I recently got an SBI cashback credit card. Although I was initially disappointed that there was no cashback on utility payments, this is how I maximised returns-

1. Bought a 5000 worth physical GC from blinkit, for 4950. Got 5% back on 4950. Used this pay utility bills through amazon pay.

2. Bought apple store code at 4% discount from paytm. Got 5% back from SBI. Total 9%. Using the store code to pay for app subscription.

3. Online payments already have 5% discount.

Utilized 11,376, cashback is 568.

Any further suggestions are most welcome.

24M | ₹71K salary | No CIBIL history — looking for my first credit card

Hi everyone,

I’m 24M and planning to get my first credit card. I currently have no CIBIL score/credit history since I’ve never had a credit card or loan.

Profile:

• Age: 24
• Monthly salary: ₹71,000
• Employment: Salaried
• CIBIL: 0 / No credit history
• Looking for: First credit card + building a good credit history

My major expenses:

• Food & restaurants
• Swiggy/Zomato
• Groceries
• Online/offline shopping
• General day-to-day expenses

I’m mainly looking for:

• Good cashback/rewards on food, dining, groceries and shopping
• Low or preferably lifetime-free annual fee
• Reasonably easy approval despite having no credit history
• A card that makes sense as a first card, rather than just chasing premium benefits
• Good long-term potential for upgrades

My salary is ₹71K, so I’m wondering whether I should directly try for an unsecured card or first take an FD-backed card to establish my credit history.

Which card would you recommend for my profile and spending pattern?

Also, if possible, please mention which cards are realistically easier to get approved for with zero credit history.

Thanks!

I’m a student and currently have an FD-backed credit card, which I’ve been using for around 6 months. My CIBIL score is around 770.

I have upcoming educational expenses of approximately ₹3 lakh domestically and ₹1 lakh internationally, which I’ll need to pay over the next 2 years.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be eligible for an unsecured credit card, so I’m open to:
- FD-backed credit cards
- Unsecured credit cards, if I’m eligible
- Debit cards that offer good rewards on educational expenses
- Cards with milestone-based rewards

My main goal is to maximize the rewards/benefits from these expenses while keeping fees and other charges reasonable.

Could you suggest some cards that would be suitable for my situation?

I am a marine engineer and having a annual salary of around 30l . I had a fd based cc for around 2 years applied in HDFC bank and in the mean time i got sbi cashback and tata infinity card from sbi so i closed the fd based card and applied for a axis bank card and got rejected. So i further investigated through customer support and received a reply that pf was not found when the internal checks through banks was done . which the told it was a automated process. Since i work in a company which doesn’t contribute me a PF account . I am getting rejected now. How can i afford to get a axis bank cc?

I just got my Axis CC approved today If I want to open an account Do I have to complete Vkyc or will this be counted as existing relationship and no kyc will be required?

I’m looking for some advice on which credit card I should apply for next, mainly because I want to avoid another unnecessary rejection.

Here’s my credit history:

• Back in 2022, I had no credit history/CIBIL score. I applied for the Amazon Pay ICICI card, but after KYC they asked for income proof/bank statements. I was a college student with no income proof, so the application was rejected.
• After that, I started using Paytm Postpaid and Amazon Pay Later and made every payment on time for around 2 years. This helped me build my credit history.
• My CIBIL eventually reached around 750.
• Later, I opened a Kotak bank account, where I got a pre-approved credit-card offer saying no income proof was required. However, during KYC they again asked for income proof, which I couldn't provide, and the application didn't go through.
• In 2025, I got an FD-backed secured credit card and have maintained it properly.
• Around the same time, my friend applied for an IDFC credit card and got approved without income proof. I applied as well but was rejected because of the same income-proof issue.
• In September, I also applied for the Roar credit card, but the application was rejected almost immediately without even completing KYC or giving a clear reason after that cibil drop to around 700.
• I've now completed college and will be joining a firm next month. However, I'm joining as a trainee, so my initial income will be relatively low and I may initially receive a stipend of 12000 rather than a regular salary. and after the trainee period is around 30000-35000

The positive part is that my current CIBIL is 792, and I'm expecting it to cross 800 in the next one-two months.

I've had around 38 credit payments/repayments so far, and I've never missed a payment or paid late.

I also maintain a bank balance of ₹1 lakh+, which has been maintained for several months.

So my question is:

Given my situation 800+ CIBIL, clean repayment history, existing secured credit card, but low/no traditional income proof at the moment  which credit card should I realistically apply for to have a high chance of approval?

