The moving goalposts

Published 29 September 2026

Milestones, vouchers and lounge access are the benefits that sell premium cards. They are also the benefits easiest to rewrite - because they are promises about the future, and the future is always revisable.

The masterclass was Axis Bank's Magnus. When it launched, the card's proposition rested on pillars beyond the earn rate: a ₹10,000 annual voucher, a 25,000-point monthly milestone on ₹1 lakh of spend, a 5:4 miles conversion, and a ₹10,000 annual fee with a waiver at ₹15 lakh. In a single July 2023 notice, reported by Mint, every pillar moved: the voucher discontinued, the monthly milestone discontinued, miles to 5:2, the fee to ₹12,500 for new cardholders, and the waiver threshold for them raised to ₹25 lakh. In April 2024 Axis revised the card again, as Paisabazaar documented. A card sold as the best travel product in India was, within eight months, a different and weaker product wearing the same metal.

The 2025-26 season

By 2025 the goalpost-moving had become routine across the industry. From 1 April 2025, SBI Card removed the complimentary economy and premium-economy flight vouchers from its Club Vistara cards' renewal and milestone benefits - the ₹2,999 renewal fee was waived as consolation, per ET. The same revision cut SimplyCLICK's Swiggy earn from 10x to 5x, and gutted the Air India co-brands: the Signature card's 30 points per ₹100 on Air India bookings fell to 10, the Platinum's 15 fell to 5. On paper the cards kept their names, their artwork, their annual fees. The value inside was halved or worse.

Then came the winter of 2025-26, when the cuts reached the benefits people actually feel. From 10 January 2026, SBI Card halved complimentary domestic lounge visits on five popular cards from eight a year to four. ICICI Bank discontinued complimentary movie tickets on its Platinum Chip and Instant Platinum cards, added a ₹3,000 one-time fee for an add-on Emeralde Metal card, capped monthly rewards at ₹20,000 of transactions on several cards, and raised its dynamic currency conversion fee, effective mid-January and 1 February. Scapia - the Federal Bank co-brand beloved of international travelers for unlimited lounge entry - doubled the monthly spend needed to unlock it, from ₹10,000-15,000 depending on network to ₹20,000 flat, effective 27 February. All of this is catalogued in ET's March 2026 review of the industry's great tightening.

Each of these was a benefit named in the advertisement. Lounges sell travel cards; movie tickets sell mass-market ones; milestone vouchers justify annual fees. When they are revised mid-membership, the customer has already paid - in fees, in spend routed to the card, in loyalty. The issuer keeps all three and revises the fourth. That is the goalpost move, and in 2023-2026 it became the industry's favorite play.

The one exception proves the rule. When HDFC Bank attempted to gut reward multipliers on its flagship Infinia card, the online backlash was fierce enough that the bank retreated - the only reversal we found in three years of notices. The lesson cuts both ways: a devaluation can be stopped, but only when the affected customers are affluent, organized and loud. Everyone else's cuts go through quietly.