logo
5 best credit cards packed with perks for frequent travellers

5 best credit cards packed with perks for frequent travellers

Mint25-04-2025

Travel credit cards: When you are a travel freak and a credit card user at the same time, it is advisable to subscribe to card(s) that offer a range of benefits. These benefits could range from access to the airport lounge to cashbacks and other reward points.
Here, we list out five popular credit cards which offer privileges and benefits to the cardholders who love to travel a lot in India as well as abroad.
This card offers following features:
A. Cardholders are entitled to receive 'buy one Get one' Free on movie & non-movie weekend tickets when you book it via BookMyShow.
B. The card also offers 5X reward points on Swiggy and Zomato.
C. There are complimentary annual memberships of Swiggy One and Times Prime as Welcome Benefit
D. There are ₹ 1,500 worth Marriott, Decathlon & more vouchers on quarterly spends of ₹ 1.50 lakh.
E. Two complimentary airport lounge access every calendar quarter worldwide.
F. Four reward points for every ₹ 150 spent.
These are some of the key features of SBI Card ELITE:
A. You get access to two complimentary domestic airport lounge visits every quarter in India.
B. It also offers you the privilege of the lowest foreign current mark-up charge of 1.99 percent on international usage.
C. You are also entitled to two reward points on every ₹ 100 spent on international transactions.
This card offers these benefits:
A. It allows you the exclusive round-the-clock concierge services.
B. The card also offers one dozen complimentary access within India (both at domestic and international terminals) using the HDFC Bank Regalia Gold Credit Card.
C. Additionally, you are entitled to receive up to 7.5 percent savings on all your restaurant bill payments via Swiggy Dineout.
These are some of the key features of this travel card by RBL Bank:
A. You can use the card wherever you like and it will charge you only 0 percent mark up on any foreign currency transactions. This effectively leads to 4 percent savings on all currency exchange transactions.
B. The card also gives a welcome gift of MakeMyTrip voucher worth ₹ 3,000.
This credit card offers following benefits
A. Access to domestic and international lounges for primary cardholders as well as accompanying guests.
B. The card also offers 25 percent discount on dining at 10,000 plus restaurants.
Disclaimer: Mint has a tie-up with fintechs for providing credit, you will need to share your information if you apply. These tie-ups do not influence our editorial content. This article only intends to educate and spread awareness about credit needs like loans, credit cards and credit score. Mint does not promote or encourage taking credit as it comes with a set of risks such as high interest rates, hidden charges, etc. We advise investors to discuss with certified experts before taking any credit.
First Published: 25 Apr 2025, 11:17 AM IST

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The week in charts: Digital gender divide, UP discoms sale, declining smart devices
The week in charts: Digital gender divide, UP discoms sale, declining smart devices

Mint

timean hour ago

  • Mint

The week in charts: Digital gender divide, UP discoms sale, declining smart devices

