Best shopping credit cards in India

Shopping cards are co-branded cards in all but name: the value is concentrated on one or two platforms. That is not a criticism. If a third of your card spend is on Flipkart, a card that pays 5% there is worth more than a general card paying 1.5% everywhere.

Match the card to where you actually shop

• Amazon: Amazon Pay ICICI, 5% for Prime members and 3% otherwise, lifetime free, no cap. Nothing else comes close for Amazon alone.
• Flipkart and Myntra: Flipkart Axis, 5% and 7.5% respectively. The welcome vouchers cover the ₹500 fee in the first year.
• Everything online: SBI Cashback, 5% on any online merchant. The right pick if your shopping is spread across many sites.
• Tata brands (BigBasket, Croma, Westside, Tata CLiQ): Tata Neu Infinity, 5% in NeuCoins plus 1.5% on UPI.

The mistakes we see most often

Holding a Flipkart card and shopping mostly on Amazon. Paying a ₹1,000 fee for a card whose 5% rate is capped at ₹500 a month. Forgetting that EMI purchases, gift-card loads and wallet top-ups are excluded from almost every accelerated rate. And treating "10X points" as 10% back, when at ₹0.25 a point it is 2.5%.

Festive season

Bank-specific instant discounts during Big Billion Days and the Great Indian Festival (typically 10% off with a cap) stack on top of card cashback and are often worth more than a year of regular rewards. The banks change each season; we post the list on the guides page when it is announced.