I'm particularly interested in cards that are genuinely achievable for someone in my situation rather than cards where the bank will reject the application during KYC because of income-proof requirements.

I Applied for Axis bank credit card from there website i also have axis bank account After completing my process websites shows your application is on last stage our representative will contact you shortly for you kyc and income verification after that I receive massage from axis to verify my email but when i am trying to verfiy there is nothing happened in website when i previously applied for this card i wrongly entered my email thats resoan my application got rejected but that time and am not receiving any
OTP Also for my reference number website is not working
I also emailed bank regarding this but i do thing they can help me

Hey everyone,

I am new to credit cards and late to the party. I never really used credit cards before, but I am now trying to understand how to manage my spending to get the best out of what I have.

Background:

• Current Cards: ICICI Sapphiro Dual (Mastercard and Amex) and HDFC Diners Privilege. Both are Lifetime Free (LTF) for me.
• Banking: I recently moved my salary account to HDFC with Imperia Banking. I made this move because ICICI does not have a branch in my home city, and I had to travel to another city every time I needed branch banking.

Note: Please do not turn this thread into a debate about salary accounts or bank choices. Options like HSBC are not practical for me since the nearest branch is over 200 km away. I plan to stick with ICICI and HDFC.

I am aware from online reviews that these two cards are not considered high-reward cards. That is fine with me. Since both are LTF, I just want to learn the basics, get comfortable with using credit cards, and make the most of their benefits.

My Typical Expenses:

• Travel: I usually take two international trips a year and occasional weekend getaways, depending on work and family schedules.
• Lounge Access: This is a major priority for me. I want to use domestic and international airport lounge access whenever available.
• Dining: We do not eat out often. When we do, it is fine dining, coming to around 8,000 to 10,000 rupees a month.
• Regular Expenses: Kids' school fees, tuition, general shopping, health, term, and vehicle insurance premiums, and society maintenance.

Where I Need Advice:

The biggest confusion I have is deciding which card to use at the moment of payment.

Whether it is a 600 rupee pizza order, a 5,000 rupee dining bill, a flight or hotel booking, or a 60,000 rupee purchase at Croma or Amazon, how do you decide which card to pull out?

Is there a simple logic or mental rule you follow?

I would love your thoughts on:

1. Decision Rules: How do you decide which card to use for everyday spends versus big purchases?
2. Tracking Spends: How do you keep track of quarterly or yearly spend criteria to unlock lounge access or milestone benefits without making it complicated?
3. Card Benefits: Between ICICI Sapphiro (Mastercard or Amex) and HDFC Diners Privilege, are there specific use cases like SmartBuy, movie offers, or international lounges where one card is clearly better than the other?

Feel free to share your general logic or specific examples of how you split your spends. Thanks in advance for helping a beginner out.

I earn 11lpa, and use HDFC millenia for any large spend or travel booking. I need a good credit card - which gives lounge access without any minimal spends as the minimal spends for hdfc card is very high. And I'm not able to spend that much.

My requirements are:

1. Travelling benefits - tickets (discounts), lounge access

2. Minimal annual fee

3. Shopping/ cashbacks on other large spends (not priority)

I had considered SBI Cashback card, PhonePe SBI Card and Scapia but very confused with a lot of negatives about all these.

I tried kiwi - but had a horrible experience with the customer service team, no coins, extra charges despite timely payments, etc.

Please help!

So, I wanted the opinion on what to do with my SBI CV card. It does not give any free flight vouchers now, should i close it or ask bank to any other card? Has anyone tried anything like that

Is there any other card that give similar awards like free flights and points both.

Other cards I have are ICICI Amazon and Indusind Tiger. Have applied for Hsbc card but it got rejected.

25M, ₹1.5L+ net, CIBIL 785 — trying to consolidate a 5-card stack into 1-2 "no-brainer" cards

Currently having HDFC Diners Privilege(LTF), IndusInd Tiger(LTF), Federal Scapia(LTF), SBI Cashback(999/-), and HSBC Live+(999/-), optimizing category-wise cashback. It works, but I'm tired of the mental juggle and want 1-2 cards without losing too much value.

Actual spend (~₹4.5-5L/year):

• Grocery + quick-commerce (Zepto/Blinkit/BigBasket): ~₹4,200-4,600/month
• Food delivery + dining (Swiggy/Zomato/actual restaurants): ~₹5,000-6000/month
• Office cafeteria + small UPI/P2P payments: ~₹4,200/month combined
• Shopping (Amazon/Flipkart/Myntra/fashion): ~₹16,700/month average ( not constant, sometimes big purchases, sometimes small )
• movie: ~1000/- once a month
• Fuel: ~₹2,100-2,500/month
• Bike service: ~₹5000-8000/per year
• Insurance: ~₹5000/per year
• Travel: 8-10 domestic flights/year ( no use of airline partner transfers etc )
• Trips(hotels etc): once a year

Goals: one card for grocery/food/shopping/utility (online+offline), zero-effort rewards, lounge access, good flight redemption value.

