HDFC Bank revises its airport lounge access policy for credit card users. New rules take effect from June 10, 2025. Access shifts to a voucher system based on spending.
Axis Bank Privilege Credit Cardholders on the American Express Network can enjoy exclusive benefits on food, shopping, and travel until June 30, 2025. Cardholders can avail discounts on Zomato, Blinkit, and Swiggy using specific promo codes on Saturdays.
Frequent flyers can unlock significant value with the right airline credit card. Options from Axis, SBI, ICICI, Kotak, and Standard Chartered offer benefits like free flights and lounge access. Cards such as Axis Bank ATLAS and Air India SBI Signature provide generous rewards and welcome bonuses.
A lot more needs to be done to educate borrowers on the finer aspects of credit behaviour. Often, the borrowers don’t understand the impact of missing even one or two payments, says Bhavesh Jain, MD & CEO of TransUnion CIBIL.
HDFC Bank is set to implement changes to its credit card fee structure and rewards program starting July 1, 2025. New charges will apply to rent payments, online gaming, and wallet loading, while reward point accrual for insurance transactions will be capped based on the card type.
Axis Bank is updating terms for its REWARDS and Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Cards starting June 20, 2025. REWARDS cardholders will see a simplified spend exclusion approach for rewards and fee waivers, using categories instead of MCC codes.
Many Indians prioritize airport lounge access when choosing credit cards. However, only some premium cards extend this perk to add-on members and guests. This often comes with high annual fees, like the Axis Bank Reserve Credit Card, which offers unlimited lounge access for add-on cardholders and guests of the primary cardholder as well.
If, instead of foreign holidays, you prefer to travel within India, here’s a series to help you plan the best vacations in each of the 28 states and 8 Union Territories. We highlight tourist attractions, culinary choices, modes of travel, and the costs involved. In the 30th part of the series, Riju Mehta takes you to New Delhi.
Credit cards entice users with reward points, but the true value lies in the reward point conversion rate. Very often, people don't realize that even credit cards with high point values may have high redemption restrictions and hidden charges that diminish their actual monetary savings. Smart users should prioritize redemption flexibility and low associated fees over sheer point accumulation.
Airlines frequently enter into partnerships with other airlines, because one carrier cannot usually bring people around the globe. These collaborations typically extend to frequent-flyer programmes, allowing passengers to credit miles for their entire journey to the airline of their choice—based on preference or loyalty.
As Indians drop Turkey and Azerbaijan from their holiday plans, we bring you five affordable and culturally rich alternatives across Europe and Asia. By Yasmin Hussain.
Kotak Mahindra Bank is set to revise its credit card charges starting June 1, 2025. The changes include fees for standing instruction failures, dynamic currency conversion, and specific spending categories like utility, education, wallet loading, online gaming, and fuel. A new method for calculating the Minimum Amount Due will also be implemented, impacting how cardholders manage their payments.
However, taking a long-term view, a credit card could be a useful tool. Essentially an unsecured personal loan, a credit card, if used wisely, can offer valuable benefits without compromising financial discipline.
More travellers are now taking shorter, more frequent holidays, often with families or friends. Budgets haven’t necessarily increased, but expectations have. People want more from their holidays—more depth, more variety, more flexibility—and they’re making smarter choices to get it.
HDFC Bank is revising its lounge access policy for Tata Neu Infinity and Plus credit cardholders, effective June 10, 2025. Domestic lounge access will now be milestone-based, requiring a spend of Rs 50,000 per quarter to earn vouchers.
Starting June 16, 2025, UPI transactions are set to become faster, with completion times reduced to as low as 15 seconds. NPCI's mandate aims to cut response times for most financial activities, including status checks and reversals, down to 10 seconds. These changes promise quicker transaction confirmations and a more reliable experience for customers. Read on to know how this will impact you while you undertake UPI transactions going ahead.
Akshaya Tritiya 2025: Selecting your favourite gold jewellery is easy. However, not many people are aware of how the jeweller makes the final calculations of your favourite gold jewellery piece. Read on to learn how calculations are made and the factors that affect the final bill for gold jewellery when purchasing gold this Akshaya Tritiya.
On the occasion of Akshaya Tritiya, many online platforms like JioFinance and Amazon Pay are offering attractive deals on digital gold purchases, including cashback and free gold. Users can also benefit from credit card rewards programs from HDFC and ICICI to further enhance savings on gold purchases through platforms like Myntra and Amazon. Read on to know how you can make the best of these deals
New UPI rules: Soon, UPI payments will only display the beneficiary's verified bank name before transactions, as mandated by NPCI. This aims to curb fraud by eliminating misleading display names, which are currently being exploited by scammers. Read on to know how this move could potentially bring down UPI-related frauds.
