As you might know, Premium Economy is a new concept in India introduced by Vistara. It’s positioned between economy & business class and Axis Vistara Signature Credit Card helps you fly this Premium Economy product for free with the help of milestone vouchers and CV points. Here’s everything you need to know about the Vistara Signature Credit Card.
Table of Contents
Overview
| Type | Airline Credit Card |
| Reward Rate | Upto ~8% |
| Annual Fee | |
| Best for | Flying Premium Economy for FREE |
| USP | Milestone benefits |
Axis Vistara Signature Credit Card is one of the best credit cards in the country that can get you complimentary Vistara premium economy tickets for free.
As long as you’re eligible for the card, fly at-least once a year where Vistara flies, there is no single reason to avoid this card, especially when there is a lucrative offer like this one.
*** First Year FREE offer ends by 31st Dec 2022 ***
Fees
| Joining Fee | |
| Welcome Benefit | 1 Complimentary Premium Economy Voucher |
| Renewal Fee | 3,000 INR+GST |
| Renewal Benefit | 1 Complimentary Premium Economy Voucher |
| Renewal Fee waiver | Nil |
- Welcome Benefit: 1 Complimentary Business Class Voucher
- Value: ~8,000 INR
The welcome benefit given is of great value, much more than 2X the joining fee paid. So it’s no wonder that it’s a pretty good card even as a paid variant.
On top of it, we now have First Year Free Offer running which means the joining fee gets reversed on spending 60K INR in 90 days (from card setup date).
What you get is not only a free card but also a FREE Premium Economy ticket voucher which is worth well over ~8,000 INR.
Note: You’ll ideally need to pay the joining fee when the 1st stmt gets generated but once you’ve spent 60K within 90 days, reversal will be initiated within another ~30 days. Ideally, the entire process takes ~120 days from the date of card issuance.
Design
The Axis Vistara Signature credit card design looks decent in reality just as we see on image but it could have been better.
The card was recently redesigned replacing the bluish card which was issued previously.
Rewards
| SPEND TYPE | CV POINTS | REWARD RATE |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Spends | 4 RP / 200 INR | 1.5% – 2% |
- 1 CV Point = 0.75 INR to 1 INR (depending on your redemption)
- CV Points Expiry: 3 Years
While earning Club Vistara Points (CV Points) on regular spends are not the USP of this card, it is worth knowing what you earn and it’s value.
Ideally, I value CV points at 75Ps but in 2022 the fares are extremely high (Covid impact) that now we can easily put a value of 1 INR per point even for economy redemptions and maybe lot more in few low demand sectors.
Milestone Rewards
| SPEND | MILESTONE BENEFIT | SAVINGS % (MS BENEFIT + REWARDS) | SAVINGS (CUMULATIVE) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 75,000 | 3,000 CV Points | 4% + 2% | 6% |
| 1.5 Lakhs | 1 PE Voucher | 5.3% + 2% | 9.3% |
| 3 Lakhs | 1 PE Voucher | 5.3% + 2% | 8.3% |
| 4.5 Lakhs | 1 PE Voucher | 5.3% + 2% | 8% |
| 9 Lakhs | 1 PE Voucher | 1.8% + 2% | 5.9% |
- 1 PE (Premium Economy) Voucher Value: ~8,000 INR
- 1 CV Point Value: 1 INR (taken as average for calculation)
Spend linked milestone benefit is the most important feature of the Vistara Signature Credit Card as this benefit alone can get us a good ~5% value (excluding CV points) depending on the spends.
And then, if we add up the regular rewards (CV points) that we earn on ongoing spends, we get another ~2% or so, which is a nice cherry on cake.
That said, usually we get GREAT reward rate upto 4.5L spend (8%), after which the reward rate drops a bit when we go for the last milestone benefit which is 9L spend (5.9%).
Voucher Redemption
- Redemption type: Domestic only (India)
- Voucher Validity: 9 months (6 months + 3 months)
- Applicable taxes on redemption: 400-1000 INR per ticket
We’ve covered this in detail under Vistara Infinite Card voucher redemption section, please refer to the same, as all type of vouchers works the same way.
Vistara Silver Membership
Vistara Silver tier is not that valuable as Gold tier, but something is better than nothing.
- One Class Upgrade Voucher (1 voucher)
- Additional baggage allowance (+5Kg)
The above benefits not only gives us convenience while flying but also carries a monetary value.
