sbi credit card cashback

SBICard recently came up SBI Cashback Credit Card, a pure cashback card offering an unbeatable 5% cashback on online spends, outperforming any existing cashback credit card in the country. Looking at the way it is designed, it’s not only a great card for beginners but also for super premium cardholders to spread their spends. Here’s everything you need to know about this must-have cashback credit card in 2024.

Overview

Type	Cashback Credit Card
Reward Rate	Upto 5%
Eligibility	750+ CIBIL Score helps
Best for	5% Cashback on online spends
USP	Higher max. cap. on monthly Cashback

If you’re into entry-level cards and looking for optimising online spends, this is the only card you ever need.

With a 5% earn rate on online spends, it even surpasses super-premium credit cards when it comes to reward rates on online spends.

*** Best Cashback Card of 2024 ***

Fees

Joining Fee	999 INR+GST
Welcome Benefit	–
Renewal Fee / Annual Fee	999 INR+GST
Renewal Benefit	–
Renewal Fee waiver	Spend 2 Lakhs

The not so attractive thing about SBICard in general is that there is no renewal benefit even on payment of the joining fee.

But it shouldn’t matter much for the SBI Cashback Card, as you can anyway get equivalent cashback just with 20K INR online spend.

Learn More: SBI Elite Credit Card

Design

The design of the SBI Cashback Card looks simple and appealing, as shown above. It also seems that there are slightly different variants of the violet background color, with some cards appearing brighter while others look little darker.

Rewards

SPEND TYPE	Cashback %
Online Spends	5%
Online Spends (>1L per stmt cycle)	1%
Offline Spends	1%

Cashback gets credited within 2 days of stmt. generation
Max Cap: 5,000 INR Cashback limit per stmt cycle (Spend equivalent: 1L Online)

Note: Cashback not applicable on Rent Payments, Fuel Spends, Wallet loads, Insurance, Jewellery, Utilities, gift shops and lot more as mentioned here. (eff. 1st May 2023). Some travel spends are not earning points lately.

For utility/insurance spends, you may anyway buy “Amazon Pay” vouchers on Amazon and pay via Amazon bill payment system, as they have almost all bill payment services under the sun, limits applicable though.

A 5% reward rate on most regular online spends is great without a doubt as the competition hardly gives only 2% or so.

This is not only the best cashback credit card in India but in the entire world, even after the devaluation, as no one ever launched such a simple 5% cashback card in the entire planet.

Cashback Fulfilment

The eligible Cashback gets credited to your card in 2 days after your bill gets generated. You get an SMS notification as well when this happens.

You may as well know your eligible cashback before statement generation by logging into your SBICard Netbanking account.

Lounge Access

The SBI Cashback Credit Card initially offered airport lounge access when it was launched. However, this benefit was later revoked, and the card no longer includes lounge access.

I think it’s fair, given that the USP of the card, which is 5% cashback on online spends stays intact for 1L monthly spends.

Other Benefits

Fuel surcharge waiver: 1% Fuel Surcharge Waiver across all petrol pumps in India (Txn size: Rs. 500 – Rs. 3,000)

While the SBI Cashback Card doesn’t offer many additional benefits, it’s important to note that the core benefit of cashback on online spends alone is sufficient reason to hold the card.

Credit Limit Issue

One of the issue about SBI Cashback card is that it gives ultra low credit limits, as low as 10,000 INR.

This usually happens when you have multiple SBI Credit Cards, as SBICard isn’t generous with credit limit especially when you get closer to 5L credit limit across your SBI Cards.

So it applies to all SBI Cards when you apply for a 2nd card and it’s not limited to just Cashback card.

I’m sure of this because I myself got <50K INR credit limit on Cashback card (2nd card) while my friend got ~3L Credit limit (new to SBICard).

But you may anytime call SBICard support and ask to transfer some of the limit from the existing card to the new one. I did the same by transferring some limit from SBI Aurum Card and the updated limit reflects instantly.

My Experience

I applied online and got the card approved in about 10 days (with virtual card ready to use) and it took another 7 days for physical card delivery.

The cashback system is quite simple and works flawlessly, as expected. If you wish to cross verify the txn type and cashback, you may find it via spend analyzer on desktop. Note that the spend analyser on SBICard mobile app shows wrong txn type, for unknown reasons.

Should you Apply?

If you’ve good amount of online spends, there is no reason not to apply for the SBI Cashback Credit Card.

However, if your spends are mostly offline, you may perhaps explore the SBI SimplyClick Credit Card which can offer a decent ~3% return on 2L annual spends.

SBI Cashback Credit Card can be applied only online through their newly developed Sprint onboarding system. If you’re new to it, this article may help: SBICard Sprint Application Process.

*** Best Cashback Card of 2024 ***

Bottom line

Rating: 4.7/5

With 5% Cashback literally on almost all online spends, SBI Cashback Credit Card is indeed the best cashback credit card in India.

I never thought SBICard would go this aggressive on entry-level cards. While this is great, I wish to see such aggressiveness on their super premium vertical as well.

However, remember that 5% cashback upto 5K INR a month is not going to last long. It’s more of card acquisition model and so expect it to be “trimmed” as soon as the issuer gets sufficient users on the platform.

We’ve already seen the 1st round of devaluation eff. 1st May 2023 and looking at how lucrative the card is, we may expect the 2nd round of devaluation anytime. Until then,