A new national survey reveals a large gender disparity in mobile phone usage and ownership. Meanwhile, companies such as Adani Group and Tata Power Ltd are eyeing majority stakes in two Uttar Pradesh electricity distribution companies, and declining sales of smartphones and smartwatches are ringing alarm bells. Digital gender divide A new pan-India government survey reveals a stark gender gap in India's digital revolution. While 76.3% of rural women use mobile phones, only 48.4% own one, shows the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Telecom 2025 report. In contrast, 89.5% of rural men use phones, with 80.7% ownership. The gap, though smaller, exists in urban India as well, where 86.8% of women use mobiles and 71.8% own one. The usage-ownership gap is highest in states such as West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, a Mint analysis showed. Also read: How a manufacturing boom could help India close the gender gap Power tripping The average power demand per day in India's six major industrialised states declined in May, indicating a slowdown in factory activity, Mint reported. Data from the Grid Controller of India showed a 5.7% year-on-year drop to 59.58 billion units in May in these states. In April, demand was flat at over 75 billion units. Demand in industrialised states is seen as a proxy for overall industrial power consumption. Experts attribute the fall to slower economic activity in the manufacturing and mining sectors. A cooler summer this year also contributed to the fall. Discoms sale 51%: That is the stake at least eight companies including Adani Group and Tata Power Ltd are eyeing in two Uttar Pradesh electricity distribution companies – Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (PUVVNL) and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (DVVNL) – Mint reported. The request for proposal (RFP), a formal document to invite bids, is likely to be floated by July. This marks a renewed effort to privatise unprofitable and debt-laden firms that put a huge fiscal burden on state governments. The two distribution companies (discoms) have a combined annual revenue of around ₹50,000 crore. Pharma PLI push India plans to bolster production-linked incentives (PLI) for drug manufacturing, aiming to reduce the pharmaceutical industry's reliance on Chinese raw materials, Mint reported. The enhanced PLI scheme will encompass more molecules used in key starting materials (KSMs) and drug intermediates—raw materials used to synthesise active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that produce the final drug. Indian pharma's reliance on China for raw materials has been rising. In 2024-25, India imported bulk drugs and advanced drug intermediates worth $4.6 billion, 74% of which came from China. Also read: India puts big pharma concessions on table as US trade deal nears finish line Souring sentiment Electronics sales have been weak in 2025, with retailers reporting sluggish store footfalls and muted online demand, Mint reported. Key segments such as smartphones and smartwatches underperformed in the January-March quarter, dragging overall sales down. Data from market researcher IDC showed a 6% year-on-year decline in overall phone sales. Counterpoint noted a 33% plunge in smartwatch shipments, marking five consecutive quarters of decline. The two categories account for 80% of India's electronics sector. The slowdown threatens to dent the broader sector's revenue and profitability going forward. PSU banks' bad loans fall 16%: That's the decline in bad loans reported by public sector banks in FY25, according to a Mint analysis of data of 12 public sector banks and 19 private sector banks from Capitaline. In contrast, private peers saw a 2.9% rise in non-performing assets. Also read: These five private banks in India have the lowest NPAs. Should you invest? PSU banks' strong operating profitability allowed for higher write-offs, resulting in negative net slippages and overall NPA reduction, experts said. Conversely, rising personal unsecured loans, including microfinance, contributed to a higher fresh NPA generation rate for private sector banks. Mixed PMI data India's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to a three-month low in May, while the services PMI inched up marginally. Manufacturing PMI softened to 57.6 in May from 58.2 in April amid a softer increase in new orders. Services PMI, on the other hand, rose marginally to 58.8 from 58.7 in April. The slight improvement in the services sector was driven by strong export growth and high employment, though the pace of business activity was largely unchanged. Despite the decline, manufacturing PMI is significantly above 50, the threshold that distinguishes expansion from contraction. Also read | PMI: India's services exports bump may lose steam amid global economic gloom Currency count Nearly 31 million ₹2,000 banknotes remain in circulation, showed a recent currency update from the Reserve Bank of India. In May 2023 the government had announced the withdrawal of these notes, though they continued to be legal tender. ₹500 continues its dominance with 65.2 billion notes. Follow our data stories on the In Charts and Plain Facts pages.

Learning complex concepts in regional languages
Learning complex concepts in regional languages

Mint

time2 hours ago

  • Mint

Learning complex concepts in regional languages

Many professionals face a challenge: their business language is English but they prefer learning complex concepts in their native language for better understanding and retention. This gap can make it hard to grasp intricate topics like AI, data science, or business strategy, especially when English-heavy resources dominate. Translating or adapting content into regional languages often feels cumbersome or lacks context. NotebookLM's new language translation capability in its audio podcast feature addresses this by creating accessible, language-specific summaries of complex concepts. How to access: NotebookLM can help you: • Simplify complex ideas: Convert dense documents into concise, easy-to-understand audio summaries. • Learn in your native language: Generate podcasts in regional languages for better comprehension. • Save time: Quickly grasp key insights without wading through technical jargon or lengthy texts. Example: Suppose you're a native Hindi-speaking professional learning about Transformers architecture from a research paper. Here's how NotebookLM helps: • Upload content: Upload the English paper (say 'Attention is all you need') to NotebookLM. • Generate podcast: Select Hindi as the output language from the settings, and click 'Generate' under 'Audio Overview' section. NotebookLM creates a conversational audio podcast summarizing key concepts in Hindi. • Listen and learn: Play the podcast during your commute or downtime, absorbing complex ideas in your native language effortlessly. What makes NotebookLM special? • Language accessibility: Supports more than 75 languages, making learning inclusive and intuitive. • Audio-first learning: Converts text into engaging, podcast-style summaries for auditory learners. • Free to use: Currently accessible at no cost, offering powerful features to all users. Mint's 'AI tool of the week' is excerpted from Leslie D'Monte's weekly TechTalk newsletter. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox. Note: The tools and analysis featured in this section demonstrated clear value based on our internal testing. Our recommendations are entirely independent and not influenced by the tool creators. Jaspreet Bindra is co-founder and CEO of AI&Beyond. Anuj Magazine is also a co-founder.

