Review of ICICI/Jet Airways Sapphiro Credit Cards

ICICI bank has made amendments to its current set of ‘gemstone-card’ offerings. This includes Coral, Rubyx & Sapphiro. Coral is the basic gemstone card, Rubyx lies in between with lesser joining fee & Sapphiro is the best in class gemstone card that ICICI has to offer.

The changes were well received and ICICI has made two variants of the Sapphire card. One with American Express & the other with Visa.

You can apply for both by simply ticking one checkbox in the application & both the cards would be sent together. The American Express (Amex) version has a slightly better reward structure.

This card comes with another popular cobranded variant, the Jet Airways ICICI Sapphiro Credit Card. This one gained popularity as it gave 10,000 points as signup bonus & a chance to earn up to 10,000 points. This too offers both Visa & American Express Option. 

What Makes it Special?

This is the only card in India that to have complimentary railway executive lounge access. It is currently active only in a couple of cities but a useful feature nonetheless.

Both the variants of Sapphiro Card (normal & Jet Airways co-branded) come with a welcome benefit of Rs 10,000 worth of shopping, travel & dining vouchers or simply jet airways mileage points aka JP Miles. 

Another pleasant thing about this card is DragonPass that allows you complimentary lounge access & two free spa sessions in select Indian airports. The lounges can only be accessed twice internationally in a year, one of the setbacks for international travellers.     

The best part & possibly the thing that you would end up using most often is their BookMyShow deal. They offer 1-on-1 on movie/event tickets so you have to buy only one ticket & you can avail upto Rs 500 off on the second ticket. Not only that,  this is a big sweetener, you can use this twice a month. SBI Elite Credit Card restricts it to one free ticket per month & there’s no better card for movies than ICICI Bank Sapphiro Credit Card.

The Benefits In Detail

1. Welcome Benefit worth Rs. 10000 in shopping, travel & dining vouchers.

2. The reward system is linked to Payback. You get 4000 Payback points on spending Rs. 4,00,000 & 2000 points every time you spend over Rs 1,00,000 thereafter in a year. 

3. 2 complimentary International lounge visits & 2 complementary spa sessions in select Indian airports, all powered by DragronPass Membership. This card is very similar to Priority Pass offered by HDFC.

4. Two complimentary tickets worth Rs. 500 every month; valid as a one-on-one offer.

5. 4 complimentary golf sessions every calendar month if your spends are upwards of Rs. 50,000 in the previous month.

6. The foreign markup fee is 3.5%; something that’s a tad higher than the other premium credit cards.

Here’s a list of joining vouchers that you will receive:

Shoppers stop vouchers worth Rs. 3000

Yatra Vouchers worth Rs. 4000 (Four vouchers worth ₹ 1000 each)

Ola Vouchers worth Rs. 1000 (Four vouchers worth ₹ 250 each)

Vouchers from Specialty Chain of Restaurants worth Rs. 1000

Croma Voucher worth Rs. 1000

Reward Points

Here’s the difference in reward points for Visa/ MasterCard & American Express Sapphiro Card/  Jet Airways Sapphiro Card

Pricing

1st-year fee: Rs. 6500 (they were offering a 50% discount until recently) Renewal fee: Rs. 3500 (waived off if you spend over Rs. 600000)

Overall this card fares well for someone who travels domestic frequently using both trains & flights and frequently splurges on movies, shopping & dining. The reward system is linked to Payback something that might give you exposure to most of the brands but, the cashback points are still not at par with what other players are offering

If you want to compare this with other elite Credit Cards of India, read up my next blog - Finally, here are the most elite Credit Cards in India.