Cashback credit cards are always special. They are easy to get value out of unlike airmiles and they are the most popular among customers. Make a transaction, get the cashback, and redeem it. It is as simple as that. SBI Cashback became the most popular cashback credit card on launch with its amazing 5% cashback on online spending. And hardly 7 months down the line, it has already seen its first devaluation. With the devaluations coming in, here is an updated review of the SBI Cashback credit card. This will help you decide whether to apply for the Cashback card or close it if it’s up for renewal.
Overview
| Type | Cashback |
| Variant | Visa |
| Annual Fee | Rs 999+GST |
| Rewards | 1% to 5% |
| Best For | Online Spends |
Fees and Charges
| Joining Fee | Rs 999+GST |
| Annual Fee | Rs 999+GST |
| Annual Fee Waiver | Rs 2 Lakhs spend in a membership year |
The FYF offer with zero joining fee is now gone but you can apply via the referral link below to get a Rs 500 Amazon gift voucher. This makes the effective joining fee around Rs 680.
The Rs 2 Lakhs spend is a little bit on the higher side but can be achieved. The annual fee of Rs 999 is still reasonable considering the cashback it offers. Let’s move to the interesting part of this card – the cashback. 🙂
Cashback
SBI Cashback has now restricted cashback in a lot of categories. So, it is not a 5% cashback on all online merchant spending anymore.
| Purchase Type | Cashback |
|---|---|
| Education, Fuel, Jewelry, Insurance, Rent, Utilities, Wallets | NIL |
| Other Online Spends | 5% |
| Other Offline Spends | 1% |
Excluding categories like education, jewelry and even utilities from even 1% cashback is surprising. The 5% cashback now has a cap of Rs 5000 per statement cycle, down by 50% from the earlier cap of Rs 10000. But, it is still ok as it needs Rs 1 Lakh spent per month to hit the cap.
How is the 5% cashback calculated for SBI Cashback Card?
SBI Cashback credit card does not give an exact cashback of 5% on spends. The calculation is a little different. The cashback is calculated at 1% for regular spending and a 4% bonus for offline spending. Each of these is then rounded down to the nearest integer. For example, if you spend Rs 2345 and are eligible for 5% cashback, then:
- 1% of Rs 2345 is Rs 23.45 which is rounded down to Rs 23
- 4% of Rs 2345 is Rs 93.80 which is rounded down to Rs 93
- Total cashback will be Rs 116 or 4.94%
Cashback Redemption
The earned cashback is automatically credited to the statement every month within 2 working days of statement generation. SBI Card also sends a cashback credit message once this is done.
There are no redemption charges. SBI Card does not give a transaction-wise cashback calculation in the statement. So, we need to manually calculate the eligible cashback.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- 5% cashback on online merchant spends
- The monthly 5% cashback cap at Rs 5000 is quite good
- Great for high spending on online merchants as other cashback cards have lower rewards cap
Cons
- Too many categories don’t even get 1% cashback now
- Rs 2 Lakhs for spend waiver may be difficult as major purchases like utilities, insurance, etc. don’t get any cashback
- No complimentary airport lounge access!
- Cashback card is not eligible for the instant discount during online sales
Cashback SBI Card vs other cashback credit cards
If you hold multiple cashback credit cards, use this forum thread to compare cashback rates across all of them. This will help you find the best cashback credit card for your spending.
Complimentary Airport Lounge Access
SBI Cashback does not get any complimentary airport lounge access now. This has been discontinued with the devaluation from the 5th of May 2023.
Final Thoughts
While the devaluation has a huge impact on the usefulness of the SBI Cashback credit card, it is still a good option if you spend on online merchants outside Flipkart and Amazon. But, we don’t see a use for it otherwise. We can anyway get unlimited 5% cash back on Flipkart and Amazon with their co-branded credit cards.
The second issue now is benefits. Cashback and rewards are not the only things we look for in a credit card. We also need to have benefits like airport lounge access. The SBI Cashback credit card does not get any airport lounge access now – not even once a year! This sounds rather sad for a Rs 999 annual fee credit card.
SBI Cashback Credit Card
57 thoughts on “SBI Cashback Credit Card”
After the recent devaluation circulation starting from May 1, will I be able to avail the cashback on CFA exam fees if paid via this?
Not likely as it will come under Education.
I got this card recently. I was testing buying Amazon gv for about 10k(in Amz) and waited for transaction to settle to see the cashback posted. Cashback amount was visible. So I bought another 10k ,the transaction is settled but not cashback is seen for this. Does this card stopped giving cashbacks for purchase of Amazon gv
c2c online possible for this card?
Not at the moment
Please update the Eterna cashback details in accordance with the latest devaluation from BOB.
