SBI Card, India’s largest pure-play credit card issuer, has launched three variants of its first travel-focused core credit card, ‘SBI Card MILES’, in Mumbai today. The card is aimed at bringing holistic travel benefits to travellers of all kinds – travel aspirers to frequent fliers to travel aficionados. SBI Card MILES offers compelling features that include conversion of Travel Credits to Air Miles and Hotel Points, accelerated rewards on EVERY travel booking, and airport lounge access among others. Empowering cardholders with absolute choice of redemption, the card partners over 20 airline and hotel brands including Air Vistara, Air India, Spicejet, Air France-KLM, Etihad Airways, Air Canada, Thai Airways, Qantas Airways, ITC Hotels, IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Accor among others.
According to Mr. Dinesh Kumar Khara, Chairman, State Bank of India, “The strong economic growth and robust consumption landscape has accentuated India’s position in the world. Even in travel sector, today, India is considered amongst the key source markets for outbound travel in many countries including those in Asia and Europe. I congratulate SBI Card on the launch of SBI Card MILES, a strong product that will redefine the travel experiences for Indian consumers.”
It is evident that Indians are increasingly becoming open to more and varied travel experiences. The three variants, SBI Card MILES ELITE, SBI Card MILES PRIME, and SBI Card MILES, have been designed to elevate these experiences through curated travel benefits. Cardholders can earn up to 6 Travel Credits on every INR 200 travel spend and up to 2 Travel Credits on spending INR 200 on other categories. The offerings under ‘SBI Card MILES’ bouquet enable cardholders to carry out an easy and seamless Travel Credits redemption across multiple renowned flights and hotel partners. One can convert these Travel Credits into Air Miles/Hotel Points of respective partners or directly use them to book air tickets and hotel accommodations by visiting SBI Card mobile app or website https://www.sbicard.com/. Alternatively, one can redeem them on SBI Card’s Rewards Catalogue as well.
Speaking at the launch Mr. Abhijit Chakravorty, MD & CEO, SBI Card said, “Our customer-centric approach has always driven us to design innovative products, solutions, and services that address the evolving and diverse lifestyle needs and offer customers an extremely rewarding experience. Indian travellers are large global spenders and naturally, with increased and more robust travel plans, consumers are looking for curated benefits to enhance their travel experiences. SBI Card MILES is our endeavour to offer our customers the best of all the travel benefits. The card has been designed to become one true travel partner for the cardholders. We are sure that our cardholders will enjoy the exclusive benefits offered by our travel-centric core card.”
SBI Card MILES ELITE comes with multiple and varied spends milestone benefits. These include up to 5000 Travel Credits on reaching spends of INR 1 lakh in 60 days of enrollment; up to 20,000 Travel Credits on spends milestone of INR 12 lakh; and spends-based fee reversal on reaching spends milestone of INR 15 lakh.
With airport lounge access being an important part of the overall travel experience, SBI Card MILES ELITE offers Priority Pass membership. Using the card, cardholders will be able to enjoy up to 8 complimentary domestic lounge visits and up to 6 international airport lounge visits in a year. What’s more, the card also enables users to earn additional domestic lounge access. Every time a cardholder achieves the cumulative spends of INR 1 lakh, cardholders will receive 1 gift voucher for lounge access that can be used by either the cardholder or the guest.
Importantly, SBI Card MILES ELITE cardholders will also enjoy a low foreign transaction mark up of 1.99% and travel insurance cover. The card will be available on Mastercard and RuPay network. The joining and annual fees of SBI Card MILES ELITE is INR 4,999 plus applicable taxes while SBI Card MILES PRIME and SBI Card MILES have a fee of INR 2,999 and INR 1,499 plus applicable taxes respectively.
