What Happens To Reward Points When You Upgrade Your Credit Card?

Most credit cardholders want to upgrade their credit card once they build their credit score or when their net income increases. Upgrading a credit card can help you in many ways as you don’t only get a higher credit limit, but also more exciting features and benefits. When you build a good credit score, your card issuer may offer you a better credit card or you might think of upgrading it on your own. But, have you ever thought about what happens to your earned reward points when you upgrade your credit card. Do all your reward points go waste or are they transferred to your new credit card? Let us make it clear that when you upgrade your credit card, your earned Reward Points are transferred to the new card, but different credit card issuers have different policies for the same. In this article, we will make you understand what happens to your reward points on upgradinfg your credit card. Let us understand the same with the example of different card issuers:

HDFC Bank

When you upgrade your HDFC Bank Credit Card, all your reward points are not transferred to your new card, but it can be less than the actual number of points to the same sometimes. It is because the value of reward points is different for different HDFC Bank Credit Cards. The value of reward points is generally higher on the premium credit cards when compared to the basic cards. So, when you upgrade a basic HDFC Card to a premium one, the value of reward points increases, and hence a lesser number of reward points is transferred to your new card, making the net value of reward points equivalent to their previous net value.

For example, in your current card, 1 RP = Re. 0.25 and you have earned 20,000 Reward Points, which are equivalent to Rs. 5,000. Now, you are upgrading to a new card in which, 1 RP = Re. 0.50, then only 50% of your reward points, i.e, 10,000 Reward Points (equivalent to Rs. 5,000) will be transferred to your new card. The following table will make you understand how many reward points are transferred from your old credit card to the upgraded one:

SBI Card

On upgrading your SBI Credit Card, all your earned Reward Points are transferred as it is from your old credit card to the new one. It is because the value of reward points remains the same for all the SBI Credit Cards, which is 1 Reward Point = Re. 0.25, unlike that of the HDFC Credit Cards that have different values of reward points.

ICICI Bank

With ICICI Bank Credit Cards, the customers earn Reward Points on all their spends and the value of 1 Reward Point is always equivalent to Re. 0.25, no matter if your card is super-premium or an entry-level credit card. So, when you upgrade an ICICI Bank Credit Card, all your reward points are transferred to your new card account without any change in their number.

Axis Bank

Just like the SBI & ICICI Credit Cards, Axis Bank also follows the same procedure when it comes to transferring reward points from your old card to the updated one. With Axis Bank Credit Cards, you earn Edge Reward Points on all your spends, the value of 1 Edge Reward is always equal to Re. 0.20. When you upgrade your Axis Bank Credit Card, all your reward points are transferred to your new credit card.

Citibank

Like the HDFC Bank Credit Cards, Citi Bank Credit Cards also have different values of reward points on different credit cards. In HDFC Credit Cards, you don’t get more than 100% Reward Points when you upgrade your credit card, even if the value of reward points was higher in your previous card. But, the case is not the same in CITI bank Credit Cards. If you upgrade to a Citibank credit card in which the value of reward points is less than that in your old card, your card issuer will transfer more than 100% reward points as well in order to provide you with the equivalent value of points on your new card. Refer to the following table to understand how many reward points are transferred to your new card when you update your Citi Bank Credit Card:

Bottom Line

We hope that now you might have understood how your earned reward points are transferred to your upgraded credit card from your old card. If you are having a credit card from a different issuer, you can check for their terms and conditions on their official website or you can visit the branch and ask the bank officials about the same. Moreover, you must check carefully whether you will be getting an equivalent value of reward points or not and if you think that you are losing some of the reward points on upgrading your credit card, you should consider redeeming your points before proceeding further for the upgrade. If you still have any doubts/queries, you can let us know in the comment section below!