Equitas Bank Selfe Credit Card Review – CardExpert

Equitas Small Finance Bank has been making some interesting moves in the credit card space, and the Selfe Credit Card is their mid-range offering that sits between the entry-level Tiga and the premium PowerMiles Credit Card.

What makes this card stand out from the crowd is the level of customization it offers, from choosing your reward categories to picking the card design.

Let’s have a look at this card in detail and see if it deserves a spot in your wallet.

Overview

The Equitas Selfe Credit Card is not your typical mid-range card. It gives you a level of control that even some premium cards don’t offer.

That said, the card truly shines only when you spend enough to climb the tier ladder. For low spenders, the returns are quite average.

Fees & Benefits

At the time of joining, you can choose any 2 complimentary memberships from below:

• Amazon Prime
• Jio Hotstar
• Discovery+
• Sony LIV
• Zee5

These memberships can be claimed 1 day after card activation and are valid for 90 days. Amazon Prime and Hotstar are the obvious picks here since they offer the most value.

*** Limited Period Offer: First Year FREE ***

Choose Your Design

The Equitas Selfe Credit Card is available in 3 design options: One free & two paid, as below,

The blue plastic card is sufficient for most given that it also looks beautiful.

You also get to choose your payment network: Visa or RuPay. If you plan to use the card on UPI, the RuPay variant is the obvious choice since it can be linked directly. 

On top of that, you can select your billing cycle date from the 12th, 16th, or 20th of every month. It’s useful for salaried folks who want the billing date to align with their salary credit.

Rewards

• Point Value (Base): 1 RP = 0.35 INR (vouchers/travel), 0.15 INR (cashback)
• Point Value (Diamond): 1 RP = 1 INR (vouchers/travel), 0.50 INR (cashback)

If you see it closely, the real power of the card unleashes only when you take advantage of the 5X rewards and the Diamond Tier of the Privilege Program. Let’s have a deep dive into both to understand it better.

Excluded categories for rewards: Rent, Wallet, Fuel and Government spends.

Reward Points earned on Grocery and Utility transactions will be capped at 2000 reward points per month for each category. Insurance transactions will be capped at 2000 reward points per day.

5X Rewards

This is the main engine of the card. You get to pick any 2 out of 5 categories where you earn 5X reward points:

1. Utility
2. Apparel
3. Dining
4. Taxi
5. Grocery (Max: 2000 points/month)

As you see, avoid picking Grocery as your 5X category as grocery rewards are capped at just 2,000 points/month, which means you stop earning after 20,000 INR in grocery spends.

Categories like Apparel currently have no published monthly cap (as of now), making them far more rewarding. Utility has same cap as grocery as per MITC but unsure if it’s implemented.

Privilege Program

This is where the Selfe card gets interesting, but also a bit demanding. All 3 Equitas credit card holders are part of the Privilege Program, which has 5 tiers offering different benefits based on spends, as outlined above.

Now that you know what each tier can offer, here’s how to climb the tier:

• You must hit the spend threshold for 3 consecutive months in a calendar quarter (Jan–Mar, Apr–Jun, Jul–Sep, Oct–Dec) to qualify.
• Tiers are reviewed every quarter, you can be upgraded or downgraded.

At the Diamond Tier, 1 RP = 1 INR, which means the 5X categories deliver a massive 10% return. That’s the kind of number you can’t even see on super-premium cards.

Diamond tier also unlocks 0% forex markup, golf access (capped at 20 bookings/quarter), and flight & hotel vouchers worth ₹6,500 annually.

The tier system is well designed for heavy spenders but for casual users, you’ll be stuck in the Blue tier with average returns.

Redemptions

• Flights & Hotels
• Bus
• Vouchers
• Merchandise
• Billpay

Equitas has a portal called Xchange Rewards (quite unstable though) similar to HDFC Smartbuy that allows you to not only redeem your points for flights & hotels but also for wide variety of redemption options like vouchers (includes Amazon Pay) and even billpay (though has some issues).

You may as well redeem for cash credit but that’s half the value even on Diamond tier. So it’s better to skip and go for Amazon Vouchers in that case.

Airport Lounge Access

The lounge access limits are quite low, but with no spend-based conditions attached. This is refreshing as many cards these days have started asking for spends to be eligible for lounge access.

Should you get it?

Absolutely Yes, if you have high spends that falls in the 5X categories like Apparel, Dining, Utility, or Taxi.

The ability to earn 10% return on these categories and redeem them for vouchers at a higher value per point makes the Selfe Credit Card a strong choice for those who prefer not to redeem points for travel.

*** Limited Period Offer: First Year FREE ***

Bottomline

The Equitas Selfe Credit Card is a solid mid-range offering from a small finance bank, but in practice, it can function like a super-premium card if its benefits are used effectively.

The ability to choose your accelerated reward categories and even customize the card design is quite unique.

However, the low base reward rate and the demanding tier system means it’s good only for those who can spend well, 1L a month for 3 months in a calendar quarter at least for one quarter to avail diamond tier benefits.

But for everyone else, there are simpler and more rewarding options out there like SBI Cashback Card (5% on online spends) or the Scapia (2% on all spends).

Do you hold the Equitas Selfe Credit Card? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.