Yes Bank Reserv credit card (previously known as the Yes First Exclusive) is a premium credit card that comes with a joining and annual fee of Rs 1999+GST. The Yes Bank Reserv credit card offers a reward rate of up to 3% on spends. We also get benefits like complimentary domestic and international airport lounge access and a low forex markup of 1.75%.
Fees
| Joining Fee | Rs 1999+GST |
| Joining Fee Reversal | Spend Rs 40,000 within 30 days excluding rent & wallet transactions |
| Annual Fee | Rs 1999+GST |
| Annual Fee Waiver | Rs 3 Lakh annual spend excluding rent & wallet transactions |
| Renewal Benefit | 8000 points if fee is charged ~Rs 2000 |
Spends threshold for annual and joining fee reversal exclude Rent and Wallet transactions.
Rewards
| Type of Spend | Reward Points | Return |
|---|---|---|
| Online Shopping (except select categories) | 24 RP/Rs 200 | 3% |
| Offline Shopping (except select categories) | 12 RP/Rs 200 | 1.5% |
| Select Categories Utilities, Insurance, Education, Govt. Services, Tax Payments, Rent, Wallet | 6 RP/Rs 200 | 0.75% |
The Yes Reserv has a pretty good reward rate on shopping spends. Online and offline shopping gets you 3% and 1.5% return respectively. For the 3% reward rate spends, we can earn a maximum of 36,000 reward points per statement cycle. This caps the spends at Rs 3 Lakh per statement cycle which is pretty good.
Yes Bank Reserv Credit Card: 3X/5X Rewards Subscription Plan
Yes Bank has launched a rewards subscription plan to get 3X/5X reward points on your spends with the Yes Bank Reserv credit card. For both the plans, additional reward points per statement cycle are capped at 75,000.
Subscription Plan 1: 3X Reward Points on all spends
The subscription fee for this plan is Rs 3500+GST for 1 year. Once activated, we earn 3X reward points on all our spends. The new reward rates will be as below:
| Online Shopping | Offline Shopping | Select Categories |
|---|---|---|
| 48 RP/Rs 200 ~6% | 36 RP/Rs 200 ~4.5% | 18 RP/Rs 200 ~2.25% |
Subscription Plan 2: 5X Reward Points on select spends
The subscription fee for this plan is Rs 5000+GST for 1 year. Once activated, we earn 5X reward points on spends in Dining, Travel, Fashion and Healthcare categories. With this, the new reward rate for these spends would be 9% for online and 7.5% for offline spends in these categories. If any spends fall under the select categories MCC, then we will get 3.75%.
Rewards Redemption
We have many options for reward redemption. The best value is against flight redemption.
| Redemption | Value |
|---|---|
| Flights and Hotels | 25 paise per RP |
| Gift Vouchers | 10 paise per RP |
| Air Miles (Club Vistara/InterMiles) | 10 RP = 1 Mile |
| Rewards Catalog | Varies |
Complimentary Airport Lounge Access
- Domestic Airport Lounge Access: 3 visits/quarter for primary and add-on card members. We need to spend Rs 35,000 and above in a calendar quarter to become eligible for complimentary airport lounge access in the next calendar quarter.
- International Airport Lounge Access: 6 visits/year. You can directly swipe your card for this. Yes Bank does not issue a Priority Pass anymore.
The access is valid only for primary cardmembers. Yes Bank follows a different calendar quarter for determining airport lounge access eligibility as below. For example, if you spend Rs 35,000 in the period from 21st March – 20th June, then you will get complimentary airport lounge access in the quarter from 21st June – 20th September.
- 21 December – 20 March
- 21 March – 20 June
- 21 June – 20 September
- 21 September – 20 December
Complimentary Golf Program
- 4 Green Fee Waivers/year
- 1 Golf Lesson/year
The list of golf courses where the gold benefits are available differs based on the Visa or Mastercard variant.
Dining Fiesta Program
Yes Bank has its own dining program where it offers a minimum 15% discount for dining at 1000+ eligible restaurants. We have all the Tier 1 cities and few Tier 2 cities too.
Check out the Dining Fiesta micro-site to see all available restaurants. This is a pretty good benefit on this card and can be useful in the absence of other dining offers.
Other Key Benefits & Charges
- Fuel Surcharge Waiver: 1% fuel surcharge waiver for transactions between Rs 400 and Rs 5000. The maximum fee waiver is capped at Rs 250 per statement cycle.
- Rent Payment Charges: 1%+GST
- Utility Bill Payment Charges: 1%+GST for cumulative transaction value above Rs 15,000 per calendar month
- Wallet Load Charges: 1%+GST
- Foreign Currency Markup: 1.75%+GST
- Interest Charges: 3.8% per month
Final Thoughts
Yes Bank Reserv is the new re-branded offering that now replaces the Yes First Exclusive credit card. The card does offer some pretty good benefits and rewards for its annual fee. But what can improve the card are the removal of some excluded categories from the select categories list. There are some spends like groceries, convenience stores and supermarkets that are used by everyone. Putting these in the lowest reward rate slab does not help.
But, getting the Yes Bank Reserv credit card with the new 3X/5X rewards subscription plan makes it a much better option if you don’t have any other super-premium credit card.
Yes Bank Reserv Credit Card
25 thoughts on “Yes Bank Reserv Credit Card Review”
Good review. However, please confirm where did you find the grocery and supermarket to be listed under Select category? I do not find this in Yes Bank website.
Thank you for highlighting this. This was a part of select categories at the time of writing the review but seems like Yes Bank has revised that list. We have updated the review.
Great! hopefully they have really removed it from the Select category and do not add it again..
It’s actually 6% on online spends with the 3x subscription plan. Yes Bank tricked us into thinking, it’ll be 9%. It’s in the fine print.
So, 6% online, 4.5% offline, and 2.25% select.
Thank you. This is updated now.
Did u got cbk for buying gv from paytm Or smartbuy?
With the 5x subscription plan isnt the Forex reward rates on POS and online 15% and 7.5% and like the bets in the Industry , better than even the Amex Plat card. Please confirm ?
Yes, it is but better to keep track of the points that are credited for accelerated spends. 5X is only for selected categories. 3X is for all spends. With the revamp of Yes Exclusive to Reserv, yet to see how the points get tracked.
Why do you say keep track?
Do they don’t credit it at times ?
They do but always better to keep track.
With the Rewards subscription plan is’nt this the highest yielding card in the market , even better than Infinia and all other cards as rewards jump to 15% , 7.5 % and 3.75 % without commitment to use a specific portal for purchasing like HDFC Smartbuy or Amex Reward Accelerator
That’s right 🙂
As per your understanding , isn’t this better than Marquee after 3x or 5x subscription plan ?
It is for now as Marquee does not get access to the subscription plans.
Also Forex Pos spends will fetch 7.5% with 5x plan. Is that correct ?
5X plan is only for a few categories.
I had applied for 3X subscription on 17 January and the fees was debited on 19 but I haven’t received any reply?’.
Reply for what?
Do we still get the card in box like yes first exclusive?
No idea for Reserv. But they had stopped using boxes long back for issuing Preferred and Exclusive cards.
We get same reward for even ace, right?
No, the Ace has a lower reward rate than Reserv. We will review it soon.
Actually, yes bank team has put reserv card details on every new cards (elite, ace etc)
We will review those soon.
If You can yes bank new cards page on thier website then you will notice reserv reward rates has been put on every new card introduced by YES BANK.