Accelero ICICI Bank Credit Card Review

By | July 4, 2022
Accelero ICICI Bank Credit Card

ICICI bank is probably the first and the only bank serving automobile enthusiasts. While they have been issuing Ferrari credit cards since past 5 yrs, they’ve now come up with a new product with benefits that one can avail within India, without flying to Italy for that matter.

Here’s everything you need to know about the newly launched ICICI Bank Accelero Credit card.

Overview

TypeAutomobile Credit Card
Reward RateUpto 0.5%
Annual Fee499 INR+GST
Best forLounge access, complimentary car wash
USPSponsored road trip experience

Not a worthy card to have in your wallet unless you’re very much excited about the fully sponsored road trip experiences that the card promises to offer.

Joining Fees

Joining Fee499 INR+GST
Welcome Benefit1500 Points (worth ~Rs.375)
Renewal Fee499 INR+GST
Renewal Fee WaiverSpend 1,25,000 INR

To start with, the welcome benefits are not equivalent to the joining fee you pay. But I think they have decided so given the fact that you may get a free car wash on spending just 3K INR (1K*3) in 3 months.

More on the later. Before that let’s have a quick look at the rewards,

Rewards

  • Reward Rate = 0.5% (2 points on INR 100)

ICICI Bank doesn’t seem to work on improving the return on regular spends in this lifetime. In the year of 2022, 0.5% is way too low to accept.

They should have rather added these below complimentary road trip benefits as a milestone benefit instead.

Features & Benefits

  1. Fully sponsored & partially sponsored road trip – once a year each (for top spenders)
  2. Exclusive access to Auto Expos & Test Drive Experiences
  3. 2.5% fuel Cashback (upto Rs.200/m – no fuel surcharge waiver)
  4. Airport lounge access: 1/qtr provided Rs.5k is spent on previous quarter.
  5. Complimentary 24×7 Roadside Assistance with complimentary key car parts*
  6. Complimentary Car Wash & general checkup*
  7. Car Loan benefits: better interest rates, 50% waiver on processing fees, 100% waiver on foreclosure charges after 24 months

Note: Customers will be eligible to avail the Roadside assistance, car wash, general checkup services for the first year on making 3 transactions of at least INR 1,000 each within the first 3 months of card issuance, and on payment of joining fee.

Is it worth it?

No – according to me.

There are some who have won such top spender offers with ICICI Bank on their similar credit cards like the one with Ferrari credit cards.

Even if you don’t participate in the spend campaign, you may extract some value just by availing the car wash benefit.

So its totally upto you to decide whether to get the card just for RSA & car wash or “gamble” with their top spender program.

Somehow I’ve no interest in anything that look-like gambling after I’ve seen my friend lose his money (small though!) at Deltin Royale, Goa.

Final Thoughts

  • Cardexpert Rating: 3.7/5

ICICI Bank is pretty good when it comes to launching innovative products, for ex, they’re the first to add airport spa benefits, railway lounge access, wonderful products like the Amazon Pay credit card, etc.

But when it comes to the overall product, they just remove the concept of “rewards” from their offering – ICICI Amazon pay fortunately is an exception to this.

While Accelero is a nice concept, I wish they had a premium version of it with a better value.

I wish there exists a card that gives complimentary access to a premium car for a week or two so that one can enjoy a road trip in style.

It’s sad to see almost all of their premium & even super premium credit cards giving 1% or lower return on spend while the competition is at 2% or 3% range.

Given that most of their premium products are affected due to Mastercard & Amex RBI ban, I’m hoping to see some good value on their upcoming credit cards.

10 thoughts on “Accelero ICICI Bank Credit Card Review

  1. Meena Sudarshan

    Worst experience, I had surrendered the card & add on card in the year 2005. But they have not closed the add on card. When they have closed main card add on card should be closed with that. It’s a pure mistake & fault from their end. Now in the CIBIL report it’s showing. When contacted I was told to raise the issue & mail to customer care. I have all the documents & postal receipts acknowledgement which I uploaded & daily contacted from past one month. No progress.
    It’s a bad bad experience. Customer care call is on IVR & gets automatically disconnected it will not connect to the officer over phone. It’s a chargeable cal.
    Truly very very bad Bank experience.
    Closing of add so card along with main card is their duty & job. Now I have been put to a great difficulty in getting the work done.
    The only person to contact in Bangalore is in Bommanahalli branch & she tells not to come to the branch. Directly reply to customer care.
    But no response from them.

    Reply
    1. Shilpa

      File a complaint online with RBI Ombudsman.

      It’ll get resolved quickly. That is how I dealt with HDFC and RBL customer care. Mail a complaint, they’ll generally not reply or give a generic reply. After 30 days have passed, complaint with RBI and then they’ll call you, keep updating you on status and eventually resolve your complaint.

      And this is after being a preferred HDFC customer.

      Reply
  2. Tushar

    I have ICICI card – platinum. Can i apply this card ? if applied then the existing limit will share with this card or seperate ?

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Yes you can. I checked with support and they’re aware of this card, fortunately. The limit will get shared.

      Reply
  3. Brahamdeep

    I have an Amazon Py ICICI Credit Card, ~1.5 months old. For some reason it didn’t pop up on my CIBIL/Equifax/CRIF Credit report.

    Do ICICI credit card not report to Credit Agencies?

    Reply
  4. Bikram Sil

    I want to know about ICICI AMAZON Credit card and HDFC Bank Business Money Back Credit Card.

    Please review both of these cards.

    Reply
  5. Arun Kumar

    The only reason Amazon pay ICICI got good rewards structure is Amazon strict rules while making an agreement with ICICI otherwise we could have seen the regular worst rewards structure of ICICI. We don’t need to blame payback rewards organization it purely ICICI mistake while setting rewards on a card. Even though payback organization don’t charge for redemption of reward points, the foolish ICICI bank started charging for each redemption(charge Rs. 25+GST additional). I agree with you they never change in lifetime. This is the reason HDFC got good market share in Premium cards.

    Reply
  6. Mahesh S. Panicker

    If you redeem points through Payback directly, there won’t be any charges. Only if you go through the ICICI site or IMobile app would there be any issue. Just buy brand vouchers from Payback. The point structure is same for all, and on some vouchers, you would also get a discount or some other Payback offer.

    Reply
  7. Asbin Bhadra

    In my opinion, this card is very good if you own a car. You can get 2.5% cashback in the statement on the HP fuel station. Also, you will get a fuel surcharge waiver along with GST. Yes, you heard it right, You will get back the GST as well. This is something I have seen for the first time. No other credit card refund GST on fuel surcharge.

    Reply

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