Adani One Credit Card Review 2024: Detailed Benefits, Rewards, and Hidden Terms

Adani and ICICI Bank have joined hands to launch Adani One credit cards. Adani One credit cards are launched in 2 variants; Signature and Platinum. These credit cards benefit people who frequently fly through the Adani airports in India or use the Adani One app. The features and rewards of the Adani One credit card are very lucrative at first glance, but there are many hidden T&Cs behind them. Here is the detailed review of the Adani One credit cards

Adani One Credit Cards

Adani One Credit Card – Signature Variant Snapshot

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Fees:

• Joining and Annual fees of 5000+ taxes.
• Annual fee waived on annual spending of 6lk.

Rewards and Benefits:

Reward Points

• 1 “adani alpha” point = 50p
• Domestic spends: 1.5% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus 0.75% reward rate
• International spends: 2% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus a 1% reward rate.
• Spends on Adani One app and participating merchants: 7% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. A 3.5% reward rate. Includes spending on gas and electricity payments done via the Adani One app (Details below).
• Spends on Utility and insurance: 0.5% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus, a meagre 0.25% reward rate
• Exclusions: Fuel spending and rental spending
• Nothing is mentioned about the wallet, government and educational spending. I assume you will get a similar reward rate as domestic spends on these categories.

Joining Benefits:

• Flight voucher of 5000 on spend of 25k within 60 days. TnCs applicable. Details below.

Recurring Benefits:

•  Airport Benefits:
  • 2 airport M&G services, 4 valet parking and 8 porter services every year
  • 16 domestic lounge access (4 per quarter) and 8 international lounge access (2 per quarter). Benefits also available to add-on members
• Buy one ticket and get 50% off up to Rs 500 twice a month on BookMyShow.

Adani One Credit Card – Platinum Variant snapshot

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Fees:

• Joining and Annual fees of 750+ taxes.
• Annual fee waived on annual spending of 3lk

Rewards and Benefits:

Reward Points

• 1 “adani alpha” point = 50p
• Domestic spends: 1% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus 0.5% reward rate
• International Spends: 1.5% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus a 0.75% reward rate.
• Spends on Adani One app and participating merchants: 3% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. A 1.5% reward rate. Includes spending on gas and electricity payments done via the Adani One app (Details below).
• Spends on Utility and insurance: 0.5% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spends. Thus, a meagre 0.25% reward rate
• Exclusions: Fuel spending and rental spending
• Nothing is mentioned about the wallet, government and educational spending. I assume you will get a similar reward rate as domestic spends on these categories.

Joining Benefits:

• Flight voucher of 2000 on spend of 10k within 60 days. TnCs applicable. Details below.

Recurring Benefits:

•  Airport Benefits:
  • 2 valet parking and 4 porter services every year
  • 8 domestic lounge access (2 per quarter). Benefits are also available to add-on members. No international lounge access.
• Buy one ticket and get 25% off up to Rs 100, twice a month on BookMyShow.

Thoughts on the Adani One Credit Cards

Design of the Adani One credit card

The colours of the Platinum version of the Adani One credit card seem to be inspired by the Swiggy HDFC credit card (Apply now).

Further, I am confused as to why so many apps/brands now use the word “One”. We already have One Card, Adani One, Shriram One and probably a few more in the financial services space itself.

Reward rate

Adani One credit card markets a 7% reward rate on the Signature variant. However, the actual reward rate is 3.5%. This is because the 1 “adani alpha” point is worth 50p for voucher redemption. Thus, the 7% reward rate seems like a clickbait of sorts. Having said that, I am not able to calculate the redemption value of “adani alpha” points for travel and holiday packages. But I am sure that it won’t be 1:1.

Positives of the Adani One Credit Cards

Generous lounge access

The Signature variant of the Adani One credit card provides a generous 16 domestic lounge access every year (max 4 per quarter). Further, the Signature variant also provides 8 international lounge access per year (max 2 per quarter).

The good part of the lounge program on the Adani One credit card is that there is no spending requirement even for the Platinum variant. Further, even add-on card members have lounge access within the above-mentioned limits.

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In addition, the Adani One credit cardholders will be upgraded to a premium section of the lounge at Adani-managed and operated airports. This means on the Mumbai T2 terminal, you will be seated in the left section of the Adani lounge, the premium section of the Mumbai Adani lounge.  The lounge access program is one of the best features of the Adani One credit cards.

No capping on redemptions

The Adani One website and app mention that there is no capping on redemptions. This is a great feature as the points accumulated through the Adani One credit card can be used all at once during redemption

Amazon vouchers as a redemption option

Reward redemption for the Adani One credit cards has to be done through the Adani One website or app. Currently, Amazon Pay vouchers are available for redemptions in the reward catalogue section. This is very useful for many as not everyone would want to redeem reward points on the Adani One ecosystem.