For ex, the upgrade vouchers are worth at-least 10K INR each. While most of my upgrade vouchers gets expired as travel less frequently, it’s useful if you’re flying often.
Airport Lounge Access
| ACCESS TYPE | VIA | LIMIT | GUEST ACCESS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic Lounge Access | Visa (Signature) | 2/Qtr | – |
If you need lounge access, then you can make use of the Visa Signature offer that comes inbuilt with the card. Just swipe & get in to the lounges.
Golf Benefit
- Complimentary Limit: 3 rounds (games/lessons) / Year
If you play Golf, these complimentary rounds gives a pretty good value. Also, Axis Golf booking system is superior compared to most other banks, like HDFC.
My Experience
I’ve been using Vistara Credit Cards since past 4 years and it’s always an amazing experience to fly Vistara. While I’ve flown premium economy to experience the product, I try to fly business class mostly even with PE voucher (by upgrading).
However, it’s tricky and you need to be flexible.
You can upgrade your PE ticket to business class using voucher (or) points at the airport but this doesn’t work if you’re flying in a busy sector, as those biz class tickets would have got fully booked.
But note that you cannot upgrade a “points” redemption ticket using points.
Eligibility
- Annual Income: 6 Lakhs+
- Existing Credit Card limit: ~1 Lakhs (for Card to Card application)
The eligibility criteria is simple and straight forward and it works well without any complications, as long as as you meet one of the above eligibility criteria.
I’ve as well written a detailed guide for beginners just incase if you need to know all the nitty-gritty of getting onboarded smoothly into the world of Axis Bank Credit Cards.
How to Apply?
You may apply online through axis bank website in a matter of few clicks. Usually the card gets approved within a week from the date of application and one more week for delivery.
If you’re new to bank, not to worry, you don’t need to open any Axis Savings A/c to have an Axis Bank Credit Card. And before you ask, Axis allows upto 3 cards per person.
If you’re getting an option to do VKYC (not all gets it), do it within 2 days, else the application will get delayed.
As long as you’re eligible for the card, fly at-least once a year where Vistara flies, there is no single reason to avoid this card, especially when there is a lucrative offer like this one.
*** First Year FREE offer ends by 31st Dec 2022 ***
If you’ve applied for the card using above link and if the application is not moving for more than 10 calendar days, please use this credit card application support form to know the status & for further support.
Bottomline
- Cardexpert Rating: 5/5
Axis Bank Vistara Signature Credit Card with it’s ~8% return on spend (4.5L spends) is a wonderfully rewarding card.
And given that we’re getting a waiver on joining fee now, it’s an amazing opportunity to take it before its gone, as such offers show up only once a year and I doubt if it will ever repeat in the future at current value proposition.
Having said that, I would highly suggest going for the Axis Vistara Infinite card as long as you’re eligible for the same, because that gives complimentary “business class vouchers” and the Business Class experience is lot better than Premium Economy any day.
I’m sure many of you are already enjoying the benefits of the card. What’s your take on the Axis Vistara Signature card with FYF offer in 2022?
The card has a complimentary free ticket on joning as well. So that makes it 4 free tickets on spends of 4,50,000. Plus those 12000 points mean 2 to 3 free tickets too.
The card mentions that members get a CV Silver Class membership. The Vistara website mentions these benefits under various grades of membership (one of which is a Upgrade Voucher):
Does anyone know if these benefits are applicable to those getting the Silver Class membership via the credit card? In which case this is even more VFM
Yes the membership to the silver tier gives the benefits of upgrade which includes one class upgrade voucher and one lounge access voucher.
I recived my preminum economy ticket voucer and vonus points 3000 last month and upgrade voucher and also another one from my sbi prime. Am planning next month for a srilanka trip for 4 days wondering if this ticket voucher can be used or is it only domestic travel? Anyone have inputs.
It’s only for domestic.
Does this card give reward points on insurance payments. I have some LIC Payments to pay and saw that there is no limit and gateway charges for Axis Bank cards on it payment gateway. I was wondering if there is some catch regarding earning CV points just like Amex cards doesn’t give reward points on insurance payments.
@Anuj
I have Axis Privilege, and what u saw on LIC website is true, (no gateway charges and no max limit of payment).
On my Axis Privilege, i get reward points for LIC payment, infact that was the main reason i took Axis Privilege.
I think Axis wont differentiate between Axis Privilege or Axis Vistara on LIC. So u can get reward points as well as save on gateway charges with Axis.
Iam also planning to hold in addition to Axis Privilege one more Axis Vistara Card.
