The exit toll

Published 29 September 2026

The final move of a quiet cut is the one that meets you at the door. Having devalued the points, issuers now charge you to use them - or make them evaporate if you leave.

Start with the redemption fee. Across the 232 cards in the AP Labs dataset, 97 - 42% - carry a fee for redeeming your own rewards. The standard levy is ₹99 plus GST per redemption request; some cards charge it per gift, some per catalog transaction, some on cash-equivalent conversions. The amounts are small by design: nobody calls a call center over ₹99. But the fee performs a quiet function. It converts rewards from a rebate - money the issuer owes you - into a product you pay to receive. And it lands last, after every other move has already done its work: your points are worth less per point, they were earned on fewer categories, they stopped growing at the ceiling - and now they cost ₹99 plus GST to collect.

Leaving costs you everything

The sharper toll is forfeiture. From 1 October 2025, Axis Bank ruled that EDGE Reward points must be redeemed within 30 days of closing your card, or they expire - and if your card is closed for payment default of more than 90 days, the points are forfeited outright, ET reported. HDFC Bank's long-standing rule is similar: redeem within 30 days of closure or lose the balance. In both cases, years of accumulated loyalty expire with the plastic.

IndusInd Bank added a twist in 2025 that deserves its own paragraph. Effective from late March that year, the bank raised its reward redemption fee to ₹149 plus GST, stopped awarding points on the fractional part of a transaction, rolled back points earned on spends that later went delinquent, and limited each cash claim to 50% of the customer's points balance, as CardInsider reported from the issuer's own update; the AP Labs dataset tracks the same 50%-of-balance cash-claim cap on cards including the Platinum, Tiger and Platinum Aura Edge. Think about what that means: the points exist, the catalog exists, but the exit door is half-width - and you pay a toll every time you pass through it.

The other door has a toll too

There is one approved way out of the 45%: convert the balance to EMI. The MITC's price for the exit ramp: a processing fee of up to ₹999 plus GST on an Insta, Jumbo or Smart EMI loan, up to ₹299 plus GST on an EasyEMI conversion at the merchant, and - if you come into money and try to close the loan early - a pre-closure charge of 3% of the principal outstanding. The bank's own Easy EMI Credit Card skips the paperwork entirely: every transaction of ₹10,000 or more converts automatically, for nine months, at 20% per annum plus a ₹99 processing fee. Miss an EMI on the Insta Jumbo route and that is another ₹500 plus GST. Every door out of the club is metered, including the one the bank itself suggests.

The redemption toll, verbatim this time: ₹99 per redemption request on every card outside the Infinia and Diners Black row, and - since 1 August 2024 - a separate ₹50 per cashback redemption, with the premium row and named cobrands exempt. The two price lists again: the premium cardholder redeems free; everyone else pays to collect what the brochure called a reward. The schedule also prices the humblest acts - ₹100 to pay your own bill in cash at a branch or ATM, 2% of the payment amount (minimum ₹450) if the payment bounces, ₹10 for a duplicate paper statement, 1% of the amount (minimum ₹250) to move a balance in.

The paperwork reserved all of it

Axis Bank's own Most Important Terms and Conditions states the forfeiture in its own words, and adds the machinery around it. Effective 1 October 2025, "the bank shall forfeit any unredeemed EDGE REWARD Points/Miles 30 days after the customer's credit card closure or if the minimum amount due on the customer's credit card remains outstanding for more than 90 days." And if the card is terminated - by you or by the bank, for any reason - the standing clause is colder: all unused rewards "shall automatically be forfeited immediately." No 30 days, no window. The exit toll is not a decision someone took in a meeting last year. It is a sentence that sat in the contract all along, waiting.

The same document reserves the rest of the playbook. "The Bank can change the features and benefits on any credit card at any point of time with its discretion with prior communication of 30 days" - every devaluation in this file, pre-authorized by the cardholder's own signature. Use the card even once after the annual fee is levied, and "the reversal of annual fee will not be accepted even if the cardholder opts for card cancellation." Cancel and later reopen the same variant, and the welcome benefit does not come back: the document grants it once. The brochure asks for your attention. The terms ask for everything else.

And then there is the ultimate exit toll: the program that simply ends. In April 2026, Kotak Mahindra Bank discontinued rewards on its Dream Different card entirely, per the issuer's revision notice. The card kept its name and its fee schedule; the rewards program - the product - was switched off. Cardholders were informed. Cardholders are always informed. That is the whole trick: every step was disclosed, in a PDF, on a page nobody visits, 30 to 45 days before it took effect. Disclosure is not consent; it is a receipt for a decision already made.

The cumulative arithmetic, for a loyal customer of a typical mid-tier card across this era: the point worth ₹0.50 now worth ₹0.25; the categories that used to earn now excluded; the milestone voucher discontinued; the lounge visits halved; a ₹99-plus-GST fee to redeem what remains; and 30 days to collect it all if they ever decide to leave. Nothing was stolen. Everything was repriced. The bank never missed - the customer did.