Devaluation ICICI Bank Reduces iShop Limits, Majorly Impacting Emeralde Private Metal & Times Black Cards

[SubhankarSubhankar is verified member.]

We all know that when something seems "too good to be true," it usually doesn’t last long. We’ve seen this happen multiple times with other credit card-issuing banks, and now ICICI Bank has joined the list.


ICICI initially thrilled credit card enthusiasts by launching the iShop portal, offering accelerated reward points - similar to GiftEdge, TravelEdge, SmartBuy, and Rewards Multiplier from its competitors.


The key attractions?
​

• 6X reward points on flight bookings​
• 12X reward points on hotel bookings​
• 6X reward points on gift vouchers—including the highly sought-after Amazon Pay vouchers​

With a ₹1,00,000 monthly purchase limit and an impressive 15-18% return, this was a no-brainer for many. Other banks had already imposed strict limits and convenience fees on such benefits, making ICICI’s offer a dream come true for users.


This was particularly rewarding for cards like Emeralde Private Metal and Times Black. While the Emeralde Private Metal is an exclusive offering, the Times Black card was widely issued, making it accessible to many.

​

The Silent Devaluation​

However, in under two months, ICICI silently devalued the benefit, slashing the maximum purchase limit for Amazon Pay and Flipkart vouchers to just ₹12,000. This is a major letdown, especially for those who recently got the Times Black card, which comes with a hefty ₹20,000 joining and renewal fee.


While it’s understandable that the bank wanted to prevent potential catastrophic losses - something we’ve seen happen to its peers - this abrupt change has shaken customer trust in ICICI.

​

Planned Strategy or Poor Judgment?​

This move raises two possibilities:

​

1. A strategic bait-and-switch: ICICI may have planned this from the start, waiting to hit its internal targets (especially considering the poor initial response to the Times Black card). If so, it was a well-played marketing move.​
2. A miscalculated risk: If ICICI failed to anticipate the cost-to-opportunity ratio, it reflects poorly on the management’s competency—something we have questioned before with other banks.​

What do you think? Was this an intentional strategy or a miscalculation? Let us know in the comments.​

 

[vinrey287]

It's good. I wonder why to slog it out just to get to the break-even or make marginal benefits over the fees. Not discouraging you or anyone but I'm thinking to myself why break our head just to figure how to recover the fees when we have other good cards available in the market for much lower fees that offer better benefits such as Axis Atlas, Amex Plat. Travel etc. Not even talking about Infinia, EPM or Amex Plat.

I have both the cards that you mentioned. Atlas is not good for vouchers and we can't use it on sites that Axis does not like. PT generally good only until 4L and I instead use Gold for voucher purchases.
Other 3 cards are not generally issued to one and all.
I did not take TB initially as it did not add any value to my current CC portfolio. I would have rather gone for MB but took it bcos of iShop addition. Hence I am now seeing if I can still profit this year after paying the annual fees since the iShop deval

 

[Credit_Cards]

This is the answer I was looking for! Great strategy!!

that means you are already holding and looking for pre prepared strategy lol

 

[drsel]

that means you are already holding and looking for pre prepared strategy lol

No way! I don't have Times black, it's very difficult to break even on 23600.
Also Infinia on Smartbuy 5x/10x gives higher returns, even after considering the 3.54% or 2.95% fees.

 

[Credit_Cards]

No way! I don't have Times black, it's very difficult to break even on 23600.
Also Infinia on Smartbuy 5x gives higher returns, even after considering the fees.

ok . .

 

[bhaveshbhai]

The best bet for Times black holders is to push for an upgrade to Emerald private metal which is really worth it.

How do you claim EPM is worth if someone already has infinia ? The major let down is ishop accelerated points limited to per account and not per add on card ? I know 100% usage of points while booking flights and hotels and no surcharge while buying gift vouchers , but isn't 12000 per month too low for actually gaining a lot of points for almost all online spends ? Asking because i am approved of EPM and highly confused whether I should opt for it if I already have infinia.

