IRCTC SBI Platinum Card

Best for: Frequent train travellers booking AC-class tickets on IRCTC, First-time cardholders wanting a low-fee travel card, Users who book rail tickets on the IRCTC website or app, Railway commuters who value station lounge access

Entry tier — great for first-time and lower-spend users.

Strongest value if you spend heavily on Travel ( 10% back).

Frequent travellers benefit from the included airport lounge access.

• Up to 10% value back as Reward Points on IRCTC AC-class train tickets
• Low ₹500 fee with a 500-point (~₹500) renewal bonus that offsets it
• 4 railway lounge visits a year plus a 1% fuel surcharge waiver
• 1% saving on transaction charges for railway tickets booked at irctc.co.in

• Only 1 point per ₹125 on general non-fuel spends — worth ~0.2% away from IRCTC redemption, weak off the rails
• Rewards are IRCTC-locked; redemption is via the IRCTC loyalty account
• Fuel and cash spends earn nothing
• No fee-waiver spend threshold — the ₹500 renewal is charged (offset by the 500-point bonus)

Ways to convert what you earn into real value.

🎁 Reward Points transfer to your IRCTC loyalty account and redeem for train tickets on the IRCTC website/app

🎁 1 Reward Point = ₹1 when redeemed against IRCTC bookings

An economical, highly focused card for railway commuters, offering up to 10% value-back on IRCTC AC bookings, access to station lounges, and annual bonus points that balance out the renewal cost. Given its lean baseline return of 1 point per ₹125 on non-rail purchases, it is best utilized strictly for train reservations alongside a primary cashback or lifestyle card for regular retail spend.

Sources & verification

Fees, reward rates, and benefits for the IRCTC SBI Platinum Card are taken from SBI Card 's official Most Important Terms & Conditions (MITC) and fee schedule — see the card's official page . Last verified 5 Aug 2026 . Reviewed by Devchandra Sah . Always confirm current details on the issuer's site before applying. How we research →

Independence. CardAdvisor is an independent editorial publication. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or authorised to act for SBI Card . All issuer names, product names, and payment-network marks are the property of their respective owners and appear here for identification and comparison only. Card faces shown on this site are our own original illustrations — we do not display or host issuer card artwork or logos.

Every real-world change to this card's rewards, fees and benefits we've tracked — newest first, each linked to its source.

Tracking since 2016 · 8 changes · last change Apr 2026

▲ Revaluation ▼ Devaluation ◆ Neutral / reversed

▼ Redemption Observed 26 Feb 2026 · Effective 1 Apr 2026

Statement-credit redemption capped & blocked into 4,000-point multiples

Unrestricted statement-credit redemption, any point quantity → Max 60,000 RP/month; redeemable only in multiples of 4,000

Effective 1 April 2026, SBI Card capped statement-credit redemption at 60,000 Reward Points per card per calendar month and required redemptions in multiples of 4,000 points, removing partial/small redemptions. This touches only statement-credit redemption of the card's general Reward Points — the IRCTC SBI Platinum's headline value back, redeemed at 1 RP = ₹1 into the IRCTC loyalty account, is unaffected. (Only Air India SBI Signature and the two PhonePe SBI variants are exempt from the cap.)

Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: High

▼ Fee Effective 1 Nov 2025

1% fee on third-party education payments & wallet loads

No surcharge on education/wallet-load spends → 1% fee on 3rd-party education fees & wallet loads over ₹1,000

In its system-wide fee revision effective 1 November 2025, SBI Card added a 1% fee on education-fee payments made via third-party apps/aggregators (Paytm, PhonePe, Razorpay, etc.; direct school/college website or campus POS payments stay free) and a 1% fee on digital-wallet loads exceeding ₹1,000. Applies to the IRCTC SBI Platinum Card.

Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: High

▲ Reward Effective 26 Dec 2024

Value-back now credited on the complete booking

Cardholder's fare only → Complete booking

In line with the IRCTC SBI co-brand T&C update, the up-to-10% value back on AC-class IRCTC tickets is credited on the complete booking rather than only the cardholder's own fare portion, and earned reward points are valid for 2 years from the member's registration date. Reconstructed by analogy to the sibling Premier's dated T&C change; a Platinum-specific e-kit PDF was not located this pass.

Verification: CardAdvisor Research · Confidence: Reconstructed

▼ Reward Effective 15 Jul 2024

Government transactions stop earning reward points

Earned → Excluded

From 15 July 2024, government-related transactions (MCC 9399 and 9311 — tax, fines and government-service payments) on the IRCTC SBI Platinum Card no longer accrue reward points, in line with SBI Card's wider exclusion across its card portfolio.

Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: High

▼ Reward Observed 1 Mar 2024 · Effective 15 Apr 2024

Reward points removed on rent payments (MCC 6513)

Base RP earned on rent payments → No RP on rent payments (MCC 6513)

SBI Card stopped awarding Reward Points on rent payments coded under MCC 6513 — effective 1 April 2024 for standard cards and 15 April 2024 for co-branded cards such as the IRCTC SBI Platinum. Combined with the ₹199 processing fee, rent became a fully unrewarded, fee-bearing spend.

Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: High

▼ Fee Effective 15 Nov 2022

Rent-payment processing fee introduced (₹99, later ₹199)

No rent-payment processing fee → ₹99 + GST (raised to ₹199 + GST from 17 Mar 2023)

SBI Card began levying a ₹99 + GST processing fee on every rent-payment transaction from mid-November 2022, then doubled it to ₹199 + GST effective 17 March 2023. Applies system-wide, including the IRCTC SBI Platinum Card.

Verification: CardAdvisor Research · Confidence: High

▼ Benefit Effective 11 Jun 2020

Railway booking transaction-charge waiver cut to 1%

Higher waiver → 1%

Following a revision in railway payment-gateway charges, SBI Card reduced the transaction-charge waiver on IRCTC train/air ticket bookings made with the co-brand cards to 1%, the level that remains the IRCTC SBI Platinum's current benefit.

Verification: SBI Card ↗ · Confidence: Reconstructed

◆ Launch Effective 2016

IRCTC SBI Platinum Card launched

The IRCTC x SBI railway co-brand's entry ₹500 Platinum card, built around up-to-10% value back as Reward Points on AC-class IRCTC tickets (1 RP = ₹1 into the IRCTC loyalty account), a thin 1 RP per ₹125 (~0.8%) on other spends, 4 railway lounge visits a year, a 1% fuel-surcharge waiver and a 500-point renewal bonus offsetting the fee. Exact launch date is undocumented — the IRCTC SBI co-brand line dates to ~2006 and the Platinum tier is documented in reviews by December 2019 (predating the Premier tier launched above it), so the ~2016 year is a reconstruction; the widely-cited "August 2020" refers to the later RuPay refresh, not this Visa card.

Verification: CardAdvisor Research · Confidence: Reconstructed

↓ Show all 8 changes Each change links to the issuer's own document — bank T&C, MITC, notice, press release or product page — where one is public. Where the bank published nothing, it's marked CardAdvisor Research and verified against the card's current terms. Independent of the live terms shown above. This timeline is one card's slice of our market-wide change record across every tracked card.

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Source: IRCTC SBI Platinum Card value timeline — CardAdvisor

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Quick summary

Type Entry credit card

Reward rate 0.8%–10%

Best for Frequent train travellers booking AC-class tickets on IRCTC

Joining fee ₹500

Annual fee ₹500

Reviewed by

Devchandra Sah · Cards tested, miles earned, trips booked — for over a decade

Last verified 5 Aug 2026

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280 cards analysed — August 2026