What Changed

Corrected reward caps, merchant/payment-route assumptions and several fee/points mismatches. Insurance guide now includes worked premium-payment examples and checkout-fee arithmetic. MakeMyTrip broad-category estimates are withheld pending its complete earning-table review; the product review remains available. These are editorial/model corrections, not a claim that every issuer changed terms in October.

Added Tax Year 2026–27 salary estimates under the Income-tax Act, 2025, while retaining AY 2026–27 for earlier income. Period-specific deduction labels, official sources and regression tests accompany the selector. Scope remains ordinary salary for a resident individual below age 60, up to ₹50 lakh; special-rate income and filing adjustments are outside this model.

Corrected AY 2026–27 rebate/marginal-relief arithmetic, FD purchasing-power calculations, above-limit insurance claim display, and SIP effective annual-rate and inflation assumptions. Added regression tests.

Added distinct worked examples and decision steps to 24 existing non-card guides. Rebuilt 15 static comparisons with source links and explicit scenario scope; removed unsupported performance, premium and coverage winner claims. Preserved existing URLs.

Separated a recorded issuer-source review from calculation readiness. Products with incomplete reward models are excluded from numerical rankings; a source link alone no longer qualifies a card. Examples remain merchant-eligibility dependent, not personalized application advice.

Replaced unsupported homepage reward-rate claims with issuer-linked examples and explicit spend/redemption assumptions. Removed the stale June ticker items, duplicate brand suffixes in page titles, and blanket sitemap modified dates that overstated content freshness.

Added worked loan examples for fee-adjusted personal-loan cash flows, home-loan rate changes and education-loan moratorium interest. Added HRA and tax-saving deduction examples, and clarified the AY 2026–27 / Tax Year 2026–27 transition, including section 123 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. Examples state their assumptions and link to official guidance where applicable.

At this September checkpoint, 58 of 76 records had a source link and review date; 18 remained pending. This historical count is not today's coverage or a claim that all fields were verified. Subsequent field corrections are recorded in October; source review and calculator readiness are separate.

Earlier audit work covered selected Axis, HDFC, Scapia and Standard Chartered records and Vistara naming. The original 'full data refresh' wording overstated coverage; field-level review continued in September and October. This entry preserves the earlier audit checkpoint, not a complete current-terms certification.

RBI repo rate at 5.25% (held Jun 2026). Home loan rates dropped ~125bps — SBI now ~7.25%, HDFC ~7.75%. FD rates down ~50bps across banks. Learn pages updated.

Budget 2025 slabs confirmed unchanged in Budget 2026. New regime ₹12.75L tax-free (salaried). Learn/tax hub recomputed.

Major devaluation effective Apr 12. 10% limited to Zomato/Blinkit/District only (was dining/groceries/utilities). Each partner capped ₹200/mo, min order ₹499. Lounge access discontinued.

Transfer partners reshuffled Apr 2. Qatar Airways, Marriott Bonvoy, Accor removed. New partners (BA Avios, Vietnam Airlines, Finnair) at worse 2:1 ratio. Magnus lounge capped at 8 intl/year.

The earlier notice combined unsupported closure dates and replacement-card pricing. September migration terms now establish phased-out status for the original card; BLCK and ORNGE have separate prices, minimums, caps and migration offers. Use the variant-specific reviews rather than the earlier notice.

The earlier notice incorrectly treated rewards exclusions as proof of lounge-spend exclusions. These are separate programmes. Current Federal-card earning and redemption rules are linked from the review; airport-privilege qualification must be checked separately.

Lounge reduced to 1 domestic/quarter (was 4). International lounge access removed. Spend conditions added.

Total cap reduced ₹5K→₹4K per cycle. Sub-caps: ₹2K online + ₹2K offline. Digital gaming, tolls, govt transactions excluded.

Effective cashback rates verified from bank product pages for HDFC, SBI, ICICI, Axis, and other banks. Cap calculations confirmed.

Database expanded from 25 to 75 cards covering 18+ banks. New cards include Axis Magnus, HDFC Tata Neu, Scapia, HSBC Live+, Amex MRCC, and more. All marked as unverified — verification ongoing.

Premium variant of HDFC Swiggy card added. 10% on Swiggy, 5% on travel/online/entertainment. Swiggy One BLCK membership included.

An older review used higher effective-value figures without separating redemption routes. The current card record distinguishes eligible travel redemption from lower-value statement cashback and notes that new Regalia sourcing is discontinued.

Monthly cashback cap is ₹500 on accelerated categories (5% bills + 4% food). After cap, accelerated drops to 0%. Base 1.5% is uncapped.

Confirmed: 5% Prime, 3% non-Prime, 2% Amazon Pay partners, 1% other. No monthly cap. Lifetime free.

Scapia Federal was added to the catalogue. The original broad travel/dining and 'everything else' percentages have been withdrawn: the current review separates eligible Visa, RuPay and app-booking routes, excluded categories, redemption fees and spend-conditioned airport privileges.

Changes effective from April 2026: lounge access removed; Zomato, Blinkit and District Movies moved to separate 10% partner-wallet value back (up to ₹200 per partner/month). Airtel Thanks bill cashback remains 25%, capped at twice the eligible 1% base cashback earned in the same statement month; the cap is not a fixed ₹250 amount.