Best credit card for air travel

[RM95]

I'm trying to enter the airmiles game and I have almost zero knowledge of how it works (miles accrual/transfer). Can someone suggest me a good credit card that I can use as a primary card and accrue points? I have 2 intl travel plans next year, planning ahead for the same.

Also, links to articles explaining more about airmiles will also be much appreciated.

Salaried. Income ~2L pm.
Credit history of ~5 years (Axis Neo, Bob Premier, SBI Vistara Prime, ICICI AmazonPay)

 

[Slayer]

Axis Atlas
HDFC Diners Club Black Metal (or Infinia if you can get it)
Yes Marquee

 

[livinginalounge]

Axis Atlas is a good card overall
2 points per 100 spent, 5 points per 100 spent for travel and hotels

 

[Slayer]

Very bad card for forex spends

 

[livinginalounge]

Very bad card for forex spends

Yes, but I were to use just one card, I would use Axis Atlas

 

[Slayer]

But why ?

 

[livinginalounge]

But why ?

I don't have a lot of forex expenses and it's convenient to use this, it gives 1:2 on transfer and there are so many options while transferring.

 

[Tazact]

Axis Atlas is a good card overall
2 points per 100 spent, 5 points per 100 spent for travel and hotels

But on Travel portal Axis inflates rate of property almost >10%

 

[Slayer]

But on Travel portal Axis inflates rate of property almost >10%

Atlas is only good to transfer points to miles such as Accor or KF

 

[livinginalounge]

But on Travel portal Axis inflates rate of property almost >10%

Yes agree, I am not referring to buying from Axis, I am talking about using elsewhere and redeeming on KF

 

[nh124001]

go for dcb metal, if you can spend 8lpa carefully using smartbuy or amex platinum travel, yeh axis feksis bekar hai

 

[Zacobite]

Axis Atlas
HDFC Diners Club Black Metal (or Infinia if you can get it)
Yes Marquee

+ Amex Plat Travel if any of the above don't happen.. if spends can be above 4L..

 

[RM95]

I'm getting paid Atlas. Is it good to take it and shift all my spends to it?

 

[Explorer]

axis atlas is good if you are interested in using award flights and interested in accor/itc hotels. it gives 4 point for Rs. 100 spend on normal spends and 10 miles for 100 Rs when spent on airline or hotel direct booking. Also, there are milestones benefits which makes it quite rewarding for people in the points game.

 

[Explorer]

One needs to be aware that many categories of expenses are not eligible for any reward points or milestone points in axis. You must check if your big expenses comes under these excluded categories.

And for many airline/hotel partners (Singapore, turkish, qatar, accor etc), one can only transfer upto 30K atlas miles which translates to 60K partner points in a single year. Difficult to cover international air tickets with this. But for some partners line air india, itc, flying blue where one can get upto 2.4L partner miles in a year.
Lastly, axis does give unpleasant surprise in the form of devaluations and customer care sucks.

But overall it is a very rewarding card for people who can make use of airline/hotel points.

 

[jetesh]

BOB Eterna ......... Great rewards points, unlimited domestic lounge access, and discount offers on all travel websites.

 

[shubhamk]

Axis Atlas is great but will you be spending enough till next year to get points enough for a reward flight? Also consider Atlas has caping of points to be transferred.

I spent around 12L last year to get around 45k points, which I transferred to Vistara CV at 1:2 ratio. The spend was not the most optimized as I dont do that.

For a one way Vistara business class trip from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai (50k CV points) and two economy tickets of Vistara from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi (35k CV points).

 

[RM95]

Axis Atlas is great but will you be spending enough till next year to get points enough for a reward flight? Also consider Atlas has caping of points to be transferred.

I spent around 12L last year to get around 45k points, which I transferred to Vistara CV at 1:2 ratio. The spend was not the most optimized as I dont do that.

For a one way Vistara business class trip from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai (50k CV points) and two economy tickets of Vistara from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi (35k CV points).

Got it. Even if it doesn't make the cut for my trips next year, I still want to jump onboard so that I can use it for trips further down the line.
Btw, what's the capping for Atlas?

 

[shubhamk]

Got it. Even if it doesn't make the cut for my trips next year, I still want to jump onboard so that I can use it for trips further down the line.
Btw, what's the capping for Atlas?

They have split partners in two groups. Group A got 30k points transfer limit which got great options. Group B has 120k points a year.

Please look up on their website to know if the airline you want to fly is in which category.

 

[cowcoconut]

Axis Atlas
HDFC Diners Club Black Metal (or Infinia if you can get it)
Yes Marquee

If someone is only interested in booking flights, is DCB just as good as Infinia?