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3.5% reward rate on utility and train bookings

This is where things get a bit confusing.  The marketing page of the Adani One credit card mentions that you get 7% reward points i.e. a 3.5% reward rate on Gas, Electricity and more (snapshot below). However, the T&Cs don’t mention this. Further, the T&Cs of the Adani One credit card mention that the reward rate on the utility and insurance is just 0.25% (0.5% “adani alpha” points on every 100 spent).

Here I assume that if you use the Adani One credit card for bill payment of Adani Power or Adani Gas, you will get a 3.5% reward rate. For other bill payments, you will get a 0.25% reward rate.

Nonetheless, if you are an Adani Power or Adani Gas subscriber, a 3.5% reward rate bill payment is very good.

Further, you also get a 3.5% reward rate on train ticket booking done through the Adani One app. This feature pitches the Adani One credit cards in competition with the many IRCTC credit cards and the HDFC SmartBuy platform.

The Platinum variant of the Adani One credit card gives a 1.5% reward rate for utility and train bookings through the Adani One app/website.

Joining benefit every year on payment of annual fees

My reading of the T&Cs of the Adani One credit card is that if the annual fee is charged you will get the joining benefits again next year. This effectively makes the annual fee very less a you will get a 5k flight voucher every year on annual fee payment. For the Signature variant, this means the effective fee is less than 1k per year; and for the Platinum variant of the Adani One credit card is effectively free for life.

50% off on BookMyShow booking

The Adani One credit card offers 50% off up to 500 on BookMyShow booking for the Signature variant. The good thing about this offer is you get 50% even if you book just one ticket. It becomes, BOGO if you buy 2 tickets. Thus, very useful compared to BOGO offers on many other cards. The Platinum variant of the Adani One credit card gives 25% up to 100. Not bad at all.

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Negatives of the Adani One credit cards

Joining benefits are useless except for the flight voucher

The Adani One credit cards flash a host of joining benefits such as flight vouchers, hotel vouchers, holiday vouchers etc. However, except for the flight voucher, I feel all other vouchers are useless. The hotel, holiday, cab and train vouchers have a minimum transaction size attached to them. Thus, if your booking is under that amount, you won’t get the voucher benefit.

Among the joining benefits, I find only the flight voucher to be useful. 5k voucher on spending 60k in 60 days of the card activation on the Signature variant. There is a catch here too. The ticket must be booked in the cardholder’s name. This is a great way to prevent misuse of such benefits.

Airport benefits are spend-based and time-bound

Most of the airport benefits that the Adani One credit cards offer are spend-based. Thus, Adani & ICICI are making sure that people who take their cards use them.

For the Pranaam, Meet & Greet service, you get one service on card activation and another one only on spending 3lk on the Signature variant of the Adani One credit card. Similarly, the porter services. You get 8 porter services every year. They get activated as 2 services on every 1lk spend, till 4 lks. For the Platinum variant of the Adani One card, you get 4 porter services every year, 2 services activated on every 1lk spent.

That’s not all, the services once activated are valid only for six months. Assume that you spend 3lk in the first 30 days on the Signature variant of the Adani One credit card. Your 2 Meet & Greet services will be activated and they will be valid only for 6 months. Thus you cannot use the service say 10 months down the line after activation.

This validity of 6 months is quite restrictive and sort of takes away the sheen from the Adani One credit cards.

Hidden Gem of the Adani One credit card

The Adani One credit card gives an accelerated reward rate (3.5% on the Signature variant and 1.5% on the Platinum variant) to the participating merchants. The list of participating merchants is available here. There is an interesting merchant in the list; Thomas Cook currency exchange on the Jaipur airport. This means that you will get a 3.5% reward rate on currency purchases done through this merchant. 😈. Does this makes the Adani One credit cards the best credit card for forex spends🤔?

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Conclusion

The Adani One credit cards are not highly rewarding, but they do give decent benefits for frequent air travellers. Especially for those living in a city that has an Adani-managed airport eg. Mumbai.

One feature that I didn’t highlight above, but can save 250-300 each time is free car parking service on the airport. The signature variant of the Adani One credit card gives 8 free car parking (4 premium car parks and 4 valets). At Mumbai airport, parking a car to receive your guests/family at the airport generally costs around 250. Thus 8 of these services will save ~2k every year. Not bad at all.

The generous lounge access to both primary and add-on card holders and, the 3.5% reward rate on the Adani ecosystem especially electricity, gas and train booking are some positives. Further, no capping on reward redemption that can be used to get Amazon vouchers is also a great feature.

One may take this card just for the generous lounge access too. 16 domestic lounge access at 5k+taxes, means ~370/lounge access, quite reasonable if the lounge access to your primary criterion.

However, a low reward rate for spending outside the Adani One ecosystem would deter many non-frequent fliers like me. I won’t be applying for the Adani One credit card as I am not a frequent flier but will explore the Adani One app for sure.

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What are your views about the Adani One credit cards? Will you apply for them? Do share your thoughts, views and comments in the comments below.

Image courtesy: https://www.adanione.com/
The article was published/last updated on 9th June 2024.