IndiGo SBI Card Review
★ 3.0 / 5
At a Glance
| Joining Fee | ₹1,499 + GST |
| Annual Fee | ₹1,499 + GST (no spend-based waiver) |
| Best Suited For | Regular IndiGo flyers who book on the IndiGo app or website |
| Reward Type | IndiGo BluChips, redeemable only against IndiGo flights |
| Networks | Mastercard and RuPay |
The IndiGo SBI Card is the entry-level card in the co-branded pair SBI Card and IndiGo launched in September 2025, sitting below the ₹4,999 IndiGo SBI Card ELITE. It earns 3 IndiGo BluChips per ₹100 on the IndiGo app and website, 2 per ₹100 on hotel and travel merchants, and 1 per ₹100 everywhere else, and it hands you 2,500 BluChips every year you pay the fee.
The single biggest thing to understand before you read another line: BluChips are not worth ₹1 each. IndiGo prices award seats dynamically, and real-world redemptions land somewhere around ₹0.40 to ₹0.60 per BluChip. Every rupee figure on this page uses that range, because a review that values them at ₹1 is selling you a card, not explaining one.
Fees and features below are as of 19 August 2026. Confirm current terms on sbicard.com before you apply.
Rewards & Benefits
Reward rate & earn structure
The card earns in IndiGo’s own loyalty currency, BluChips, which are credited to your IndiGo BluChip account at the end of every statement cycle rather than sitting in an SBI rewards balance.
| Where you spend | BluChips per ₹100 | Approx. value back (at ₹0.40–₹0.60/chip) |
|---|---|---|
| IndiGo app & website | 3 | 1.2% – 1.8% |
| Hotels, lodging and travel MCCs | 2 | 0.8% – 1.2% |
| Everything else | 1 | 0.4% – 0.6% |
Excluded categories earn nothing at all: fuel, utilities, rent, government payments, gaming, insurance and cross-sell MCCs, plus cash withdrawals, balance transfers, wallet loads, Flexipay EMI conversions and cashback transactions. An MCC (merchant category code) is the four-digit tag the payment network attaches to each merchant, and it, not the merchant’s name, decides which bucket your spend falls into.
About the “up to 19 BluChips per ₹100” headline. SBI Card and IndiGo both advertise this figure, and it is technically accurate but easy to misread. IndiGo’s own footnote breaks it down as 3 from the card, 12 from the base BluChip programme for booking on IndiGo channels, and 4 as a Blu 1 tier bonus. Only the first 3 come from holding this card. The other 16 are earned by any BluChip member who books directly and quotes their membership number, whether they pay with this card or a debit card. When you compare this card against another, compare the 3, not the 19.
Redemption options & point value
BluChips redeem in exactly one place: the IndiGo website or app, against the base fare and fuel surcharge of a flight. They cannot be used for taxes and statutory fees, so a redemption reduces your ticket cost but never zeroes it. There are no blackout dates, and seats stay redeemable until the last one is sold.
There is no fixed rupee value. IndiGo prices redemptions off live fares, so the same 6,000 BluChips buy meaningfully different amounts of travel depending on route, date and demand. Community reports through 2025 and 2026 have clustered around ₹0.40–₹0.55 per chip on ordinary domestic routes, with better outcomes on expensive last-minute short-haul fares.
BluChips themselves have lifetime validity as long as your account records any earning or redemption activity within a rolling 24 months. Vouchers are the trap: welcome, renewal, activation and milestone BluChips arrive as vouchers that must be booked and travelled within 6 months of issue, can only be used on a single journey, and are forfeited entirely if you cancel that booking.
BluChips can also be converted to Accor ALL Reward points at 6,000 BluChips to 1,000 ALL points. Useful to know, but rarely the best use of them.
Welcome benefit
2,500 IndiGo BluChips, credited once you pay the joining fee and make your first transaction within 60 days of account opening. At ₹0.40–₹0.60 per chip that is roughly ₹1,000–₹1,500 in flight value, against a first-year outgo of ₹1,768.82 including 18% GST. The welcome benefit alone does not pay for the card.
