Best Vistara Credit Cards in India

Air Vistara is the third largest airline in India and has 7 co-brand credit cards in partnership with 4 banks. Thus figuring out the best Vistara credit card is always a challenge. Especially when credit cards cover the entire spectrum of spending. Here is my attempt to solve this challenge

Best Vistara Credit Cards in India

Before we move into identifying the best Vistara credit card, here is the lay of the land. Below is a brief of all the Vistara co-brand credit cards

Axis Vistara Infinite Credit Card

Apply Axis Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 10k+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 10000CV points on spending 1lk in 90 days of card issuance

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Business Class ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 4 business class tickets
  • 1 Business Class ticket each on spending 2.5lk, 5lk, 7.5lk and 12lk
• Club Vistara Gold membership
• 2 complimentary lounge access every quarter

Reward Points

• 6 CV points for every 200 spent.
• No reward points for fuel, wallet load and rent transactions.

Read detailed review here.

Axis Vistara Signature Credit Card

Apply Axis Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 3k+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 3000CV points on spending 75k in 90 days

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Premium Economy ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 4 Premium Economy tickets
  • 1 Premium Economy ticket each on spending 1.5lk, 3lk, 4.5lk and 9lk
• Club Vistara Silver membership
• 2 complimentary lounge access every quarter

Reward Points

• 4 CV points for every 200 spent.
• No reward points for fuel, wallet load and rent transactions.

Read detailed review here.

Axis Vistara Credit Card

Apply Axis Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 1.5k+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 1000CV points on spending 50k in 90 days

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Economy ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 3 Economy tickets
  • 1 Economy ticket each on spending 1.25lk, 2.5lk, 6lk
• Club Vistara Base membership
• 2 complimentary lounge access every quarter

Reward Points

• 2 CV points for every 200 spent.
• No reward points for fuel, wallet load and rent transactions.

Read detailed review here.

Club Vistara SBI Card

Apply SBI Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 1499+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 1500CV points on spending 50k in 90 days

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Economy ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 3 Economy tickets
  • 1 Economy ticket each on spending 1.25lk, 2.5lk and 5lk
  • Further, you get a Yatra hotel voucher of 5k on annual spend of 5lk
• Club Vistara Base membership
• 1 complimentary lounge access every quarter

Reward Points

• 3 CV points for every 200 spent.

Read detailed review here.

Club Vistara SBI Prime Card

Aplpy SBI Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 2999+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 3000CV points on spending 75k in 90 days

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Premium Economy ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 4 Economy tickets
  • 1 Premium Economy ticket each on spending 1.5lk, 3lk, 4.5lk and 8lk
  • Further, you get a Yatra hotel voucher of 10k on an annual spend of 8lk
• Club Vistara Silver membership
• 1 complimentary lounge access every quarter

Reward Points

• 4 CV points for every 200 spent.

Read detailed review here.

Club Vistara Indusind Explorer Card

Apply Indusind Credit Card

Fees

• Joining fee of 40k + GST; Annual fee of 10k+GST

Welcome Benefits

• 1 night stay voucher at Oberoi Hotels or 25k vouchers from Luxe Gift Card or Vouchgram vouchers against payment of joining fee
• Club Vistara Gold membership only for the first year

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Business Class ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 5 Business Class tickets
  • 1 Business Class ticket each on spending 3lk, 6lk, 9lk, 12lk and 15lk
• 2 complimentary domestic lounge access per quarter. 4 complimentary international lounge access per quarter.
• 0 foreign currency markup

Reward Points

• 8 CV points for every 200 spent on Vistara
• 6 CV points for every 200 spent on Hotels/Airlines and Travel
• 1 CV point for every 200 spent on Utility, Insurance, Government and Fuel
• 2CV points for every 200 spent on all other spends

Read detailed review here.

Club Vistara IDFC First Card

Apply IDFC Vistara Credit Card

Fees

• Joining/Annual fee of 4999+GST. No fee waiver

Welcome Benefits

• 1 One-class upgrade voucher. Effectively you get 2 One-class upgrade vouchers, 1 as a card feature and, the second as part of Club Vistara Silver membership.
• 6000CV points on spending at least 30k every month for the first 3 months. i.e. 2000 CV points every month on spending 30k.

Recurring Benefits

• 1 complimentary Premium Economy ticket on fee payment annually
• Milestone Benefits: Total up to 5 Premium Economy tickets
  • 1 Premium Economy ticket each on spending 1.5lk, 3lk, 4.5lk. 9lk and 2lk
• Club Vistara Silver membership
• 2 domestic lounge access every quarter + 1 international lounge per quarter. Lounge access is activated only on monthly spends of 5000.

Reward Points

• 1 CV point for every 200 spent on Fuel, Insurance, Utility, Rent and wallet load
• 6 CV points for every 200 spent on all other spends up to 1lk. Post that 4CV points for every 200 spent.

