Airline Credit Cards in India 2026: What the Vistara-Air India Merger and IndiGo's BluChip Switch Changed for Cardholders

Two structural changes have quietly rewritten the airline credit card landscape in India since late 2024, and most comparison articles still describe the old one. Vistara stopped existing as a separate airline on November 12, 2024, merging into Air India, and its loyalty programme, Club Vistara, was folded into Air India's Maharaja Club. Then, in October 2025, IndiGo scrapped its own reward currency entirely. If you hold — or are considering — an airline co-branded credit card, both changes affect what it actually earns and whether it's still worth holding.

What the Vistara-Air India merger did to Club Vistara cards

Air India and Vistara completed their merger on November 12, 2024, bringing Vistara's frequent-flyer programme, Club Vistara, under Air India's Maharaja Club. For a cardholder, the airline-branded perks on an Axis Bank or SBI Vistara co-branded credit card were never really about the bank — they rode on Vistara's own tier structure and ticket-voucher economics. Once that airline stopped issuing its own tickets and loyalty currency, those perks had nowhere to sit.

Axis Bank's revision: fee waived, airline perks gone

Axis Bank revised the terms of its Vistara-branded credit cards effective April 18, 2025. Renewal annual fees due from that date onward were waived outright — not discounted, waived completely. In the same revision, Axis discontinued the complimentary Club Vistara tier memberships that came with the card, the renewal benefit of complimentary ticket vouchers, and the spend-based milestone benefit of free tickets or vouchers. Cardholders still earn points on spends, but redemption now runs on Air India's Maharaja Club terms, and other benefits — lounge access, golf privileges, dining offers — continue unchanged. In effect, Axis turned a premium airline card into a free-to-hold generic rewards card once the airline-specific upside behind it disappeared.

Air India's own co-branded cards are still open to new applicants

Separate from the Vistara-linked cards, Air India runs direct co-branded cards with SBI and ICICI Bank, built around its own Flying Returns miles programme rather than the ex-Vistara tier structure, and these remain listed as applyable products. The Air India SBI Signature Credit Card, for one, earns 4 Flying Returns miles per ₹100 on Air India bookings and 2 per ₹100 on other spends, at a ₹4,999 annual fee with no spend-based waiver, plus a complimentary first-year Flying Returns Gold tier and 8 domestic lounge visits a year. If Air India is genuinely your primary airline, this is the more durable option of the two Air India-linked families, since its loyalty currency wasn't touched by the Vistara wind-down.

IndiGo scrapped 6E Rewards for BluChips

IndiGo retired its 6E Rewards loyalty currency starting October 3, 2025, replacing it with a new programme called BluChip. Every existing 6E Rewards balance was converted into BluChips at a one-time 18% bonus rate, and 1 BluChip is now worth a flat ₹1, redeemable only through IndiGo's own website or app against flight bookings, with no third-party or partner redemption. Kotak Mahindra Bank stopped issuing its old 6E Rewards-branded IndiGo cards from September 25, 2025 and migrated existing holders onto BluChip-earning versions; HDFC Bank's IndiGo co-branded card made the same currency switch from November 1, 2025, with existing points converted 1:1.

The IndiGo HDFC card today

HDFC Bank's IndiGo co-branded card carries a ₹2,500 annual fee, waived once you cross ₹3 lakh of spending in a year, and earns 5% of spend value on IndiGo flight bookings made directly through the 6E website or app, 3% on ancillary IndiGo services such as extra baggage, seat selection and meals, and 1% on every other spend with no cap. It also comes with 6 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year, but no international lounge access at all — a real limitation if you fly abroad often. For a frequent IndiGo flyer who books direct and adds on seats or baggage, clearing ₹2,500 of value isn't hard across just two or three return trips a year, since only direct bookings on IndiGo's own channel qualify for the top rate.

Which airline card still earns its keep in 2026

• Fly IndiGo almost exclusively and book directly on the IndiGo app or site: the HDFC card's 5%/3%/1% structure is hard to beat for that pattern, provided you clear the ₹3 lakh fee-waiver spend.
• Fly Air India as your primary airline: the direct Air India-SBI or Air India-ICICI co-branded cards, running on Flying Returns rather than the wound-down Club Vistara structure, are the more future-proof pick.
• Already hold an Axis or SBI Vistara-branded card: there's no urgent reason to close it now that the renewal fee is waived, but stop expecting airline-specific perks from it and treat the points as generic Maharaja Points, not a premium benefit.
• Fly a mix of airlines or mostly book through OTAs rather than an airline's own site: a flat-rate travel or cashback card usually earns more reliably than any single-airline co-brand, since most co-branded cards' best rates apply only to direct bookings.

If you're deciding between an airline co-brand and a general rewards card for the first time, our guide to the best travel credit cards in India covers flat-rate alternatives that carry none of this airline-merger risk. And since most of these co-brands still carry a 3.5% forex markup, our breakdown of credit card forex markup fees by bank is worth checking before you commit to any single-airline card for international travel. For non-airline co-branded options — Flipkart, Swiggy, IRCTC and Amazon — our best co-branded credit cards guide covers cards that don't carry this kind of merger exposure at all.