Making Sense of the Nonsense ft. Axis Bank
Well, our favourite bank is at it again and this time they are all over the place. Axis Bank has made some massive negative changes across its entire portfolio of card offerings
Our “favourite bank”, Axis Bank, has recently made significant changes to its entire portfolio of card offerings. In this post, we'll break down these changes and highlight the most crucial ones you need to be aware of. These changes will take effect from the 20th of April.
🧢 Transfer Partners Classification & Transfer Caps
Firstly, available transfer partners for both Edge Rewards and Edge Miles are categorized into two groups: Group A and Group B.
Group A consists of the following partners: Accor, Air Canada, Ethiopian, Etihad, JAL, Marriott, Qatar, Singapore, Turkish, Thai, United and Wyndham.
Group B includes Flying Blue, Air India, Air Asia, ITC, IHG, Qantas, Spicejet, and Vistara.
These group classifications are significant because the total amount of Edge Rewards and Edge Miles you can transfer to any partner within these groups each year depends on the specific card you hold.
There is a total cap on the number of points you can transfer, with additional caps for Group A and Group B.
If you have multiple cards, such as a Reserve and a Magnus Burgundy, the higher limit applies. In this case, the limit for Magnus Burgundy applies. The cap for Atlas is separate, fixed at 1.5L and divided into 30K for Group A and 1.2L for Group B.
These changes apply to all cards under a single Customer ID. With this in mind, let's examine the card-specific changes.
Axis Atlas Credit Card
The Airport Meet & Greet and Airport Transfers have been removed.
New category exclusions have been introduced. Gold/Jewellery, Rent, Insurance, Government Spends, Utilities, and Fuel will no longer earn any rewards. This means no more miles will be earned on advance tax payments.
Moreover, the accelerated earnings of 5 Edge Miles on Hotel and Airline categories are now capped at a maximum transaction value of ₹2,00,000 (which equates to 10,000 Edge Miles). Any spending above this amount will continue to earn at a flat rate of 2 Edge Miles per ₹100 spent.
The benefits based on spending milestones have been updated as follows:
3L Spends - 2500 EMs (unchanged)
7.5L Spends - additional 2500 EMs (previously 5000)
15L Spends - additional 5000 EMs (previously 10,000)
Your renewal bonus will now depend on the tier you reached in the previous year.
Spending Less than Rs. 7.5 lacs - Silver
Rs. 7.5 lacs to Rs. 15 lacs - Gold
Rs. 15 lacs and above - Platinum
Renewal bonuses per tier are:
Silver Tier - No renewal bonus
Gold Tier - 2500 EMs
Platinum Tier - 5000 EMs
The renewal fee remains at ₹5000 + GST.
My thoughts: While the card in itself is still good, what completely ruins it for me is the transfer caps on the groups, especially Group A, which is where most of the interesting transfer partners are for someone looking at international travel. It is extremely difficult to do any meaningful redemption with 60K miles. Plus the additional headache to keep track of everything else makes it a no-go for me. I hold this card and will be closing it before renewal. If you plan to continue using it, perhaps adding one or more Atlas in the family wouldn’t be a bad idea to navigate the problems with the capping.
Axis Magnus & Magnus Burgundy
Once the titan of the Axis Credit Card portfolio, it's now been reduced to a mere elf without any magic.
The following categories are no longer eligible for earning rewards, and expenses in these areas will not count towards the annual fee waiver threshold:
Excluded Categories: Insurance, Gold/Jewelry, Fuel.
The buy one, get one free offer on BookMyShow has been removed, as has the Meet & Greet offer.
Lounge access now depends on your spending in the previous three months, which needs to be at least ₹50,000 in the last 3 months. Additionally, the complimentary guest visits have been revised to four for both domestic and international lounges.
My thoughts: I personally stopped using the Magnus when they introduced Magnus Burgundy, True Burgundy, False Burgundy, and so on. I don't appreciate a card that requires me to perform this level mental gymnastics to earn rewards. However, for others, the changes on the card itself may not be significant enough to abandon it, especially if you hold the Burgundy Magnus. The 10L annual cap on transferring points might make it worth it.
Axis Reserve
TL;DR - It has become a piece of metal junk, throw it in the dustbin.
Just like the Magnus card, the following spend categories will not earn rewards, and spends on these merchant categories will not contribute towards the annual fee waiver threshold:
Excluded Categories: Insurance, Gold/Jewelry, Fuel.
The renewal bonus has been discontinued. As a result, the 50K EdgeRewards that you used to receive upon renewal are now zero. The airport transfer service has also been discontinued.
My thoughts: I'm unsure of the card's continued existence. With a fee of ₹50K + GST, it appears to be a poor deal. I firmly believe that no one should renew this card anymore.
Besides these, there have been a lot of other changes on all the cards such as the Ace, Flipkart and even the debit cards. For the sake of brevity, I am not going to cover those here.
📢 A Small Announcement
Since launching this newsletter, and even prior to that, I received numerous emails and Twitter DMs inquiring about an "Award Redemption as a Service". I didn't offer this service then, but I'm pleased to announce that I do now. For more details on the newly launched Award Booking Service, please visit this link.
As a Right on Points subscriber, you're eligible for a 25% discount on the fees. Simply use the coupon code SUB25 at checkout. I currently have a limited number of slots available. If you're interested in reserving one for future use, you're welcome to do so.
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Hi Jay, thanks for the prompt updates. Wanted a suggestion from you -
I'm planning to book a trip to some European country or Dubai late in the year or early next year. We are a family of 4. I currently have 20k Axis edge miles and need to transfer it to a FF program. Which one should I go for?
I don't care much about hotels, need to book a normal economy ticket for 4. I know the edgemiles aren't enough to book for all 4 members but even if it helps for 1-2 tickets, that would save us money.
I also have 60k MB points which I'll transfer to United Mileage & 40k Amex MR points remaining to be transferred somewhere.
Small correction: 50K in the previous month to 50K in the previous three months.
"Effective 1st May 2024, access to domestic airport lounges will be based on a minimum eligible spend of Rs. 50,000 in the previous 3 calendar months. In the case of a newly issued card, the minimum spend criteria is waived for the month of card issuance as well as for the following 3 calendar months."