 

[theXfactor]

How do you claim EPM is worth if someone already has infinia ? The major let down is ishop accelerated points limited to per account and not per add on card ? I know 100% usage of points while booking flights and hotels and no surcharge while buying gift vouchers , but isn't 12000 per month too low for actually gaining a lot of points for almost all online spends ? Asking because i am approved of EPM and highly confused whether I should opt for it if I already have infinia.

I'd keep it simple. With Infinia although Apay/Ashop voucher limit is 10K, you can keep on buying additional up to 10K vouchers with you add-on cards...it's not limited at account level.

One should go for EPM (if you are already holding Infinia) only when, you really need additional vouchers beyond the limits on Infinia and justify the fees else simply pass it.
For me, I find Infinia doing the job well. On Infinia, you have daily limit on Insurance while on EPM it's per statement, likewise education spends on Infinia earn you unlimited points while on EPM it's capped at 1K/statement which is a big let down for me as such transactions are big ones. Even for international transactions, with GVP Infinia takes a lead.

All in all, if you are looking for more than what Infinia is offering, you should think of EPM.

 

[drsel]

How do you claim EPM is worth if someone already has infinia ? The major let down is ishop accelerated points limited to per account and not per add on card ? I know 100% usage of points while booking flights and hotels and no surcharge while buying gift vouchers , but isn't 12000 per month too low for actually gaining a lot of points for almost all online spends ? Asking because i am approved of EPM and highly confused whether I should opt for it if I already have infinia.

If you already have INFINIA, you don't really need EPM, it is optional.
Here is a video comparing Emerald private metal, Times Black, Infinia and Atlas, to help you decide--

 

[theXfactor]

Also don't forget ICICI is simply trying to replicate HDFC with iShop which is welcome but HDFC has been in this game for long. So far 100% point redemption & 0 fee on Apay/Ashop/Flipkart is concerned, it just a matter of time. Any bank having a better card holder base will always be in a better position to tweak the feature and benefits in their own or customers favor as they have better negotiating power with merchants & platforms.

No FOMO.

 

[ashwinikumar900]

This is my plan of using TB: Here I have discounted the RP by 5% considering that I can get ~5% disc using SBI CB or Amex cards.

Use	Monthly	Annual Usage	Reward P	(-5%)
Apay	12,000.00	144,000.00	17,280.00	10,080.00
Flipkart	5,000.00	60,000.00	7,200.00	4,200.00
Other	12,000.00	144,000.00	10,080.00	2,880.00
Total	29,000.00	348,000.00	34,560.00	17,160.00

For Other vouchers considering 7% on avg as they are available at discntd rates on other portals.
Considering 1:1 redemption i'm fine with paying the 23k fee and getting 10k renewal benefits if 12k monthly iShop limit stays intact.

👍🏻 I too have almost similar strategy with few differences, like flipkart vouchers (max), Swiggy money(2500), Zomato money/Blinkit, Myntra (5K), some government spends (hoping they provide rewards on those too). One other key feature for me especially is the cancellation fee refund in case of flights. Those are lifesavers for me, even if that is just 12K.

 

[Andyses]

IMO, Again I get a lot of heat from people when I say this but the whole portal is in Beta state and its expected for it to change. I wouldnt call it a bait because its not necessarily called out by ICICI to be a publicaly live portal. We all just found the link to it and got onboarded by ourselves.
Even with the change, they are keeping all limits just a tad higher than Infinia to make it more lucrative and rebalancing the vouchers and everything else about that portal.
Cmon everyone knew they could not have kept this infinite amazon pay voucher hack for long. I literally bought more than 70k in amazon vouchers to pay insurance, groceries, utility and what not and thought ICICI must be really mad to allow all this.

They should’ve thought of this before allowing it

 

[abhiaj_geek]

The best bet for Times black holders is to push for an upgrade to Emerald private metal which is really worth it.

Times Black is less exclusive than even Amazon Pay cc. It is very difficult not to be eligible for this cc.

I highly doubt it would have any form of leverage for EPM.