Milestone benefits
| Annual spend (card anniversary year) | Bonus |
|---|---|
| ₹2,00,000 | 2,500 BluChips |
| ₹4,00,000 | 2,500 BluChips |
| ₹6,00,000 | 2,500 BluChips |
| Total at ₹6,00,000 | 7,500 BluChips (≈ ₹3,000–₹4,500) |
Add the 2,500 renewal BluChips and the maximum annual bonus is 10,000 BluChips, worth roughly ₹4,000–₹6,000, but only if you put ₹6,00,000 of eligible spend through the card. Since fuel, rent and utilities are excluded categories, hitting ₹6 lakh is harder than it looks for most households.
Dining benefits
None. There is no dining programme, no restaurant discount tie-up, and no accelerated dining category on this card. Restaurant spends earn the base 1 BluChip per ₹100. If dining rewards matter to you, this is not your card.
Travel benefits
Beyond the BluChip earn, the travel package is thin. The 2 BluChips per ₹100 on hotel, lodging and travel MCCs is the one genuinely useful extra, since it applies to third-party hotel bookings and other travel merchants, not just IndiGo. There is no 6E Prime pass, no 6E Eats voucher, no free seat selection and no priority check-in on this variant; those sit on the ELITE.
Airport lounge access
4 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits per year, capped at 1 visit per quarter, and unlocked only by spending ₹50,000 in the previous calendar quarter.
| Lounge benefit | IndiGo SBI Card |
|---|---|
| Domestic visits | 4 per year (1 per quarter) |
| Spend condition | ₹50,000 in the previous quarter |
| International visits | None |
Two practical notes. First, because eligibility is judged on the previous quarter, a new cardholder generally cannot use a lounge in their first quarter, so the realistic first-year count is 3, not 4. Second, one visit per quarter is per card, and unused visits do not roll forward.
Insurance & protection covers
None on this variant. The trip-cancellation cover (4 cancellations a year up to ₹3,000 each), ₹1,00,000 lost card liability and ₹72,000 lost baggage cover are ELITE-only benefits. If you were drawn to this card for flight-cancellation protection, you are looking at the wrong variant.
Fees & Charges
Joining & annual fee, and how to get it waived
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Joining fee | ₹1,499 + GST (₹1,768.82 total) |
| Annual fee, year 2 onwards | ₹1,499 + GST |
| Spend-based fee waiver | None published |
| Add-on card fee | Nil |
This is the most important line on the page: SBI Card does not publish any spend threshold that waives this card’s renewal fee. Most Indian cards at this price point waive the fee at ₹1.5–₹3 lakh of annual spend. This one does not. You pay ₹1,768.82 every single year and receive 2,500 BluChips (≈ ₹1,000–₹1,500) back for it, which means the renewal benefit alone leaves you a few hundred rupees short before you have earned a single chip on spending.
Forex markup
3.5% + 18% GST on the markup, which works out to roughly 4.13% of the transaction value on every foreign-currency spend, foreign website purchase, and domestic payment to an overseas-registered merchant. Dynamic currency conversion is charged at the same 3.5%. This is SBI Card’s standard rate; the reduced 1.99% applies only to ELITE, Aurum and a few other variants, not to this one. Do not take this card abroad.
Interest rate & finance charges
3.75% per month, which is 45% per annum, applied on revolving balances and on cash advances from the day of withdrawal. As with every credit card, this only matters if you carry a balance. Pay the statement in full and finance charges are nil.
Late payment fees, by statement balance:
| Statement balance | Late fee |
|---|---|
| Up to ₹500 | Nil |
| ₹501 – ₹1,000 | ₹400 |
| ₹1,001 – ₹10,000 | ₹750 |
| ₹10,001 – ₹25,000 | ₹950 |
| ₹25,001 – ₹50,000 | ₹1,100 |
| Above ₹50,000 | ₹1,300 |
Fuel surcharge waiver
1% fuel surcharge waiver at all petrol pumps in India, on transactions between ₹500 and ₹4,000, capped at ₹200 per statement cycle. Remember that fuel is an excluded category for rewards, so you get the surcharge waiver but zero BluChips on the spend itself.
Cash advance & other charges
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash advance fee | 2.5% of the amount or ₹500, whichever is higher |
| Over-limit fee | 2.5% of the over-limit amount or ₹600, whichever is higher |
| Cash payment fee (at SBI branches) | ₹250 + GST |
All figures are exclusive of GST; 18% GST applies on top of fees and charges.
Eligibility & Documents Required
- Age: 21 to 70 years
- Employment: Salaried or self-employed with a stable, documented income
- Credit score: No published minimum. SBI Card assesses the full profile, and a score above 750 materially improves your odds.
