The Best Credit Card in India for Lounge Access

The Bottom Line

The Diners Club Black Credit Card by HDFC Bank is the best credit card for getting unlimited complimentary domestic and international lounge access.

It has the lowest annual fee, the lowest income threshold for eligibility and the lowest spending required for annual fee waiver of any card that offers such unlimited lounge access.

If you are a high spender (>₹1 lacs a month on card), choose the Magnus Credit Card from Axis Bank instead. It is the best credit card in India in this bracket, offering the highest net reward yield and also offers unlimited lounge access globally.

Consider the Bank of Baroda ETERNA Credit Card if you only need unlimited complimentary lounge access domestically.

The ETERNA offers that and has a much lower annual fee than the cards offering unlimited global access.

If you are happy with a few complimentary lounge visits a year and don’t need unlimited access, there are a number of free cards that offer multiple lounge visits each year or quarter.

Both, the FIRST Wealth and FIRST Select credit cards from IDFC FIRST Bank have zero annual fee and offer 4 complimentary domestic lounge visits each quarter as long as you charge at least ₹5,000 on you card each month.

The Insignia Preferred Banking Card by RBL Bank is also free and offers 2 complimentary domestic lounge visits each quarter with no minimum spending requirement.

However all of these cards require you to have a premium relationship status with card issuing bank – this typically entails having a large deposit or a loan with them.

If you don’t want that hassle, consider the Axis Bank MY ZONE and LIC Axis Bank Signature credit cards instead. These cards are also free and offer 1-2 complimentary lounge visits a quarter, but only to some selected lounges in India.

There are 400+ credit cards offered by banks in India. 160+ of those offer some form of airport lounge access. We think the cards listed above are the best choices among those cards for most people to looking to enjoy complimentary lounge access.

Table 1: Recommended Credit Cards for Lounge Access

Everything we recommend

Who this is for

Air travel can be a bit of a drudge – battling the traffic to the airport, getting past endless queues for check-in and security and the struggle to find a seat while you wait for the boarding announcement.

A credit card that offers free access to a nice lounge can be a life-saver, especially for frequent travellers.

The problem is there are more than 160 credit cards in India that offers some form of lounge access.

And each of these cards have different fees, reward programs and also differing levels of lounge access – all the way from cards that have high fee and offer only 1-2 lounge visits a year to reasonably priced (or even free) credit cards that offer a quite a few complimentary lounge visits each year.

If you would like to find the best credit card that meets your requirements and has the most favourable cost-benefit trade-off for lounge access, this post is for you.

How we picked

Banks in India offer more than 400 credit cards and we found that nearly 160 of those offers at least some lounge access – domestically and / or internationally.

In order to pick the cards offering the best deal on lounge access we first went through the term & conditions of each of these 160+ credit cards.

For each card we found out how many complimentary lounge visits they offered, which lounge partner they worked with and how many lounges & locations they covered.

For complimentary lounge visits we broke down the data by location – permitted visits in India vs. globally.

We then combined this data with the annual fees for each card, the minimum annual spend needed of the card for the fee to be waived and the minimum income required to be eligible for the card (where applicable).

We also looked at the net reward yield of each of these 160+ credit card. After all free lounge access shouldn’t require you to give up other rewards when using the card.

We then segmented these cards into 3 segments – those offering unlimited lounge access globally, those offering unlimited access but only in India and last, those offering limited access.

Our picks for each of these segments were based on lowest annual fee, lowest annual spend needed for the annual fee to be waived, highest number of complimentary lounge visits and highest net reward yield for all spending on that card.

The Best Cards for Unlimited Global Lounge Access

The Diners Club Black Credit Card by HDFC Bank is the best credit card in our opinion for getting unlimited complimentary domestic and international lounge access.

It has the lowest annual fee, the lowest income threshold for eligibility and the lowest spending required for annual fee waiver of any card that offers such unlimited lounge access.

If you are a high spender (>₹1 lacs a month on card), choose the Magnus Credit Card from Axis Bank instead. It is the best credit card in India in this bracket, offering the highest net reward yield and unlimited lounge access globally.

