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Most of us carry three or four cards and guess which one to use at the counter. Tell WhichCard which cards you have and it tells you which one to use for every kind of spend. It shows the caps and the fee maths too, so you can check the answer yourself.

Pick your cardsBrowse the rankingsAll 97 cards
97 cards researched18 issuers32 kinds of spend

Every rate here comes from the issuer's own documents

No sponsored picks, and no bank can pay us to rank higher. If a Get this card button earns us a referral fee, the same page tells you. If a bank does not publish a number, we say so instead of guessing. Every card lists its sources and the day we last checked them.

Pick a kind of spend

Everyday

Online spendAnything you buy through a browser or an app. Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and the rest.AmazonBuying on Amazon.in. Several cards pay a much higher rate here than they do on the rest of the internet, so it is worth checking separately.FlipkartBuying on Flipkart, and usually Myntra too. A few cards are built around this one shop.Subscriptions & OTTNetflix, Prime, Spotify and the software you pay for every month. Cards treat this as ordinary online spend unless they say otherwise.Offline spendSwiping or tapping your card at a shop counter.UPI spendingPaying by scanning a QR code with your credit card in GPay, PhonePe or Paytm. Only RuPay cards can be linked to UPI at all, so most of a wallet simply cannot play here. The ones that can are listed with what they really earn.DiningEating out and ordering in. Restaurants, Swiggy, Zomato, EazyDiner.SwiggyOrdering on Swiggy, including Dineout. The Swiggy co-brands pay their best rate here and nowhere else.ZomatoOrdering on Zomato, or on District for tickets. Cards that pick Zomato as a partner rarely pay the same at Swiggy.GroceriesThe weekly shop. DMart, Reliance Smart, BigBasket and your local supermarket.Quick commerceThe ten-minute apps: Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart. Most banks bill these as groceries, so a card falls back to its grocery rate unless it names them on their own.Swiggy InstamartSwiggy Instamart specifically. The Swiggy cards treat it as their grocery route and pay nothing extra at Blinkit or Zepto.BlinkitBlinkit specifically. Two cards single it out and pay their base rate at every other ten-minute app.BigBasketBigBasket specifically. The Tata cards pay their grocery rate here and the plain base rate at any other supermarket.Movies & showsCinema tickets and live events. PVR INOX, BookMyShow. Flat perks like buy-one-get-one sit on each card's own page.BookMyShowBooking tickets on BookMyShow. This is the one movie merchant several banks single out, separately from any free-ticket perk.PVR INOXTickets bought from PVR INOX directly. A couple of cards pay a flat discount here and nothing at any other cinema.FuelFilling up at the pump. Most cards pay you nothing here and only refund the 1% surcharge, so a dedicated fuel card is usually the one worth carrying.

Travel

Travel (general)Trains, cabs, tour operators and bank travel portals. Anything that is not specifically a flight or a hotel.FlightsAirline tickets, booked direct or through a portal. A card falls back to its general travel rate unless it prices flights on their own.HotelsHotel and homestay bookings. A card falls back to its general travel rate unless it prices hotels on their own.MakeMyTripBooking through MakeMyTrip. Worth separating because a card can pay well here and nothing at all on a direct airline or hotel booking.IRCTC railTrain tickets booked on IRCTC. Its own category because one card pays many times its normal rate here, and nothing at all on rail booked anywhere else.InternationalAnything you pay for in a foreign currency. We rank these after taking off the forex markup, because what you keep is the reward minus that fee.

Bills & fees

Utilities & billsThe monthly bills. Electricity, mobile, broadband, DTH and gas.RentPaying rent through CRED, NoBroker, Paytm and the like. Most banks now charge you a fee for it and pay nothing back.Education feesSchool and college fees. Nearly always left out of rewards, and often charged a fee if you pay through a third-party app.Insurance premiumsLife, health and motor premiums. Often excluded outright or capped tightly, so it is worth reading the exclusions on each card.Government & taxTax payments, challans and government portals. Almost every bank has stopped rewarding these.

Other

Wallet loadsTopping up Paytm, PhonePe and other prepaid wallets.Anything elseEverything that does not fit a category above. Ranked on each card's plain base rate.JewelleryBuying gold and jewellery. A common exclusion, because it is too easy to buy it and sell it straight back on.

Or start from a bank

HDFC Bank20 cards researchedSBI Card16 cards researchedICICI Bank10 cards researchedAxis Bank10 cards researchedIDFC FIRST Bank9 cards researchedKotak Mahindra Bank5 cards researchedHSBC3 cards researchedBOBCARD3 cards researchedFederal Bank1 card researchedYes Bank3 cards researchedslice Small Finance Bank1 card researchedRBL Bank4 cards researchedAmerican Express4 cards researchedStandard Chartered3 cards researchedIndusInd Bank2 cards researchedAU Small Finance Bank3 cards researched