- Minimum income: Not published for this card.
- IndiGo BluChip membership: Mandatory. You must hold a BluChip account, and the mobile number and email on your card application must match the ones on that account, or your chips will not credit correctly.
Documents: PAN card, proof of identity, proof of address (Aadhaar with the first 8 digits masked is accepted), and income proof such as recent salary slips, bank statements or ITR depending on your profile.
No issuer can guarantee approval, and Card Jaano does not suggest otherwise.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 3 BluChips per ₹100 on IndiGo app and website bookings | No spend-based annual fee waiver, so ₹1,768.82 every year, unconditionally |
| 2 BluChips per ₹100 on hotel, lodging and travel MCCs, not just IndiGo | BluChips are worth roughly ₹0.40–₹0.60, not ₹1, and IndiGo can reprice them |
| 2,500 BluChips on joining and again on every renewal | 1 BluChip per ₹100 base rate is poor for everyday spending |
| 4 domestic lounge visits a year, which the rival IndiGo Kotak card does not offer | Lounge access is spend-gated at ₹50,000 in the previous quarter |
| Up to 7,500 milestone BluChips | 3.5% forex markup makes it useless internationally |
| Add-on cards are free | No insurance cover, no dining benefit, no 6E vouchers |
| Available on RuPay, so UPI payments earn too | Milestone and renewal vouchers expire in 6 months and are forfeited on cancellation |
IndiGo SBI Card vs Competitors
The card’s real problem is not the ELITE above it. It is the ₹799 Axis Bank card that arrived five months later with the same IndiGo earn rate and the same lounge structure.
| IndiGo SBI Card | IndiGo Axis Bank Card | IndiGo Kotak Card | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | ₹1,499 + GST | ₹799 + GST | ₹1,500 + GST |
| BluChips per ₹100, IndiGo channels | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| Accelerated category | 2 on hotels/lodging/travel | 2 on grocery & dining | 2 on dining & entertainment |
| Base rate | 1 per ₹100 | 1 per ₹100 | 1 per ₹100 |
| Welcome / renewal | 2,500 BluChips | 1,200 BluChips | 2,500 BluChips |
| Milestones | 2,500 each at ₹2L, ₹4L, ₹6L (7,500 total) | 1,200 each at ₹1.5L and ₹3L (2,400 total) | 2,500 each at ₹1.25L, ₹3L, ₹6L (7,500 total) |
| Domestic lounge | 4/yr, 1 per quarter on ₹50k prior-quarter spend | 4/yr, 1 per quarter on ₹50k prior-quarter spend | None |
| Forex markup | 3.5% | 3.5% | 3.5% |
Read the table honestly. The Axis card matches this one on IndiGo earn rate and lounge access for ₹700 less in fee, and loses only on the size of the renewal voucher and the milestone pot. If your annual spend is under about ₹2 lakh, meaning you will never touch a milestone, the Axis card is straightforwardly the better buy. The IndiGo SBI Card only pulls ahead once you are reliably clearing ₹4–6 lakh a year on eligible categories, where its 7,500 milestone BluChips against Axis’s 2,400 more than covers the fee gap.
Against the Kotak card, the trade is simpler: Kotak earns 5 BluChips per ₹100 on IndiGo versus this card’s 3 and reaches its first milestone at ₹1.25 lakh instead of ₹2 lakh, but gives you no lounge access at all. Four lounge visits a year are worth roughly ₹2,000–₹4,000 if you actually use them, which is the whole argument for paying SBI instead of Kotak.
If you want the ELITE instead: ₹4,999 + GST buys 7 BluChips per ₹100 on IndiGo, 5,000 welcome and renewal BluChips, 8 domestic plus 6 international lounge visits, 1.99% forex, and the insurance package. It needs roughly ₹3 lakh of annual spend before it starts making sense over this card.
How to Apply
- Enrol in the IndiGo BluChip programme at goindigo.in first, and note your 9-digit membership number.
- Go to the IndiGo SBI Card page on sbicard.com and select Apply Now.
- Enter your name and mobile number. Use the same mobile number and email registered on your BluChip account, or your chips will not credit to the right place.
- Complete the professional details, KYC and income sections.
- Upload PAN, address proof and income proof.
- Submit, and track the application with the reference number SBI Card issues.