We found 10 credit cards in India that offer unlimited complimentary lounge access globally. Sadly all of these cards come with hefty annual / joining fee ranging from ₹10,000 – 60,000.

Luckily the best cards in this category (i.e. those with the highest net reward yield) were also the ones with relatively lower fees and lower thresholds for annual fee waivers.

Table 2: Cards offering unlimited global lounge access

Both, the Diners Club Black and the Magnus have an annual fee of ₹10,000 but the fee is waived for the Diners Club Black on charging ₹5 lacs to your card in a year, whereas that threshold for the Magnus is ₹15 lacs.

The rewards for the Magnus are also largely given on hitting the milestone of ₹1 lacs in each month. So if you usually charge less than ₹1 lacs to you card in a month, the Diners Club Black is your best choice for global lounge access.

Table 3: Feature Summary – Diners Club Black Credit Card

Table 4: Feature Summary – Magnus Credit Card

Another potential choice in this category is the INFINIA Credit Card from HDFC Bank.

This is an invite-only card with an annual fee of ₹12,500 which can be waived on hitting an annual spend of ₹10 lacs in a year.

While the INFINIA is slightly more expensive than the Diners Club Black, it has a much higher reward rate of 3.33% (vs. about 1.7% for the Black). As a result you earn higher rewards with this card once your annual spend exceeds ₹8.5 lacs (i.e. even before getting a fee waiver for the INFINIA).

Another point of difference between these cards is the network of lounges they provide access to.

The INFINIA gets you access to the Priority Pass lounge network, while the Magnus gets you the VISA or MasterCard lounges, depending on the card network you choose. The Black has its own set of lounges from different providers.

Each of these cards promises access to more than 1,000 lounges worldwide, including about 40+ in India. We did not differentiate between the cards on the basis of the quality of lounges in their network.

The Best Cards for Unlimited Domestic Lounge Access

Consider the Bank of Baroda ETERNA Credit Card if you only need unlimited complimentary lounge access domestically.

The ETERNA offers unlimited domestic lounge access and has a much lower annual fees (₹2,499) than the cards offering unlimited global access.

The ETERNA also has a relatively higher net reward yields than other cards in this category, which makes the choice easier.

Table 5: Cards offering unlimited domestic lounge access

The ₹2,499 annual fee for the ETERNA is waived on charging ₹2.5 lacs to the card in a year while the ₹10,000 annual fee for the Diners Club Black is waived on charging more than ₹5 lacs.

So if you expect to charge more than ₹5 lacs in a year should you just get the Black instead, even if you only really need domestic lounge access?

We estimate that you earn higher rewards with the ETERNA than with the Black even if you spend up to ₹12 lacs in a year.

Table 6: Annual value of net rewards earned

So if you don’t need international lounge access, stick to the ETERNA.

Table 7: Feature Summary – ETERNA Credit Card

If you spend more than ₹12 lacs in a year (or rather more than ₹1 lacs in a month), you should get the Magnus anyway.

The Best Lifetime Free Cards with Lounge Access

If you are happy with a few complimentary lounge visits a year and don’t need unlimited access, there are a number of free cards that offer multiple lounge visits each year or quarter.

Table 8: Free cards with lounge access

Both, the FIRST Wealth and FIRST Select have zero annual fee and offer 4 complimentary domestic lounge visits each quarter as long as you charge at least ₹5,000 on you card each month.

The Insignia Preferred Banking Card by RBL Bank is also lifetime free and offers 2 complimentary domestic lounge visits each quarter with no minimum spending requirement.

However all of these cards require you to have a premium relationship status with card issuing bank – this typically entails having a large deposit or a loan with them.

For example, to be eligible for the FIRST Wealth you need a relationship balance of ₹10 lacs with IDFC FIRST, while for FIRST SELECT, you need ₹3 lacs balance.

If you don’t want that hassle, consider the Axis Bank MY ZONE and LIC Axis Bank Signature credit cards instead. These cards are also free and offer 1-2 complimentary visits a quarter to a few lounges in India.

It is worth pointing out that all the cards in this category offer relatively low rewards, especially the MY ZONE and LIC Signature. So we would not recommend then as your general purpose cards.