In the September 2023 version of Axis Bank devaluations, the bank had mauled the superstar of their line-up, the Axis Magnus Credit Card. However, in the all-hands meeting of the credit card team or looking back on the massive outflow of points from this card, the cost we must all bear is in the response from Axis Bank. As I notified you earlier, Axis Bank has notified everyone about how they will devalue the card effective April 20, 2024.
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Axis Bank Magnus Credit Card to be devalued on April 20, 2024
Six months in, Axis Bank has announced significant, across-the-board changes to this card, which change the nature of this lifestyle credit card from a well-structured credit card to a Terms and Conditions apply credit card, effective April 20, 2024. Now, where have I used that before? Oh, at the Atlas devaluation writeup.
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Category Exclusions for Rewards Earning
- In addition to the current category exclusions of utilities and government institutions, spending on gold/ jewellery, insurance, and fuel will be excluded from EDGE Rewards earnings (both base and accelerated).
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Category Exclusions for Annual Fee Waiver
- As of April 20, 2024, in addition to any current category exclusions, the spending threshold for Annual Fee Waiver will exclude transactions on Gold/ Jewellery, Insurance, and Fuel, apart from Rent, Government Institutions, and Utilities merchants that were already discontinued.
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Axis Meet & Greet to be discontinued
- Under the current card construct, card members would get 8 Meet & Greet Services per calendar year. As of April 20, 2024, these are going away altogether as a card benefit. So, if you have any, make it a point to at least book them by April 19, 2024, even if you don’t use them by then.
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BookMyShow BOGO Offers to be discontinued.
- Under the current card construct, Axis Bank has been offering up to INR 500 off movie and event tickets via the BookMyShow platform up to five times a month. However, Axis Bank is yanking this away effective April 20, 2024.
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Lounge Access is being changed.
- Axis Bank had the most liberal lounge access policies for the Magnus Credit Card, with unlimited self-access on the card in India and up to 8 guest lounge access trips. As of April 20, 2024, the eight-guest lounge access trips will be reduced to 4 guest access trips, which means you can bring one guest along four times a year, four guests once a year, or any combination. This counter will be reset only on April 20, so if you want to take 7-8 guests to the lounge in the coming month, be their guest.
- Even for international lounge access, all Magnus customers will have four guest visits available from 20th April 2024 till the card anniversary date, irrespective of the number of guest visits utilised till April 19, 2024, via the Priority Pass. From the next card anniversary year, Magnus customers will be able to enjoy four complimentary guest visits on
Priority Pass, per card anniversary year. - Domestic Lounge Access is also being made conditional on spending, just like all the other major banks have done. So, as of May 1, 2024, your own unlimited lounge access will come through only if you spent at least INR 50,000 in the prior three months of holding the card.
Axis Bank to cap EDGE Rewards Conversions on April 20, 2024
Another significant change to the Axis Magnus Credit Card is the changes to the EDGE Rewards programme, over and above the changes made in 2023 to EDGE Rewards.
Axis Bank will create a two-tier list of partners in a change of events. While they’ve not openly said it, I can tell you that, out of experience, the grouping has been done based on how much money Axis Bank would have to shell out per point if converted. The groupings are as under:
- Group A
- Accor Hotels (Accor Live Limitless)
- Air Canada (Aeroplan)
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Etihad (Etihad Guest)
- Japan Airlines (JAL Mileage Bank)
- Marriott International (Marriott Bonvoy)
- Qatar Airways
- Singapore Airlines (Krisflyer)
- Turkish Airlines (Miles & Smiles)
- Thai Airways (Royal Orchid Plus)
- United Airlines (MileagePlus)
- Wyndham Hotels (Wyndham Rewards)
- Group B
- Air France-KLM (Flying Blue)
- Air India (Flying Returns)
- Air Asia
- ITC Green Points
- IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG One Rewards)
- Qantas Airways (Qantas Frequent Flyer)
- SpiceJet
- Vistara (TATA SIA Airlines Ltd)
The key change regarding EDGE Rewards is that from now on, there will be a sub-division of the cap of up to 5,00,000 EDGE Rewards, which can be converted into airmiles or hotel points per annum (calendar year). You can only transfer a maximum of 100,000 EDGE Rewards per annum into Group A transfer partners and 400,000 EDGE Rewards per annum into Group B transfer partners. By doing this, Axis Bank is hemming the flow of points to the major international carriers effective April 20, 2024.