Calculator to identify the best Vistara credit card

Below is a dynamic calculator that will show you the reward rate for your spending and help you identify the best Vistara credit card for your spending.  It helps you identify the best Vistara credit card based on CV points accumulated (for simplicity, I have assumed 1CV = 60p). Further, it takes into account the hotel vouchers (for SBI cards) and the free tickets based on milestone spending.

Based on various spending combinations, generally, you will find that for spending under 5lks per annum the SBI Vistara Prime, IDFC Vistara card and the Axis Vistara Signature card are the best Vistara credit cards. For annual spending of up to 10lks, the Axis Vistara Infinite, IDFC Vistara Card and the SBI Vistara Prime are the best Vistara credit cards. Lastly for spends above 10lks, the Axis Vistara Infinite, SBI Vistara Prime and the IndusInd Explorer are the best Vistara credit cards.

Thoughts on the Best Vistara Credit Cards

Beneficial for domestic travel

Air Vistara is the third largest domestic airline in the country. Further, it will soon be merged with Air India, thus the network will only expand. Nonetheless, even today, Vistara has a very decent domestic network, however, the international network is not so great. Thus the benefits of the best Vistara credit cards can be juiced out mostly on domestic travel.

Apply Axis Vistara Credit Cards

Meat is in the free tickets, not CV points

You would notice that even the best Vistara credit card has not-so-great CV earning potential. The meat in the Vistara credit cards lies in the milestone-based free tickets they offer.

In fact, the miles accrual run rate on many other credit cards is better than the best Vistara credit cards. For example, for an annual spend of 2.4lk, Amex MRCC (Apply Now) will give 9600 CV points. Only the Indusind Explorer matches this; that too assuming that the entire spend is towards the highest spend category. Another example is Axis Atlas(Apply Now); it gives 24000CV points on 60000 spends. The CV accrual rate of Atlas is better than all the Vistara credit cards.

This is just to emphasise the point that the meat of the best Vistara credit cards is in the free tickets one can get and not in airmiles accrual.

Apply IDFC Vistara Credit Card

SBI Vistara card gives hotel vouchers – that could be really helpful

Among all the best Vistara credit cards, only SBI Vistara credit cards offer milestone-based Yatra hotel vouchers. I believe it is very thoughtful of the SBI Card. The hotel vouchers can be used to plan a couple of days of hotel stays. Thus sort of allowing you to plan your vacation without shelling too much from your pocket.

Apply SBI Vistara Credit Card

Seat availability can be a challenge

The upgrade vouchers and free ticket vouchers redemption are part of the award redemption pool. As a result, they have limited availability on every flight even for the best Vistara credit card. Generally, Vistara offers 6 economy, 4 premium economy and 2 business class award seats per flight. Thus on busy routes, you may be denied your free ticket or free upgrade if the quota is already full. There have been some mentions on Twitter where in some specific sectors; there is no award availability for weeks in a row.

The Air India Vistara merger creates some uncertainties

Since the promoter of Vistara and Air India is now the same, the merger of these 2 airlines is eminent. Further, it’s a given that Air India as a brand will survive and there are doubts about the brand Vistara. Thus, this creates uncertainties as to what happens to the free tickets, upgrade vouchers and CV points.

My assumption is free tickets and upgrade vouchers will be honoured on the merged airline. As far as CV points are concerned, the airline will convert them into Flying Return points in a certain ratio.

I hope the conversion ratio is decent since I have parked my Axis Magnus points into Vistara.

Which is the best Vistara credit card?

After all this, the question remains. Which is the best Vistara credit card? Well, honestly there is no straight answer. As discussed above based on various spending levels one may look to acquire an IDFC Vistara card, Vistara SBI Prime card or the Axis Vistara Infinite credit card. Further, one can play mix and match too. For eg, take the Axis Vistara Infinite credit card for the CV Gold status. The welcome Business Class ticket anyway covers the fee. Then maybe use the SBI Vistara Prime or IDFC Vistara card to earn free premium economy tickets.

Apply SBI Vistara Credit Card

Similarly, one can take Axis Infinite just for the Gold status and continue spending on Axis Atlas(Apply Now), HDFC Diners Black(Apply Now) or the Amex Plat Travel(Apply Now).

Nonetheless, if I have to select one of the best Vistara credit cards discussed in the post, I will go for SBI Vistara Prime or the Vistara IDFC credit card. The reasons being, a decent CV earn rate on spending, milestone spending for the PE ticket not very tough to achieve and availability of 4 PE seats on every Vistara flight.

Apply IDFC Vistara Credit Card

Which card as per you is the best Vistara credit card? Do share your view/thoughts/opinions, would love to read them.

Thanks Nipun, Vatsal and Pryansh for answering my queries.This article was published/last updated on 2th Sept 2023.