Yes Bank’s Credit Cards are something we don’t talk about much at LiveFromALounge, given the low number of transfer partnerships and the little value of the rewards that Yes Bank Rewards offer to our audience. The bad news is that Yes Bank Credit Card Rewards earning will further go down.

Coming next month, Yes Bank will be devaluing the reward rate on their credit cards. The changes to the earning structure will occur on April 15, 2019. The Yes First Preferred Card and the Yes First Exclusive Card are the ones I have in the family, and the only reason for me to keep the Yes First Exclusive Card has been the fact that they are the only ones working with MasterCard at the moment, and hence useful to keep in the pocket. Almost all other premium cards are heading the way of Visa for a while now.

Yes First Exclusive Credit Card

The Yes First Exclusive Credit Card currently offers 10 Reward Points per INR 100 spent, with the cash value of each point at INR 0.25, making the reward rate of 2.5% redeemable against travel. Now, borrowing a leaf from the lifestyle segment, Yes First Exclusive Credit Card will offer 12 Reward Points per INR 100 spent on Travel Agencies, Domestic Airlines and Dining, as defined by MasterCard. For other spends, you get 6 Reward Points per INR 100 spent.

That means, on travel and dining, you will get a 3% reward rate, and for everything else, it goes down to 1.5% reward rate. That should be a kick in the shin for everyone using this card because that brings this card closer to a PremierMiles than to a Prestige going forward.

Yes First Preferred Credit Card

The Yes First Preferred Credit Card currently offers 8 Reward Points per INR 100 spent, with the cash value of each point at INR 0.25, making the reward rate of 2% redeemable against travel. Now, borrowing a leaf from the lifestyle segment, Yes First Preferred Credit Card will offer 8 Reward Points per INR 100 spent on Travel Agencies, Domestic Airlines and Dining, as defined by MasterCard. For other spends, you get 4 Reward Points per INR 100 spent.

That means, on travel and dining, you will get a 2% reward rate, and for everything else, it goes down to 1% reward rate. Again, this means you don’t get to have too much on the rewards front on this card.

Other credit cards such as the Yes Premia Credit Card will also undergo a devaluation on the earnings. Full details are here.

Bottomline

Given that most Yes Bank credit card holders have gotten these cards for free, they shouldn’t have too much to complain about. Free credit cards always have been issued as a populist measure to seed the market with a new bank’s products, and hence, now that they have some market share, the bank is going ahead with cutting rewards to cut the impact on their P&L.

What do you make of the effect of the reduced rewards earning on your use of these credit cards from Yes Bank?