RBI aims to boost economic growth, liquidity with jumbo rate and CRR cuts
RBI aims to boost economic growth, liquidity with jumbo rate and CRR cuts

Mint

time12 hours ago

  • Mint

RBI aims to boost economic growth, liquidity with jumbo rate and CRR cuts

Mumbai: In a move to invigorate India's slowing economy and in the wake of consistently easing inflation, the rate-setting committee of India's central bank slashed the repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) on Friday, twice the 25 bps that was widely expected. Further it complemented the policy rate cut with a 100 bps reduction in the cash reserve ratio (CRR). A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. 'Inflation is under a lot of control now, and we can accept that we have won the war,' RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra said at a media briefing on Friday following the MPC meeting, adding that the central bank has reduced inflation projection for FY26 to 3.7% from 4% earlier. The unexpected bounty was cheered by the stock markets, with the BSE Sensex closing 0.92% up at 82,188.99, and the Nifty 50 surpassing the 25,000 level with a 252 pts upswing to close at 25,003.5. Bond markets, too, reacted positively, with the shorter end of the yield curve seeing some softening. The 10-year G-sec yield hit an intraday high of 6.290, before rising 4.3 bps to close at 6.289. The repo rate is the rate at which banks borrow from RBI, and CRR refers to a certain percentage of cash that all banks have to keep with the RBI as a deposit. After Friday's cut, the repo rate stands reduced to 5.5% from 6% earlier, and CRR to 3% from 4% earlier. The cut in CRR is expected to infuse liquidity worth ₹ 2.5 trillion in four tranches from 6 September to 29 November. The last time the CRR was cut by 100bps was during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when economic growth needed a major push. 'It is imperative to continue to stimulate domestic private consumption and investment through policy levers to step up the growth momentum,' Malhotra said at the media briefing. 'This changed growth-inflation dynamics calls for not only continuing with the policy easing but also frontloading the rate cuts to support growth. The MPC will be carefully assessing the incoming data and the evolving outlook to chart out the future course of monetary policy in order to strike the right growth-inflation balance.' According to Malhotra, the announcement of CRR cut four months in advance is aimed at ensuring certainty to banks and markets regarding the health of the economy. Five of the six MPC members voted for a 50 bps cut, with only Saugata Bhattacharya voting for a 25 bps rate cut. The six-member also changed the policy stance back to neutral from accommodative, citing limited space for further monetary easing. After including Friday's rate cut, MPC has cumulatively cut repo rates by a 100 bps since February this year, a development that economists widely expected would take the full year to roll out. Most treasury heads and economists polled by Mint had predicted a 25 bps rate cut along with no change in policy stance. Only State Bank of India (SBImp) had predicted a 50 bps cut in interest rates. While the MPC has maintained FY26 GDP growth forecast at 6.5%, it expects economic activity to maintain the momentum in the fiscal year, supported by private consumption and fixed capital formation. The committee however cautioned that spillovers emanating from protracted geopolitical tensions, and global trade and weather-related uncertainties could pose downside risks to growth. The MPC lowered its consumer price inflation (CPI) forecast by 30 basis points to 3.7% as the outlook remains benign. However, the committee expects FY27 inflation at 4.5%. High production of wheat and pulses in the rabi crop season along with early onset of monsoon, augurs well for the inflation outlook. Majority of economists, who were earlier expecting 50-100 basis points repo rate cut during the year, are now reading the policy action as an extended pause for the year. HDFC Bank said in a research note on Friday that the RBI is likely to stay on pause on rate cuts at least in the next two policies (August and October). 'Given the inflation trajectory, the RBI has space to cut the repo rate by another 25-50 bps in this cycle, but we see the probability of that happening to be low at this stage. For now, in our base case, we see the policy rate remaining unchanged at 5.5% for 2025.' Nomura, however, expects terminal rates at 5%, with a likely pause in August, followed by 25 bps rate cuts each in October and December. With this cut in repo rate and CRR, the MPC expects policy transmission to be faster than before. 'The comfortable liquidity surplus in the banking system has further reinforced transmission of policy repo rate cuts to short term rates,' said Malhotra in his policy statement. 'However, we are yet to see a perceptible transmission in the credit market segment, though we must keep in mind that it happens with some lag.' Economists also expect that some of the liquidity infusion could be offset by the RBI reducing its forward book. As of April 2025, RBI's forward book stood at $53 billion (up to one-year segment). Between February 2025 and April 2025, RBI reduced its dollar short position by $26, resulting in liquidity drain of $2.3 trillion. 'We believe that the liquidity infusion through the CRR cut would help cushion the rupee drain from the maturity of the RBI's forward book over the coming months,' added HDFC bank in its note.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store