Updated it for the cashback calculator Excel that is embedded in this post. We have also created a cashback comparison on the forum.
Axis Ace Credit card statement clearly shows how much cashback is earned, while the same is not applicable for SBI Cashback credit card
@SBICard_Connect
for SBI Cashback credit card, in statement, you should also show how much cashback is earned against each transaction
This issue is still persistent. I called their customer care today – initial level executive declined to give breakdown of cashback. I didn’t budge and made them escalate the call to a higher level executive – she said there’s no way for the customer to see the breakdown, but individually spoke out the cashbacks for each transaction. Exercise was useful as I found out that they dont give cashback on Urbanclap payments – she said they don’t even have a specific category of MCC it is listed under, but it is not included in the list of cashback MCCs
i did an irctc transaction for Rs.562/-. In the App its showing me as Rs.5/- cashback even after 10 days
Beware, even IRCTC is counted as Utility
Tried with APSRTC bus booking. its again 1% cashback. So this card clearly puts many things as under UTILITY as awrds 1%
Can anyone confirm that SCB Smart can be used for insurance premium payment to get 2.0% cashback?
Applied for Card, Got the card. Smooth … but when I tried to use it during Amazon great Indian festival, 10% instant discount is not available. Same issue during the flipkart current sale in partnership with SBI . My SBI simply click card works . Any idea why the SBI Cashback is not eligible for 10 % instant discount but SBI Simply click card is and why EMI is not available in SBI cash back credit card?
Customer service is clueless about this.
During sale cashback card might not work for instant discount as per T&C , but some users reported their cashback card worked . Bin number might be different . But as per their T&C cashback card is not eligible for instant discount during sale . So officially it is not eligible .
Cashback percentage for NPS Tier1 online subscription.
Is it one percent or 5 percent.
SBI Cashback card gets 1% for NPS transactions.
I applied on 2nd, done biometrics and one verification call. Then nothing since last 1 week, but received 3 calls from different SBI agents saying I’m eligible only Prime/Pulse and can’t give Cashback due to some technical issues when entering promocode. Not sure what to do? If these people can’t move the application, is there anyway to proceed.
Email or twitter always says, ‘we’re receiving your application, wait 21 days’.
Biggest issue with this card is, it is giving credit limit of only 10 – 20 thousand. Many people are reporting this. Even I(Salary 80k, other card- 2.9 lakhs) got a meagre 20k.
So it’s useless, also won’t be able to spend 2 lakh for fee waiver.
Is it coz we applied online & not through agent where we could have given our salary slips or ITR ?
Would we have got better limit applying through offline mode ?
Many have got a higher limit as well upwards of Rs 2 Lakhs.
I got a credit limit of 5L but then I had an SBI Elite card with that credit limit which I had previously closed.
Make excess payments to your credit card before performing a huge transaction. They won’t charge you any fees. This works with SBI but not with all banks (e.g., HDFC won’t work).
That’s the reality of these kind of cashback cards . Axis sold dreams when they rolled out Flipkart card with UNLIMITED CASHBACK branding and many people got 15k limit even if with high ITR or Salary . SBI is following the same for customer acquisition and these TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE cards aren’t gonna survive many days . Reap out the benefits till you have….. although with 20k limit this card is useless for you.
1 got 2.2 lakh limit initially and now limit is 3.8 lakh.. axis Flipkart card
If I apply from sbi branch. Will I get card 0 joining and 0 annual fees for 1st year, if yes I will apply from branch
Possibly as FYF is for all applications but do confirm it from the branch.
Same case with me. Got mere 20k limit 🙁 This is my second SBI card. I am already having SBI gold card.
Can we buy Gift voucher from amazon @5% cash back and use them to pay bill ? possible ?
May be 🙂
Did anyone try this ?
I habe the following credit cards
1. HDFC Business Regalia
2. ICICI Amazon pay(LTF)
3. Axis Flipkart
4. BOB Eterna, Select card(LTF)
5. Now I’ve just been approved with SBI Cashback credit card(no sbi card before) and its on the way.
Should i convert the Flipkart card to Ace as u said? It seems difficult as i heard some people saying they got a call from Axis saying to switch to Flipkart card, as they will soon discontinue Ace card.
You will still have the card even if they discontinue new applications. So, get it if you want and if you can.
I’m using multiple cards of Axis bank. U can apply for ACE which is also best card.
Will 5% cash back be applicable for foreign currency transactions done online and offline?
I am planning to make this collection,
– SBI Cashback (I already Have Click and Elite but will flip these)
– Axis ACE (Already have Privilege (for double value RPs redemption) and Select (for few Swiggy/Bigbasket/BMS benefits may cancel Select)
– Indusind Eazydiner (Great card + can easily replace my Elite for BMS benefits as well)
– Have RBL Supercard, which I am planning to keep for occasional online offers (the fee is waived off)
– Have HDFC Diners Privilege as well, not much used for exclusive deals sometimes.
