Category
Flights
Airline tickets, booked direct or through a portal. A card falls back to its general travel rate unless it prices flights on their own.
No card in your wallet earns rewards on flights yet.
When you add a card that does, it will rank here automatically.
Best in market
Flights are where the premium cards justify themselves, but only through the bank portals. Book direct with the airline and these rates collapse to the base rate, so the portal is the product. · Top-tier picks from the whole Indian market, researched 11 Aug 2026.
ICICI Bank Emeralde Private Metal
18% back on flights booked through ICICI iShop, the highest in the market
₹12,499 + GST, waived on ₹10L a year
Nothing else comes close on flights. At 18% a single long haul booking returns more than most cards earn in a year, which is what makes the ₹12,499 fee arithmetic work if you fly regularly.
Bonus points are capped at 18,000 a calendar month shared across everything you buy on iShop, so one large booking can use up the month. Book outside iShop and you are on the ordinary retail rate.
HDFC Bank Diners Club Black Metal Edition
16.67% on flights via SmartBuy at 5X, close behind for a lower fee
₹10,000 + GST, waived on ₹8L in 12 months
Within striking distance of the leader for a slightly smaller fee, and SmartBuy has been running far longer than iShop, so the redemption path is well understood.
Shares a 10,000 accelerated point per calendar month cap with everything else on SmartBuy, which is about ₹75,000 of flight spend a month at 5X. Beyond that you drop to the base rate.
Your wallet · Flights
What this category is actually worth
The same checks as the wallet page, narrowed to all 0 cards that earn on flights. Set a monthly figure for it in to put rupees on these.
Earnings here
What each card would return on flights at your spend. raw rates, before caps.
Every card in your wallet is excluded from flights. See the reasons in the table above.
Milestone progress
Milestones on these cards, against your total spend routed to one card.
None of the cards that earn here has a milestone.
Fee check: does each card pay for itself?
Value is still counted across your whole wallet, not just this category. a card earns its fee wherever it wins. Waivers are not assumed.
| Card | Fee | Value/yr | Verdict |
|---|
Where the market beats your wallet
Your best card against the top pick in Best in market, just above. The numbers only, since the pick itself is already on this page.
No market pick with a comparable rate for this category yet.