While 100,000 points to Category A will still mean 40K points in the other programme, more is needed if you plan to travel with the family.
Bottomline
This is a massive blow to a high-end lifestyle card from Axis Bank, where the lifestyle aspects are being stripped off bit by bit, and the folks are too focused on cutting their losses as a bank. Does everyone eat out and book via EasyDiner 20 times a year? Not really. There is nothing much left to show now for a card with an INR 12,500++ annual fee, but they shouldn’t have primed up the card so much in the first place and then thrown off people’s expectations afterwards.
The new features go live on April 20, 2024, so if you want to use the existing benefits, use your card features/points by April 19, 2024.
What do you think of the changes and devaluations to Axis Bank’s Magnus Credit Card? I’d be happy to hear your thoughts in the comments section and a rating between 1 and 5 on the impact to you (1 being least impacted and 5 being heavily impacted).
(Source: T&C)
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Citibank effect
With magnus going down the drain.. what according to you is the best credit card to take now in terms of travel. I used to transfer my points to Krisflyer. Now with a limit of 100,000 points a year that’s pretty much useless.
Time to give up Magnus
If they are discontinuing everything, why are they charging annual fee at all ?
few Queries-
1. Do we get March AEP before 20th April, as it’s very important to redeem in the group of our choice? we have to write emails and push Axis leadership to credit March AEP early as the T&C revision is made before mid of march
2. The 10 lac limit between Group A&B is from 20 April 2024 to 31 December 2024. Is this additional 10 lac capping in addition to the transfers we already made until 19 April 2024? For example, I have already made 5 lac miles transfers so far, so will I get an additional 10 lacs mile transfer limit, for a total of 15 lac miles limit in the Calendar year 2024?
3. If someone has both Atlas and M4B, how does customer ID capping work? M4B gives edge rewards and Atlas gives miles
Meet and greet is being devalued from 8 to 4 per year.
@Hari, could you share a source of this information? The document I shared clearly says that Meet & Greet is being discontinued.
being discontinued for magnus, magnus for burgundy from 8 t0 4
Axis makes a beautiful case study for how to lose customer trust pretty much forever. There is a thick line between the right to change terms at anytime and customer satisfaction with reason for their changes. HDFC had to simply watch from the sidelines.
Hi thanks for this update.
I wanted to check if there is still time to make a burgandy or the higher bank account and (thereby get magnus burgandy) do a point transfer before 20april at 4:5…
I have over 5 lakh points in axis, and had thought I will upgrade to magnus burgandy as and when I need to transfer points.
To the best of my knowledge Magnus Burgandy is a 45 day cooling period after maintainence of balance. Incase you have the minimum balance requirement it would be possible. If you dont have, they have given a month so that may not be possible even if you were to start it today.
Isn’t this a fraud? They charged 12500 fees on the premise that one would be getting the following benefits and now they have taken away the benefits. This way they can promise the world, charge an exorbitant fee and then later cancel all benefits. This is a huge loophole and I don’t understand how can this even be legal. Atleast the people who have paid the fee before this announcement should get all the benefits till that fee is valid.
Absolutely. This is unfair. I have just sent a mail at premium.experience@axisbank.com
Axis should shut down card division and may be come back and re-launch..devaluation is part of the game..but when u devalue ona regular basis most of ur cards it shows that the product team did a shabby job..
Magnus was devalued 6 months back – mega devaluation . What is the need again? Shows there is no process in Axis
sad
Gutted.
Any idea what happens to burgundy magnus card ?
Yes there is a seperate page for that too. Essentially you can transfer 2 Lac miles to group A and 8 lac miles to group B per calendar year.
I am heavily impacted , after all devaluations , i had just kept the magnus for airport M&G , niw thats going away , 5 rating in terms of impact for me
Vary sad