BestCredit
Find card

Menu

Devaluation

Axis Bank raises DCC markup to 3.5% on four cards and pulls Priority Pass from domestic lounges

Axis revised nine credit cards: DCC markup to 3.5% (2% on Magnus) and no Priority Pass at domestic lounges since 28 August 2026, with a stricter SELECT milestone from October.

Updated

Axis Bank has published revision notices for nine cards — SELECT, MAGNUS, MAGNUS for BURGUNDY, PRIVILEGE, MYZONE, NEO, RESERVE, PRIMUS and Burgundy Private. Not every card gets every change, and they land in five waves.

What changed

Since 28 August 2026 — now in force. The dynamic currency conversion (DCC) markup rose from 1.5% to 3.5% on MYZONE, SELECT, PRIVILEGE and NEO, and to 2% on the two MAGNUS variants. RESERVE, PRIMUS and Burgundy Private have no DCC change. DCC is what you pay when a merchant bills a foreign transaction to you in rupees.

Same date, and also live: "the Priority Pass card will not be valid for accessing domestic airport lounges in India" — present the Axis card with your boarding pass instead, though lounges past immigration at Indian international terminals remain international and stay on Priority Pass. The late payment fee above ₹50,000 rose from ₹1,200 to ₹1,300 on every card except PRIMUS and Burgundy Private. Bridge fees, road fees and tolls joined gift cards on the no-rewards list, and gift cards moved out of "Wallet" into their own spend category. Payments are now appropriated fees and taxes first, then EMIs, interest, purchases and cash advances, which quietly raises the cost of revolving.

The same four categories do a second job. Axis's Key Fact Sheet of 18 August 2026 added gift cards, bridge fees and road fees and tolls to the spends that do not count toward the annual-fee-waiver threshold on SELECT, RESERVE, MAGNUS and MAGNUS for BURGUNDY, from the same 28 August date. Those four cards already excluded rent, wallet loads, utilities, government institutions, EMI conversions, cash withdrawals, reversals and fees (from 1 September 2023) and insurance, gold and jewellery and fuel (from 20 April 2024). A SELECT holder now needs ₹8 lakh of qualifying spend from a shorter list of qualifying categories.

From 1 September 2026. Burgundy Private – The One Card's annual fee doubles to ₹1 lakh plus GST where Total Relationship Value falls below ₹5 crore.

From 1 October 2026. The SELECT ₹3 lakh anniversary-year milestone — 6 extra international lounge visits, 6 golf rounds, Priority Pass renewal — stops counting insurance, rent, fuel, educational services, utilities and telecom, wallet, gold and jewellery, government services and gift cards.

From 1 November 2026. The "Buy one get one" free District offer on SELECT, PRIVILEGE and MYZONE needs ₹25,000 of spend in the previous three months. NEO's equivalent is a 10% BookMyShow discount capped at ₹100, on the same gate. Axis exempts new cards for the issuance month and the following three calendar months.

From 15 November 2026. Complimentary memberships renew only with explicit consent on SELECT, MAGNUS, MAGNUS for BURGUNDY, RESERVE and Burgundy Private.

Who is affected

Six cards we cover are named: Select, Magnus, Privilege, My Zone, Neo and Reserve. Reserve keeps its DCC markup but takes the ₹1,300 late fee, the reward exclusions, the consent rule and the Priority Pass withdrawal — an earlier version of this item wrongly said Reserve was unaffected. No notice exists for Axis Atlas or Axis ACE.

What to do

On ₹1,00,000 of overseas spend billed in rupees, a SELECT holder paid ₹1,500 in DCC markup before 28 August and pays ₹3,500 now — ₹2,000 more, already on the statement. Declining rupee billing no longer recovers that: the MITC puts SELECT's foreign currency fee at 3.5%, Magnus at 2% and Reserve at 1.5%, so the revision aligns DCC with each card's forex markup rather than creating an avoidable charge. Decline anyway — you keep the network's exchange rate. Our forex markup guide explains the difference.

If your ₹3 lakh SELECT milestone was built on rent, insurance or utilities, none of it counts from October and the ₹3,000 annual fee buys materially less — re-run the maths before renewal. HDFC Infinia vs Axis Magnus covers the same question one tier up.

Sources

We link the reporting we relied on. Always confirm the change against the issuer’s own most-important-terms document before acting on it.

← All credit card news