How does it look?
Sounds good 🙂
In continuation of the above comment I made, I forgot to add a few key details there which I would like to highlight here in this comment:
1. There is so far no current restriction for jewelry purchase. But in future it might be imposed if people start misusing the card features. MCC for Gold/Jewelry purchase is 5944. So, keep an eye out for it in future revision of the T&C of the card.
2. SBI card team is basically lying to users saying the card will provide 5% cashback. It won’t. It will only provide 4.91% cashback. So if you buy stuff online worth ₹1160/- instead of getting cashback of ₹58 (5%), you will only get ₹57 (4.91%) cashback.
Check this tweet of mine to see the details of their cashback calculation: https://twitter.com/iSaumya/status/1567478752879443975
Rounding down of cashback or rewards on credit cards is not new. A lot of credit cards do that.
Yes and no. For example, in Axis Ace if your cashback is 17.45 then you will get 17 but if it is 17.65 then you will get 18. Also I have not seen any other cashback card doing a wired 5% calculation like the way SBI Cards are doing. That is first calculate 1% of the amount and then round that down. Then calculate 4% of the amount and round that down and then finally sum it up. This is truly wired. I don’t know which are cashback segment credit card does that.
I agree with you and I am using HDFC millennia more than 1 yr and it might have low capping but i got the cashback accurately always . But on Flipkart Axis the calculation works like you mentioned for SBI cashback card.
How much rewards will be there for nestaway payment
Please note that with SBI Cashback Credit Card, Insurance Premium Payment will be under 1% cashback category as according to the T&C of the card, it is considered as “Utility Payment”. The MCC code for Insurance premium payment is 6300 which is mentioned under the 1% cashback category in the T&C.
So, for insurance premium payment if you have HDFC Regalia credit card and if you would like to use it’s points for Flight/Hotel booking then with that card you will get 1.32% reward while SBI Cashack will give you 1% reward rate. But if you do not have such requirement then you can definitely use this card as with Axis Ace you will get nothing.
Also do note that in SBI Cashback Card T&C they have also mentioned that MCC 9399 will be considered as “Utility” and will get 1% cashback. MCC 9399 is for Government Services Payment like Tax and other things.
Just a few things to keep in mind. Thanks for the great detailed review.
What happens if utility payments are made via CRED using SBI Cashback Card. This sidesteps the 6300, I suppose.
Absolutely no. No matter what platform you use, be it CRED or GPay or something else, according to RBI regulations, all need to pass the proper MCC code for the transaction. So, the way it works behind the scene is that, these fintech companies have multiple accounts with the same or different page getaways and based on the option that you have selected, it uses the appropriate API credential for redirecting you to that payment gateway which will then report the correct MCC to the card system. So, it will always be 6300 for utility bill payment no matter which system you use otherwise they will get penalized by RBI.
we can buy an Amazon Gift card using an SBI Cashback card, and then use it on Amazon to make payments for Utility. That way we will get 5 percent
With the above message i would liek to suggest you to get or use amazon pay icici card for insurance payments. It definately gives 2% cashback. Ace used to but now they have removed in T&C.
Can you please tell me how it gives 2% cashback ?
I received 2% cashback on LIC insurance premium payment using Axis Ace.
Good comparison sheet.
Can you add some more credit card for reference only HDFC infinia, SC Ultimate, SBI Prime. I know that some cards comes with very high fee, still I want to see the comparison.
Thanks! It is simple for Standard Chartered Ultimate card. It is always 3.3% rewards without any exclusions and caps.
SBI Prime is not worth considering at all. The rewards are too low.
Infinia is in a different league. I have another comparison sheet for Magnus, Infinia and DCB on the Axis Bank Magnus review.
https://cardmaven.in/axis-bank-magnus-credit-card-review/
I am using SBI elite. It has great milestone rewards. Can you add it to your comparision table.
Is the sprint website suitable for existing card holders? Seems like first time users are getting instant approval but existing users are asked to wait for document verification.
Yes, we can apply offline but many agents and branches are not aware of this card for now.
Exact same problem with me applying to this card as soon as i heard of this on 1st sept itself.
I want this card, but I already have 2 sbi credit cards and last one is before 90 days. So that I have to apply after 90 days.
Already applied. But their system is too poor overall starting with application procedure
Same problem with this site. And the customer care said they are not yet throgh with this card application so only online approval is needed and there sprint site is too dumb to take full application.
I applied My application 10 days before but still not processed. Done video kyc and after that no progress. How much it takes to get card normally? Thanks