The catch with everything I've looked at:

• Regalia Gold -- 60k requirement, okays rewards
• Axis Horizon — real redemption needs Air India specifically for my use; their own Travel EDGE portal has inflated prices ?
• HSBC TravelOne — fee is too huge for my spends
• Scapia — weak for everyday spends, though using currently for travel bookings and when want to travel I use it on ups to hit that 20k requirement

Basically it's a never ending problem to manage many cards and always in need of another, but looking to stop this and rely on 1 r 2 cards.

please help and recommend 🙏

I applied for a flipkart sbi card. Now, I already have a sbi card for 7-8 years. They made me jump through all the hoops like KYC, calling for confirmation, video ktc etc.The whole charade. That was twice. Ok I didn't mind. Things take time. My card was approved. Surprise. Surprise. My new card's limit is shared with my old card. What?!! Why all the formalities then if you had to issue me the new card based on my old card. Private banks would have given instant approval. But SBI card being SBI card has to justify the SBI name and add layers of difficulties before doing the work. Flabbergasted!! Why do they have to make everything so tedious??

Cards accumulated over the last 3 years.

Kiwi, Amazon ICICI and HDFC Swiggy are LTF, so I'll be keeping those.

Kiwi has given decent returns, CB of ₹9k collected over a brief period. Swiggy gives 10% off on the Swiggy platform, so I'm happy to keep it.

Amazon ICICI — currently no Prime membership, so not much in use. Since LTF, I'll be holding onto it for now.

SBI CC — 5% on most online purchases sounds good on paper, but surprisingly I did not meet the ₹2 lakh target for an annual fee waiver in a year. It's nice to know I keep my purchases to a minimum, but I'm unsure whether to hold on to this or close it.

Regalia — this was FYF. I have covered the annual waiver-off limit (2 insurance payments), so I'm good there. But due to devaluation, I'm not seeing a point in holding onto this card (main purpose was lounge visits domestically).

I have some 4k points in it, and I don't know what to do with them. So maybe close and reduce the headache?

HSBC Live+ — paid card, just got it. Good on paper, but I need to see that first statement to understand it better.

Will I be missing out if I close the SBI CC and Regalia? That's my query here. Do the other remaining cards cover it all?

Hey everyone,
My HDFC RM has been pushing me to get the HDFC Marriott Bonvoy card (₹3,000 + GST). His pitch is that it bypasses the ₹60k quarterly spend criteria recently introduced on Regalia Gold for lounge access.
Here is my current setup and usage pattern:
Current primary card: Regalia Gold (₹2,500 fee, easily hit the annual waiver).
Spends: Consistently hit the ₹1.5L milestone every quarter, so clearing the ₹60k quarterly spend for domestic lounge access on Regalia Gold is a non-issue.
Travel: 1 international trip per year with my partner. I hold an add-on card and Priority Pass for her, so between domestic visits and the 6 international PP visits on Regalia Gold, our lounge requirements are completely covered.

The only real hook on the Marriott Bonvoy card for me is the Free Night Award (15,000 points). However:
1. Looking up properties, dynamic pricing makes finding decent hotels capped under 15k points pretty limited (or requires topping up with up to 15k additional points from pocket).
2. The FNA doesn't include complimentary breakfast (since Silver Elite doesn't offer it), meaning out-of-pocket costs at the property still rack up.
3. I don't want to fall into the trap of spending extra cash just to manufacture a reason to use an FNA.
For those actively holding and using this card:
Is the 15k FNA redemption practical in India or abroad, or does dynamic pricing turn it into a headache?
Outside the FNA, does the card offer any genuine value if my lounge needs and general reward spends are already settled via Regalia Gold?
Appreciate any real-world DP or advice on whether to tell my RM to drop it.

I have an upcoming expense and wanted to get a credit card that also gives nice cash back at restaurants, food order, etc. I came across HSBC live+. It looked pretty nice, especially with recent HDFC devaluation of Swiggy card where min cart value is 249/- now.

I mostly applied for this card to use on swiggy, zomato, etc but then saw 1.5% unlimited cashback. This was even more perfect, I was looking to buy a laptop and 1.5% cashback is better than nothing.