Can someone also clarify if we get reward points for LIC payment made using Axis Vistara Card.
Got my Axis Vistara Signature approved today. Shortly would be able to give some more details.
A big thanks to @Sid and cardexpert.in in helping me make informed and right card choices.
@Sid
Renewal benefit of one Premium Economy ticket can also be added to the article, this makes the benefits and cost uniform over the years.
@Sid
BMS offer via Visa signature is also a small benefit which can be mentioned in main article. Infact it beats few ICICI gemstone cards too.
@Anuj
I would like to tell that we do get points for LIC payment through this card, and Club Vistara (CV) points are posted on T+2 day in my CV account.
You should buy amazon vouchers on which I suppose you would get point and then use vouchers to pay lic premium.
I am holding this card and have crossed the 4.5L milestone of spends and was wondering if this card holds any value for spends after crossing the 4.5L milestone in terms of CV points?
Not much. I prefer to keep it away once the milestone targets are reached. Maybe you can use it once in a while for BMS offer 🙂
There is new milestone for this (and other variants of Axis vistara) card:
9,00,000 : 1 Premium Economy ticket**
**Eligibility for this milestone benefit will be considered only for card anniversary year beginning on or after 1st Nov, 2019.
6L and 12L for the platinum and infinite versrions.
Are the vouchers to be used only by card holder, or can family members too use them?
Vouchers can be used by family members and friend also
Lounge access – vouchers can be given to family or friends or anyone when they are travelling vistara from del T3
Seat redemption – you can add anyone as a nominee in your CV account and get the voucher redeemed for them against a seat. Same goes for point redemption too
Hi Sid, we are looking forward your hands on with Vistara Signature card…
Hi,
is there a renewal benefit with this card?
Yes you get the Biz Class ticket free on renewal. It is the same as applying for a fresh card.
Apologies you get a Premium Economy ticket.
How long is the validity of the CV silver status. Is it one year like for regalia or sbi prime card holders..
Yes the validity is for one year
Can someone share how comfortable are Axis guys when it comes to approving credit limit to new cards.
Also do they look at other credit card limits while approving .
I have the Axis Vistara Infinite & it has the lowest limit among all my cards. Some friends who got the Vistara Signature too weren’t happy with the limits. Hoping for some LE offers to kick in post 6 months.
Yes ..They gave me vistara platinum with 25k limit..which is very low compared to all my cards.
It’s 3 months now they are offering upgrade to vistara signature ,and it’s useless for me as I don’t travel much.
Is a Add-on card also eligible for getting 3,000 CV points on spending 75,000 in 90 days of setup ?
@Sid
Any idea how long AXIS takes to credit 3000 CV points for spending 75K. I have already crossed more than 1.5L in a single trxn, so got the complimentary ticket but not 3000 CV points.
How long i should wait ? or shall I shot an email.
It’ll be T+3 or T+4 days usually.
Hi
Can any one confirm validity of cv points earned and validity of milestones benefits.
Thanks
3 years and 6 months respectively.
Hi
I have applied and one person collected document on 31st December.
Till today there is no further communication from axis bank. Hiw many days it takes for card approval?
Thanks
Pranav
In my experience, of all the banks (HSBC/Indusind/Amex/HDFC/SBI/ICICI/Yes/RBL) Axis takes longest time(30-40 days) for both my cards(Neo and Flipkart). HSBC was quickest followed by Indusind/Amex/Yes/HDFC/SBI and RBL in that order.
Premiums economy ticket on completing milestones is only on domestic travel or even international?
All tickets are domestic routes only.
Hi All,
I got my Axisbank Vistara Visa Signature card approved and funny thing is this bank does not even communicate after receiving application. I had a tuff time communicating with these guys. first they offered me infinte card and executive made a mistake of entering my office address wrongly and declined it even after verifying it and communicating it in Aug 2021 and all of a sudden i receive a call again from Axis bank branch which is not my home branch and the offered me same card with AQB i was heistant to apply for infinte and went for visa signature as these guys do hard check on cibil and no communication after that . Another funny part is yesterday i checked my axis account and find vistara card linked and already charged me joining fee of 3540 inclusive of tax but i have not received the physical card, it is horrowing experience with this bank and finally today i got tired and called the person who offered me and escalate the matter and sideways i contacted Care team and it was ages to connect to them and finally they gave me the blue dart tracking details after much pursuance and it is in transit now expected tomorrow but rep said estimated arrival Oct 4th 2021 . My Amex Care team are so quick in connecting and resolving issues but this bank is worse than government office.. the most terrible experience i had hoping the physical card at earliest…
I received tracking details for my Vistara Infinite card 2 days after the card was delivered
I called today the customer care of Vistara and asked them if i can use the complimentary ticket voucher for my sri lanka trip next month if office does not permit then i may move it to Jan 2022. The care person said the ticket voucher is valid for Domestic only and not interenational. Is it true and any one have used it for international travel in asia the ticket vouchers. kindly let me know. if used how was it approved for international travel.
