Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card Review

By | March 16, 2023
Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card Review

Axis Bank has very many premium and super premium credit cards and also the Atlas Credit Card which serves multiple segments at once: from travel to super premium (or) even an Ultra premium segment, based on spends.

Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card is one of a kind, quite unique the way it works but at the same time looks complicated for most. That said, here’s a simple guide to help you understand it better and use it effectively, if you choose to apply for one.

Overview

TypeTravel Credit Card
Reward Rate2% to 10%
Annual Fee5,000+GST
Best forDirect Hotel & Airline Spends
USPTiered benefits based on spends

Axis Bank Atlas credit card has been recently face-lifted by increasing the regular reward rate and adding more spend categories that earns accelerated rewards.

Ideally its best suited for those who pay a lot of hotel bills (or) airline charges. But it can also be used for other benefits. Let’s begin with the fee.

Fees

Joining Fee5,000 INR+GST
Welcome Benefit5000 Edge Miles (10,000 INR value easily)
Renewal Fee5,000 INR+GST
Renewal Benefit2,500 Edge miles (Silver)
5,000 Edge miles (Gold)
10,000 Edge miles (Platinum)
Renewal Fee waiverNil

The welcome benefit of 5K edge miles can be transferred to ITC (among others) and can be redeemed for 10,000 INR worth of stay, food, etc at ITC hotels.

That means you’re paying 5K and getting 10K value – doubling the value of your money just like that.

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There are more partners with a good conversion rate and we’ll explore them later below.

While there is no renewal fee waiver option on this card, the good thing about the Atlas Credit Card is that it gives better renewal benefit if you spend more during the card anniversary year.

The renewal benefit is quite lucrative, especially with the platinum tier. But remember that even gold tier is sufficient to get 2X value of the renewal fee paid.

Design

Axis Atlas Credit Card Design

The design looks not only neat, simple and beautiful but also relevant to the type of card, so is the choice of name: Atlas.

If you’ve had the card in hand, you would agree that the card looks and feels as good as you see in the image above.

Rewards

Unlike all other Axis Credit Cards, Axis Atlas doesn’t earn “Edge Rewards”, but it earns “Edge Miles”.

It’s a separate miles balance that reflects on the Axis Edge Rewards account and is not linked with any other product so far.

SPEND TYPEEdge MilesREWARD RATE (EDGE REWARDS PORTAL)REWARD RATE (POINTS TRANSFER)
Regular Spends2 / 100 INR2%~4%
Axis Travel Edge Portal5 / 100 INR5%~10%
Airlines & Hotels (Direct)5 / 100 INR5%~10%

It is to be noted that if you intend to pre-pay for flights/hotels using travel edge portal, Axis Magnus is a lot better option than Atlas Credit Card.

Redemption

There are multiple options to redeem edge miles, broadly divined into two, as below:

  • Redeem on Travel Edge portal: 1:1 (for flights/hotels)
  • Transfer Edge miles to airline/hotel partners

While redeeming on travel edge portal is the super simple option with a static value, we don’t get great value there.

Instead, one can transfer the points to airlines and hotels and get pretty good value. Here’s a quick look at the transfer ratio.

AirlineConversion Rate (Edge Miles:Partner Miles)
All Airlines*1:2
Hotels: IHG & ITC1:2
Hotel: Marriot Bonvoy2:1
  • Airlines: United, Singapore Airlines, Turkish, Etihad, Qatar, Air France, Ethiopian, Vistara & Spicejet

As you can see, the transfer ratio is 1:2 across all airlines & hotels, except for Marriott Bonvoy which is at 2:1. So it’s not wise to transfer these points to Marriott from Atlas Credit Card.

If you’re into Marriott, you can however transfer your points to ITC and then to Marriott (2 ITC points = 3 MB points), but this is limited to 60K points per year.

Generally, ITC is the goto option for most cardholders to get better value, as it’s lot less complicated and also allows to transfer the points further to Marriott Bonvoy.

If you wish to explore international airline redemptions, our simple guides are here: Singapore Airlines – KrisFlyer & United Airlines – MileagePlus (more to follow soon).

Milestone Benefit

Spend RequirementMilestone Benefit
3 Lakhs2,500 Edge Miles
7.5 Lakhs5,000 Edge Miles
15 Lakhs10,000 Edge Miles

Assuming you’re able to do “regular” spends of 15 Lakhs, you’ll get 40,000 Edge miles that can be easily valued at 80,000 INR or even 1,60,000 INR (airline sweet spots), with reward rates as good as 5.3% to 10.6% respectively.

But remember that wallet & rental spends wont be considered for milestone benefits.

Membership Tiers

Annual SpendsMembership Tier
< Rs. 7.5 lacsSilver
Rs. 7.5 lacs to Rs. 15 lacsGold
Rs. 15 lacs & abovePlatinum

Axis Atlas Credit Card comes with membership tiers and it’s a unique system in the credit card industry.

The membership tiers are purely based on credit card spends with Platinum tier on top that gives access to most of the airport benefits, including luxury airport transfers which is available only with the expensive Axis Reserve.

Airport Services

Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card gives you access to below airport services depending on the membership tier you’re in:

Here are the complimentary limits on respective tiers for airport services.

Membership TierAirport Meet & GreetAirport Transfer
Silver
Gold2
Platinum42

However, note that these airport services can neither be booked on the Extraordinary weekends portal nor through concierge line, unlike the other cards like Magnus & Reserve.