 

[theXfactor]

Times Black is less exclusive than even Amazon Pay cc. It is very difficult not to be eligible for this cc.

I highly doubt it would have any form of leverage for EPM.

Right. I haven’t seen any rejections for TB so far. If someone got rejected for TB pls 🤚 .
I’m really not sure how can a bank keep a card 2nd to their most premium offering when it’s not exclusive, there will be plenty out minting points from ishop (and rightly so) which may lead to some devaluation which may impact other cards too. I feel, devaluation meter is very high for this product.

 

[abhiaj_geek]

Right. I haven’t seen any rejections for TB so far. If someone got rejected for TB pls 🤚 .
I’m really not sure how can a bank keep a card 2nd to their most premium offering when it’s not exclusive, there will be plenty out minting points from ishop (and rightly so) which may lead to some devaluation which may impact other cards too. I feel, devaluation meter is very high for this product.

Best use for TB would be to buy Swiggy vouchers at 12% cb and sell them at 5% discount.
Someone can earn 5-6k pm using this.

 

[GopalV]

Right. I haven’t seen any rejections for TB so far. If someone got rejected for TB pls 🤚 .
I’m really not sure how can a bank keep a card 2nd to their most premium offering when it’s not exclusive, there will be plenty out minting points from ishop (and rightly so) which may lead to some devaluation which may impact other cards too. I feel, devaluation meter is very high for this product.

They rejected Times black for me.I showed interest for this card before it was launched and I got multiple emails I was approved for this card.When I tried to apply for this card,I was rejected.Don't know the reason,I have Apay card with 7 lakh limit and coral rupay with 6 lakh limit and ITR around 15 lakhs.CIBIL score 805.

 

[theXfactor]

They rejected Times black for me.I showed interest for this card before it was launched and I got multiple emails I was approved for this card.When I tried to apply for this card,I was rejected.Don't know the reason,I have Apay card with 7 lakh limit and coral rupay with 6 lakh limit and ITR around 15 lakhs.CIBIL score 805.

Hope you spoke to the bank about that and tried finding out the reason. When you were already pre-approved for the card and have all others parameters in place, it’s strange. It’s approval rate is almost 100%, in reality it may not be though.

Some of the folks with much lesser CIBIL, hardly any relationship with the bank, about 1-3L limit on card also have got approved. None rejected in my circle.

 

[ashwinikumar900]

They rejected Times black for me.I showed interest for this card before it was launched and I got multiple emails I was approved for this card.When I tried to apply for this card,I was rejected.Don't know the reason,I have Apay card with 7 lakh limit and coral rupay with 6 lakh limit and ITR around 15 lakhs.CIBIL score 805.

Talk to the bank there must be something technically (literally) wrong from their end otherwise I don’t see particularly any reason for your card rejection. Maybe try offline.

 

[theflash]

Best use for TB would be to buy Swiggy vouchers at 12% cb and sell them at 5% discount.
Someone can earn 5-6k pm using this.

Find me someone who's buying at this rate 🤣

 

[theflash]

They rejected Times black for me.I showed interest for this card before it was launched and I got multiple emails I was approved for this card.When I tried to apply for this card,I was rejected.Don't know the reason,I have Apay card with 7 lakh limit and coral rupay with 6 lakh limit and ITR around 15 lakhs.CIBIL score 805.

Try EPM ....

 

[drsel]

They rejected Times black for me.I showed interest for this card before it was launched and I got multiple emails I was approved for this card.When I tried to apply for this card,I was rejected.Don't know the reason,I have Apay card with 7 lakh limit and coral rupay with 6 lakh limit and ITR around 15 lakhs.CIBIL score 805.

You should be happy you were saved, it's not worth paying 23600 for times black credit card.
Only Emerald private metal is worth it, no other card of ICICI Bank.

 

[drsel]

Best use for TB would be to buy Swiggy vouchers at 12% cb and sell them at 5% discount.
Someone can earn 5-6k pm using this.

Difficult to find a buyer even at 10% discount, because Airtel and HDFC Swiggy will always give 10% discount.