The terms clearly state that you cannot use it for international. You will only be able to use the vouchers for Domestic flights.
Is there any threshold or limit on the amount per transaction on this card? I tried to do a transaction of 18000 on Paytm and it was declined saying “declined due to security reasons”. I have tried multiple times, I was able to do a transaction of 5k but for 18k it is getting declined. Has anyone else faced this issue?
Hi, my wife has just received her Vistara Signature Card and I noticed they have given her a new CV id instead of linking the card with her existing Club Vistara account and the new CV is not accessible.
Has anyone else faced this issue ? Any idea how to solve this ?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Mrigankh, it happens all the time. Happened with me too. Just escalate it to the customer care with the correct CV id and they will issue the new card with the same card no but the correct CV id.
Hi – Do we get reward points for paying rent using this card ? Asking this since HDFC has stopped giving reward points on credit card.
On paper, none of the Axis cards earn points going forward, maybe different in reality. But either way you get milestone benefit for sure as there is no exclusion for that, for now.
SBI Vistara Prime is even better than this, same milestones til 4.5L next is at 8L instead of 9L for Axis and with that you get 10K Vouchers as well.
Another benefit is free Priority Pass with lounge access as well.
What will happen to all these vistara cards with the news that vistara will be merged into Air india soon
Does it make sense to apply even now
We have 1Yr+3 months to think about it. Idea is to redeem before that happens though. I’m not hoping the revised product to be this lucrative, but they may surprise us.
Hii I am bhavesh may I know that in axis burgundy account we get select credit card pre approved or we need to give income proof for credit card application
Only the pricing varies for Burgundy cust, the process is all same.
Hi Sid
There are various spend categories that are exempted from rewards/CV points. However would spend on these and any categories considered towards milestone benefits or are there any exclusions for milestone benefits as well ?
As of now there are no exclusions for Axis Vistara milestone spends.
Hi,
Talking about second year onwards,
if I just hold the card and do minimal txns. I will get the PE voucher by just paying 3000+GST.
Can I upgrade it to Business Class by using the One class upgrade voucher ?
Thanks.
Yes you can upgrade to next class cabin using one class upgrade voucher. but you will have to call or check if the dates allow it. as last time i had a trouble of using them as the visatara care team said we can call them and check dates that are allowed for a particular destination. You have two ways to get confirmed upgrades.
1. confirmed upgrades through Customer care center post booking
2. confirmed upgrades at airport 120 minutes prior to departure for domestic and international flights (For international flights am skeptical) all this is based on availability of seats. if the seats are not available on the date of travel one cannot get it. Thanks in Advance.
Is the GST for 1st year also reversed?
Yes
I tried to apply for this card using the apply link and see that the eligibility for Fee reversal is 90K in 90 days and not 60K.
Has it got revised upwards ?
When are the reward points posted after transaction?
I have done transaction on 4th Jan still ot rewards.
Also Fees are deducted on 3rd Jan still o voucher in CV account. When are those also available?
I had two upgrade vouchers and i travelled to delhi day before yesterday on voucher ticket when i asked for upgrade they said revenue ticket only we can upgrade. I gave up as two years same story. Then when at checkin at BLR i asked for upgrade and they took some form and filled up and took my signature and was told if upgrade accepted it will send a otp although they had two empty seats they did not goahead and upgrade it then and their. i presume they were waiting if any revenue ticket buyers would take it up. And i asked them while boarding and they said it was not upgraded as it was full i told them when i requested there were two empty no answer for it. i gave up again and said this is not going to happen and worst promises and also rewards or voucher tickets one cant book morning or noon flights it will always show up evening or late evening flight. Which is all the more irritating.
it is very irritating to not get upgrades even after we spend so much to get voucher ticket more than their revenue ticket value. All hidden agendas
does this card offers 3,000 bonus CV points on spending 75K in second year????
Hi, i got a Axis Vistara platinum credit card , is it possible to upgrade to Signature card ?