With Atlas, airport services can be booked only through the Atlas Dashboard on app/website and that’s not something you would enjoy doing.

Airport Lounge Access

The complimentary lounge access limits on Axis Atlas Credit Card also works as per the tiered system mentioned below.

Membership TierDomestic VisitsInternational Visits
Silver84
Gold126
Platinum1812
  • Note: Above visits covers both Primary cardholder + guests, if any.

So, as you see above, the good news about the Atlas Card is that we can avail these complimentary lounge access both for primary cardholder & guests, just like the Axis Reserve Credit Card.

However, note that it’s not well implemented both at terminal & with QR system, for ex, if you add 1 guest to the visit, you’ll be charged, which is not the case with Reserve.

So as of now, you’ll be charged the fee for guests and the charges will be auto reversed as confirmed by Axis customer support.

Should you take Atlas?

Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card

For most people, Axis Magnus (or) Axis Reserve credit card would do.

But here are some reasons why you need to have Atlas in your wallet, even if you have other Axis credit cards.

  1. Your direct airline & hotel spends are high (>5 Lakhs a year).
  2. You can spend 15L easily, so as to get higher reward rate.
  3. You need lounge access for guests.
  4. You want to experience the USP of Magnus and reserve and yet light on pocket. 
  5. You do lot of direct international hotel spends, as this gives a good net gain (~5.8%) on forex hotel spends. 

While we can give more reasons, the only reason that I generally see across many Atlas cardholders is the #1 reason listed above. 

For ex, on spends of 5L with hotels & airlines, you would get 50K worth of miles with atlas, whereas with Magnus you would only get ~25k miles. So higher the spends in this category, higher the reward rate.

But Note that you can also use travel edge and get 5X rewards on Magnus for prepaid hotels/flights and get a lot higher reward rate. So Atlas is largely reserved for incidental hotel spends or for airline charges. 

My Experience

Axis Atlas Credit Card Experience

I got the Axis Atlas Credit Card few months ago, primarily to experience the product as it’s quite unique in the industry.

They’ve a dedicated card management dashboard for Atlas on Mobile & net-banking because of the membership tier system and other benefits.

Apart from that, the 5X rewards gets credited for hotel spends on time, hopefully so for airlines. I did a small txn few months ago to check the same and it does work as expected.

Axis Atlas - 5X edge miles on Hotel Spend

Eligibility

  • Annual Income: 9 Lakhs & above
  • Existing other Bank Credit Card: ~3 Lakhs (or) above limit

If you’re facing any issues (or) if you prefer to have a smooth ride into Axis Credit Card Ecosystem, do check out this beginners guide to Axis Bank Credit Cards: Maximizing Axis Bank Credit Cards.

How to Apply?

You may apply online on Axis website in a matter of few clicks. Axis Bank is recently known for processing fresh credit card applications pretty fast.

You may get the card approved usually within a week from the date of application.

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If you’re new to bank, not to worry, you don’t need to open a fresh Axis Bank Savings A/c to get an Axis Credit Card.

Bottom line

  • Cardexpert Rating: 4.6/5

Overall Axis Atlas Credit Card is a fully loaded card at this fee range and has the ability to give experiences that only an ultra premium credit card can offer – all you need is the high spend potential.

If you intend to have 3 best premium credit cards from Axis Bank, this can be one among – others being Axis Magnus & Axis Vistara Infinite.

Do you’ve Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

Author: Siddharth

Helping Indians to choose right credit cards, pick right offers and enjoy luxury vacations for less. Day & night exploring the spiritual reality of our human existence.

6 thoughts on “Axis Bank Atlas Credit Card Review

  1. Avijeet

    Hi Sid,
    I got the Atlas card just 3 weeks back.
    I want to add something…
    Atlas card has a capping of 100 Edge Miles for Insurance transactions.
    Further, there is no clarity on whether govt. services payment and insurance will be counted towards milestones or not.

    I did a pos transaction at St.Laurn Hotel, Shirdi…
    Got only 1X points. I am unsure if this reward comes (1X + 4X) or 5X …

    Regards,
    Avijeet Mohanty

    Reply
  2. MJ

    Is it worth spending (Direct International Hotel) via Atlas than Reserve?

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Both are at similar reward rate for intl hotel spends. But reserve is better as you don’t need to worry about MCC issues.

      Reply
  3. Kevin

    Hi Sid, I have activated my Atlas card on March 4th and did a number of transactions until today. But, I’m yet to receive atlas miles for any transactions and even the welcome gift miles is also not credited. What might be the reason?

    Reply
  4. witz

    Hi sid, Thanks for such nice articles. I wish to know that will i get edge miles for using atlas card for government payments like income tax payments. It seems to be a grey area. I got 2% cash back using ace and edge points using Magnus but customer care says there wont be any cash back in ace or points in magnus. Can you please clarify from your experience. Thanks

    Reply
  5. Sachin Gupta

    Hi Sid,

    As per this line from Axis Bank site,
    You would get 17,500 milestone edge miles in total (all milestone benefits) for spending Rs. 15L. So when you do Rs.15L regular spends, you would get 47,500 miles and not 40,000 miles which makes it a minimum of 6.3% benefit on transferring miles.

    Milestone Benefits
    Unlock upto 17,500 EDGE Miles on achieving the Spends Milestone.

    Reply

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