IRCTC Credit Card

Who the HDFC IRCTC card pays

This card is for people who book trains most months, often in AC or over long distances, and who will actually walk into a railway lounge. For them, it returns close to 5% on IRCTC bookings for a ₹500 + taxes fee. For anyone who books a few tickets a year, it is a 1% card.

Most searches for an IRCTC credit card are for SBI's versions. This page is HDFC Bank's card. The IRCTC SBI Card Premier and IRCTC SBI Platinum Card are different cards with their own rules, as are the IRCTC BOBCARD and the RBL RuPay card.

How the 5% on tickets works

You earn 5 reward points per ₹100 on IRCTC bookings, made on the IRCTC site or app or through HDFC SmartBuy. When you redeem points against train tickets on SmartBuy, a point is worth about ₹1, so that is about 5% back. Everything else earns 1 point per ₹100, and fuel, wallet loads, vouchers, government payments, education and rent earn nothing.

The accelerated points stop at 1,000 a month and 12,000 a year. You hit that at about ₹20,000 of IRCTC spend in a month, which most travellers never reach.

Booking through SmartBuy, in rupees

Train tickets booked on SmartBuy add 5% cashback, up to ₹1,000 a month. Say you book ₹8,000 of tickets in a month there:

• Reward points: 400, about ₹400 when used for tickets.
• SmartBuy cashback: up to ₹400.

That is up to about ₹800 back, close to 10%. The catch, raised in four threads, is the partner service fees on SmartBuy bookings, which eat into the extra 5%. One recent thread also mentions a cap on cashback per transaction. Compare the final price with a direct IRCTC booking before you pay. A recent thread says HDFC does not require you to be a passenger on the ticket to earn rewards.

Railway lounges and the IRCTC charge

You get 8 IRCTC Executive Lounge visits a year, up to 2 a quarter, with a ₹2 validation charge each time. These are railway lounges; the card has no airport lounge access. Users in the sentiment report say add-on cardholders can use them too.

HDFC also waives 1% of the IRCTC transaction charge on bookings, and you get a ₹500 gift voucher on activation, which offsets most of the first-year fee (₹500 plus taxes).

Already have an HDFC card?

This is the top complaint in the sentiment report. Existing HDFC cardholders say the website sends them to the MyCards page instead of a new application. Users report success by asking customer care or the grievance team to issue it as an additional card on a shared limit. Being a co-brand, it also often misses HDFC's sale-day discounts, so keep a core card like HDFC Millennia for those.

The verdict for train regulars

Get it if you spend a few thousand rupees a month on IRCTC tickets, will redeem the points into more tickets, and use railway lounges. The ₹500 + taxes fee is waived once you spend ₹1.5 lakh in a year, and the activation voucher offsets most of the year one fee.

Skip it if you mostly fly, book trains rarely, or want flexible rewards. Users who book a lot of tickets and can meet a higher income bar mention PhonePe SBI Card SELECT BLACK as returning more on tickets, for a steeper annual fee.

Credit Card Information Compiled by: Abhijeet Kumar | Reviewed by: Anmol Ratan Sachdeva