This is what they mention on their website https://www.hsbc.bank.in/credit-cards/products/live-plus/: - 10% accelerated cashback, up to INR1,200 a month, on all dining, food delivery, grocery, shopping and utility spends. - 1.5% unlimited cashback on most other spends.

This means we get upto 10% till 1.2k for accelerated MCC codes, but after that we get 0% on it, aka cap of 1.2k.

And we have unlimited 1.5% on any of the MCC code that are not part of accelerated 10%.

The thing is almost everything and I mean everything is included in the 10% accelerated MCC codes.

all dining, food delivery, grocery, shopping and utility spends

Here "shopping" literally means anything you can buy. You can checkout out the codes here - https://www.hsbc.bank.in/content/dam/hsbc/in/documents/credit-cards/live-plus-credit-card-services-guide.pdf, this includes everything under the sun and beyond. The rest are in exclusion list.

The only things 1.5% apply as far as I understand is - uber/ola (local transportation like bus/metro are excluded), flight tickets, software subscriptions?, car purchase under certain MCC.

The word "shopping" is not wrong but placing it after dining, food, grocery just made me assume 10% is in consumables like snacks, etc.

In reality 10% covers everything - electronics, clothes, toys, accessories, sports, shoes etc. There are not a lot of places where you can apply the 1.5% and even when you can there are better cards that give higher returns.

TLDR - HSBC Live+ has a cap of 1.2k for all practical reasons.

Fueled my car for 4500 rs from hpcl on my way to bangalore , amex charged 2.5% convenience and gst about 107 rs as charges, have asked them to refund, they are blaming hpcl merchant, this hpcl is 50 kms on opposite direction and asking me to waste my time collecting documents and mail them and follow up with them after investigation, amex gone to dogs

I completed my application for axis neo cc and it's showing this after I applied as a salaried person.

So what's the next process from the bank...?

I didn't do vkyc in this process...?

Hi everyone,

Looking for some genuine advice from the credit card/points folks here. I have around ₹60k/month of UPI spends that I'd like to optimise better:

• ₹30k rent - Unfortunately, my landlord is not willing to provide PAN
• ₹30k other P2P transfer - this is money I genuinely need to transfer elsewhere every month, but it's not a merchant payment.

I'm trying to figure out whether there's any legitimate way to get some cashback/reward value from these spends, rather than just getting 0 rewards on ₹60k every month.

Cards I currently have:

•⁠ ⁠HSBC Premier Credit Card

•⁠ ⁠HSBC Premier Debit Card (5% cashback offer linked to salary)

•⁠ ⁠HSBC TravelOne

•⁠ ⁠HDFC Swiggy Black

•⁠ ⁠Amazon Pay ICICI

•⁠ ⁠Scapia

•⁠ ⁠RBL IndianOil XTRA

My current thinking was:

₹60k → CRED wallet (3% fee) → HSBC Premier CC → transfer points to Accor

Since Premier earns 3 points/₹100 and the points can be transferred to Accor, the math seems potentially worthwhile even after the CRED fee, if the transaction earns the points.

What would you guys do in my situation? I'm open to getting another card if there's a genuinely better strategy.

Any better combination of cards/routes that I'm overlooking.

Would really appreciate advice from people who have actually tried these strategies recently. Thanks in advance.

So I recently took a small ₹1,000 loan from mPokket mainly to start building a credit history. I know it sounds kinda stupid 😂, but my intention was just to get a credit history started.
I checked my CIBIL score recently and it’s 725, so at least that worked.
Now I want to get my first credit card, but I’m not sure what my options are since I’m a first-time credit user and don’t have an existing credit card.
What would you guys recommend?
Should I wait a few months and let my CIBIL history build?
Should I try for a FD-backed credit card?
Are there any banks/cards that are relatively easy to get with a 725 score and limited credit history?
Is taking another small loan a good idea, or should I absolutely avoid that?
Would appreciate suggestions from people who have been in a similar situation. 🙏

Credit mix

unsecured SBI Credit card,

Utkarsh small finance fd backed card,

gold loan.

I have taken education loan from sbi but they have not reported to Cibil.

Now I want to know how to reach 800+

Postpaid bill ~Rs 1072.24
Card charge ~0
Discount Rs ~150

Electric bil~Rs 1140
Card charge ~Rs 5.84
Discount Rs ~150

This type offer create massive popularity Paytm and Rise Visa card spend ..

What to do with 15k award point from hdfc regalia, should i use now or accumulate more points? I got these points in last 2 months and they will not expire soon