- Once the card is issued, activate it and make your first transaction within 60 days to trigger the 2,500 welcome BluChips.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the IndiGo SBI Card annual fee waived on spending? No. SBI Card publishes no spend-based waiver for this card, so the ₹1,499 + GST renewal fee applies every year regardless of how much you spend. What you get in return is 2,500 renewal BluChips, worth roughly ₹1,000–₹1,500 in IndiGo flight value.
How many lounge visits does the IndiGo SBI Card give? 4 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year, capped at 1 per quarter. Each visit requires you to have spent ₹50,000 in the previous quarter. There is no international lounge access on this variant.
What is 1 IndiGo BluChip worth in rupees? There is no fixed value. IndiGo prices redemptions off live fares, and real-world redemptions typically land between ₹0.40 and ₹0.60 per BluChip. Treat any calculation that assumes ₹1 per chip as roughly double the truth.
Do IndiGo BluChips expire? BluChips themselves have lifetime validity provided your account shows any earning or redemption activity within a rolling 24 months. BluChip vouchers (welcome, renewal and milestone) must be booked and travelled within 6 months of issue and are forfeited if you cancel the booking.
What is the minimum salary for the IndiGo SBI Card? SBI Card does not publish an income requirement for this card. Applicants must be 21 to 70 years old with a documented, stable income as salaried or self-employed.
Does the IndiGo SBI Card earn rewards on rent, fuel and utility bills? No. Fuel, utilities, rent, government payments, gaming, insurance and cross-sell MCCs are all excluded, as are cash withdrawals, wallet loads, balance transfers and Flexipay conversions. Fuel does still get the 1% surcharge waiver up to ₹200 a month.
What is the forex markup on the IndiGo SBI Card? 3.5% plus 18% GST on the markup, roughly 4.13% all-in. The lower 1.99% rate applies only to the ELITE variant, Aurum and a handful of other SBI cards.
Is the IndiGo SBI Card better than the IndiGo Kotak Card? It depends on lounges. Kotak earns 5 BluChips per ₹100 on IndiGo against this card’s 3 and reaches its first milestone at a lower ₹1.25 lakh, but offers no complimentary lounge access. If you use airport lounges, the SBI card wins; if you only care about the earn rate, Kotak does.
Which is better, the IndiGo SBI Card or the IndiGo Axis Bank Card? For spending under roughly ₹2 lakh a year, the ₹799 Axis card: same 3 BluChips on IndiGo, same lounge structure, ₹700 cheaper. Above ₹4 lakh, the SBI card’s 7,500 milestone BluChips overtake it.
Can I hold this card alongside another airline credit card? Yes. Co-branded cards from different airlines are issued independently, and holding one does not affect eligibility for another.
Bottom Line
The IndiGo SBI Card is a narrow card that does one job: it converts spending into IndiGo flight credit for someone who has already decided IndiGo is their airline. On that narrow job it is competent: the 2 BluChips on hotels and travel is a genuinely useful extra for a co-brand, four lounge visits is more than Kotak offers, and 7,500 milestone BluChips is a real number if you can reach ₹6 lakh.
Get this card if you fly IndiGo at least four or five times a year, book directly on the app or website rather than through an OTA, put ₹4 lakh or more of eligible spend on one card annually, and will actually use the quarterly lounge visit. In that profile, the roughly ₹4,000–₹6,000 of annual bonus BluChips comfortably clears the ₹1,768.82 fee.
Skip this card if any of the following are true. Your annual eligible spend is under ₹2 lakh, so take the ₹799 IndiGo Axis Bank Card instead and pocket the difference. You want a card for everyday spending, because 1 BluChip per ₹100, worth around 0.5%, is beaten by almost every no-fee cashback card in the market. You spend abroad, where 3.5% forex kills it. You want insurance cover or 6E vouchers, which are on the ELITE. Or you dislike the idea of a currency one company can quietly reprice, in which case a transferable-points card like Axis Atlas or an HDFC rewards card will serve you better for the same money.
The honest summary: this is a fine card at ₹1,499 for a heavy IndiGo flyer with high card spend, and a poor one for everybody else, and its biggest problem is that a nearly identical card now exists for ₹799.
Card Jaano is not affiliated with SBI Card or IndiGo. Fees and features are as of 19 August 2026 and are subject to change. Always confirm on the issuer’s website before applying.
One Comment