Buy gold on Akshaya Tritiya: Gold prices have hit a lifetime high in the last month or so. With Akshaya Tritiya this year on April 30, 2025, is it a good decision to buy gold, or is buying silver a better option? Read on to know what you should do this year.
The new guidelines focus on updating free transaction limits, revising charges for exceeding those limits, and modifying the structure of interchange fees and will come into effect from May 1, 2025.
With gold prices hovering around Rs 1 lakh for 10 grams, many consumers are considering exchanging or selling their old ornaments to capitalise on rising prices. Read on to know what BIS rules say about selling old, un-hallmarked gold jewellery as gold prices touch sky high.
The dangers of these social markers is that they tend to creep into our mandatory spends. They slowly become a part of our identity and preference. They also create rigidities about how we dress up, how we look and behave, where we eat, and whom we socialise with. Each of these habits is designed to exclude the world around us and create a bubble in which we believe we must belong.
Axis Bank credit card users will face a temporary service disruption due to scheduled system maintenance. While basic card functions remain unaffected.
The concept of loyalty programmes has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry. However, in India, we still don’t prioritise them as customers, leaving opportunities for those who do to gain significantly at the expense of those who don’t.
Chennai Super Kings co-branded credit card has been launched by City Union Bank in collaboration with Mastercard. Gautam Aggarwal, Division President, South Asia, Mastercard, said, “India’s love for cricket transcends mere entertainment and acts as a unifying force. Mastercard is delighted to collaborate with City Union Bank to unveil its first passion cards in India.”
Starting May 1, 2025, NPCI is set to increase interchange fees for Rupay credit cards, affecting both domestic and international transactions. This change, which includes GST, might lead to merchants, particularly smaller ones, to pass on the costs to consumers, potentially impacting their expenses. Generally, interchange fees is paid by the acquiring bank to the card-issuing bank.
Free airport lounge on credit card: Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card holders can get this one time airport lounge access offer from July 1, 2025 to September 30, 2025 by fulfilling a spend based criteria from March 26, 2025 to June 25, 2025. Do note this is an complimentary access to a domestic airport lounge and not international.
Dearness Allowance Increased: The central government has approved a 2% hike in dearness allowance (DA) for its employees, raising it from 53% to 55% of their basic pay. The dearness relief for pensioners, or DR, will also be hiked by 2%. Central government employees and pensioners will receive their arrears for January and February along with their salaries for March 2025.
NPCI's BHIM 3.0 launch aims to simplify expense tracking and management, and splitting them with friends and family. The app will support over 15 languages, with BHIM 3.0 claiming to work well even in unstable internet conditions. There are also features like spend analytics and bill payment reminders. Merchants are also potentially set to benefit from BHIM Vega for seamless in-app payments.
SBI Credit Changes: Vistara and Air India's 2024 merger led to SBI and Axis Bank revising their credit card offerings. One of the key modifications is the removal of economy and premium economy ticket vouchers as renewal benefits.
UPI Transactions: The government recently introduced an incentive scheme for promoting low-value BHIM-UPI transactions under Rs 2,000 to small merchants by providing acquiring banks with a 0.15% incentive per transaction. This initiative aims to enhance digital payment usage and relieve consumers from any potential Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges that might be levied on them by banks and payment processors. No incentives have been offered to large merchants.
Axis Bank is updating the terms of its Vistara Credit Card due to the Air India and Vistara merger. Axis Bank has introduced revisions to terms and benefits of Axis Bank Vistara Credit Card.
HDFC Bank INFINIA credit card provides high-net-worth individuals with unlimited complimentary airport lounge access in India. Additionally, cardholders can enjoy international lounge access at over 1,000 locations using Priority Pass membership.
If, instead of foreign holidays, you prefer to travel within India, here’s a series to help you plan the best vacations in each of the 28 states and 8 Union Territories. We highlight tourist attractions, culinary choices, modes of travel, and the costs involved. In the 29th part of the series, Riju Mehta takes you to the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu.
Lab-grown diamonds offer the same sparkle as natural diamonds but at significantly lower costs due to their lower production expenses and wider availability. A natural 1-carat solitaire can cost Rs. 2-3 lakh, while a 1.5-carat lab-grown diamond can be purchased for as little as Rs. 45,000 per carat. However, before taking the final call, be sure to carefully analyse the 4 Cs—carat, cut, color, and clarity of the diamond.
Should every household now seriously allocate money to travel? Is this now an inevitable expense? Are there alternatives to the ‘been there, done that’ style of tourism that crowds and clogs so many beautiful places around the world? Apart from looking for deals and offers, is there a cost-effective way to get out of home and see what’s out there?
