladder are discontinued, and the renewal fee is waived in exchange. The Yatra hotel e-voucher survives — it is named nowhere in the discontinuation clause — so the PRIME tier's ₹10,000-at-₹8L voucher is what is left of the milestone story.

SBI ran the same trade as Axis on its own timetable, two weeks earlier: the fee goes, and so does the reason the fee was worth paying.

A renewal ticket voucher plus a spends-milestone ladder that paid out in complimentary tickets. For cards renewing after 31 Mar 2025 the renewal ticket voucher and the whole ticket ladder are discontinued, and the renewal fee is waived in exchange. The Yatra hotel e-voucher survives — it is named nowhere in the discontinuation clause — so the base card's ₹5,000-at-₹5L voucher is what is left of the milestone story.

SBI ran the same trade as Axis on its own timetable, two weeks earlier: the fee goes, and so does the reason the fee was worth paying.

Rent earned reward points MCC 6513 excluded — zero points

After 15 April 2024 no SBI card earns on rent, from SimplySAVE to Aurum. The rent-MCC exclusion is now industry standard; SBI just made it explicit and total.

Rent payments earned normal Reward Points Rent payments earn zero Reward Points

Effective July 1, 2023, SBI Card cut off reward-point accrual on rent payments across a wide swath of its co-branded lineup — Aditya Birla, Apollo, BPCL, the metro cards, Fabindia, IRCTC and Ola Money SBI Cards all lost the category in one stroke. Rent-via-credit-card had been one of the last easy manufactured-spend levers on SBI's ecosystem; this closed it a full nine months before rivals followed with their own rent crackdowns.

10x pts on Lenskart, 5x pts on online rent payments 5x pts on Lenskart, 1x pt on online rent payments

SBI's SimplyClick cards took two hits in quick succession in 2023: the 10x Lenskart rate was halved to 5x on April 1, then the 5x rate on online rent payments was gutted to a flat 1x on May 1. Together they stripped out the two easiest ways SimplyClick users padded their monthly reward totals, months ahead of SBI's broader July 2023 rent crackdown across its co-brand cards.

No metal flagship in SBI Card's premium lineup Aurum debuts: 40,000-point welcome bonus, capped domestic lounge

SBI Card finally answered HDFC Infinia and Axis Magnus with Aurum, an invitation-only metal card carrying a 40,000-point welcome bonus worth roughly ₹10,000 at its 0.25-rupee-per-point redemption rate. Unlimited international lounge access sounds generous until you clock that domestic visits are capped at four a quarter. Solid card, but SBI made you wait for an invite just to get in the door.

SBI Cards a private subsidiary of India's largest bank Public at ₹658, a 13% discount to its ₹755 issue price

SBI Cards became the first standalone credit card issuer to go public in India, pricing its IPO at ₹755 after a 26.5x oversubscription only to list at ₹658 on March 16, 2020, right as COVID panic hit every market on earth. It didn't change a single reward rate, but it made India's second-largest issuer a public company with quarterly scrutiny on margins, a quiet precursor to years of fee hikes and cap tightening that followed.

₹10L spend → 90,000 miles; auto Silver/Gold on spend ₹20L spend needed for 100,000 miles; 50% must be AI

Announced March 14, 2016 and effective April 11, the SBI Air India co-brand card doubled the spend threshold for its milestone bonus while barely moving the reward, and killed the easy status-matching that let big spenders reach Silver or Gold on card spend alone. Going forward, half your qualifying spend had to be actual Air India tickets — a much harder bar for cardholders who used the card as a general-purpose earner rather than a loyal Air India flyer.

India's largest bank had no card arm SBI-GE Capital JV issuing cards; 1 lakh in 10 months

State Bank of India teamed up with GE Capital to launch SBI Card in New Delhi in October 1998. It signed up one lakh cardholders in ten months and crossed five lakh by December 2000. The JV took plastic beyond the metro elite and built what is today India's largest pure-play card issuer — and home of the Vistara-turned-Miles portfolio.