AU SPONT Credit Card Review: 1% Cashback on UPI, Capped at ₹500

SPONT fees and charges

Joining and annual fee are the same, ₹299 plus applicable taxes. Add 18% GST and the yearly bill is ₹352.82 (₹299 plus ₹53.82). Neither the card page nor the MITC publish any waiver condition, so treat it as a fixed yearly cost. Add-on cards for family come free.

Does the cashback cover the fee?

At 1%, you earn back ₹352.82 once eligible spends cross ₹35,282 in a year. That's roughly ₹2,940 a month (₹35,282 over 12). Most people using it as their main UPI card clear that without trying, a lighter user may not.

Interest, late fee and cash

Revolving a balance on SPONT means 3.75% interest every month, which adds up to 45% over a year. Miss the minimum due and AU levies 15% of the total amount due as late fee, never below ₹10 and never above ₹1,300, and GST of 18% is added. Take a ₹4,000 bill paid late: the charge is ₹600 before tax.

Cash from an ATM costs 2.5% of what you take out, ₹500 at the least, and interest start from that same day until it's repaid. You can draw cash up to 40% of the card limit. Crossing the limit, which needs your explicit opt-in, is billed at 2.5% of the overshoot with a ₹500 minimum.

Forex, fuel and the fair-usage fees

• Forex mark-up: 3.49% on foreign currency spends.
• Rent within India: 1%, at least ₹99 per payment, and no cashback on it.
• Utility bills: 1% on the part of a month's utility spend above ₹50,000.
• Fuel: from 1 July 2026, the month's entire fuel bill attract 1% once any single transaction tops ₹10,000 or the month adds up to more than ₹25,000.
• School and college fees routed through apps like Paytm or MobiKwik: 1%, minimum ₹99. Pay the institution straight and it's free.
• Transport codes MCC 4111, 4112 and 4784: from 14 June 2026, 1% on all of that month's transport spend when it goes above 50% of the credit limit or ₹25,000, taking the lower; IRCTC is among the exclusions.

The fuel surcharge waiver refunds 1% on fills between ₹400 and ₹5,000, to a maximum of ₹100 per statement cycle. A payment that bounces cost 2% of the amount due or ₹500, taking the higher.

SPONT cashback and coins

The rule is easy to remember. 1% back on e-commerce, card-machine, contactless and UPI payments, whichever UPI app you prefer, with a ceiling of ₹500 per statement cycle. You hit the ceiling at ₹50,000 of eligible spend (₹500 is 1% of ₹50,000), and nothing past that earns more cashback in the same cycle.

Cashback goes onto the statement on the statement date, so it reduce your next bill instead of sitting as points that need redeeming. Fuel, rent, government and education payments, cash withdrawals, EMIs and insurance are left out.

Coins on the AU 0101 app

Paying by UPI from inside the AU 0101 app earns 5 coins per transaction on top of the cashback, and your first UPI payment there brings 500 coins as a welcome. Coins are spent on the AU Rewardz catalogue and never expire. No rupee value for them is published, so the sums below leave them out and count them only as a small extra.

There are no milestone benefits and no reward points on SPONT.

Three worked examples

All three assume one statement cycle per month and only eligible spends, and they takes the yearly fee as ₹352.82 with GST.

Light: ₹10,000 a month

That's ₹1,200 over the year. After the fee, ₹847.18 is left. If 30 of those UPI payments go through AU 0101, you'd also collect 150 coins a month (30 payments at 5 coins each).

Typical: ₹25,000 a month

Cashback is ₹250 a month, or ₹3,000 a year, and you keep ₹2,647.18 after the fee. Fuel earns no cashback but the waiver returns about ₹20 a month (1% of ₹2,000), or ₹240 a year. Three months at this pace is ₹75,000 of spend, well past the ₹50,000 that qualifies you for the 2 airport lounge visits in the next quarter.

Heavy: ₹60,000 a month

Here the cap bites. 1% of ₹60,000 is ₹600 but only ₹500 is paid, so the last ₹10,000 of each month's spend earn nothing. The year gives ₹6,000, or ₹5,647.18 after the fee, plus up to 8 domestic lounge visits (2 a quarter for 4 quarters) since every quarter clears ₹50,000. Above ₹50,000 a cycle, the extra spend is better on a second card.

Who can apply for SPONT

AU's general rules applies here: salaried applicants from 21 to 60 years, self-employed from 25 to 65, resident Indians only, and add-on cardholders older than 18. No income figure is published. AU's listing page says the minimum monthly income is "as specified by the bank", which means you learn the bar only when your application is assessed.

Keep valid proof of identity, address and income ready before you start.

How to apply

Apply online through the Apply Now link on the SPONT page; it opens AU's credit card onboarding portal, where the status can be tracked. Once issued, you get both a physical card and a virtual one. To pay by UPI, add the card in a UPI app as a RuPay credit card, link it to your UPI ID and set a UPI PIN for it.

UPI rules worth knowing

• RuPay credit cards on UPI pay merchants only, so no transfers to friends, no card-to-card and no cash.
• The per-day UPI limit is ₹1 lakh (₹2 lakh for some merchant categories), and it always sits inside your card limit.
• Linking and using the card on UPI is free for you, though merchant surcharges such as on fuel still can apply.
• SPONT takes UPI payments at domestic merchants only.

How AU decides

The RBI's 2025 card Directions makes AU judge your independent financial means and look at the credit limits you already enjoy with other lenders before it sets yours. The RBI fixes no age or income floor of its own. A good bureau score matters: CRIF calls anything above 700 generally good, with scores running from 300 to 900. If AU turns you down, it must tell the reasons in writing, and the approval call belongs only to the bank.

Is SPONT a good fit?

SPONT suits a person who already pay for groceries, chai and auto rides by scanning QR codes and wants that habit to earn something. 1% back on UPI is modest, but it comes without category lists, merchant tie-ups or points to redeem, and it lands straight on the bill.

The sweet spot is between about ₹2,940 and ₹50,000 of eligible spend a month. Below the lower figure the cashback do not cover the ₹352.82 fee; above ₹50,000 the cap stops paying. Anyone in between gets a clean, predictable return, and the cashback simply grows with spend.

Skip it if you want rewards on rent, fuel or insurance, all excluded, or if you travel abroad, where the 3.49% mark-up wipe out the 1% several times over. A heavy spender putting ₹1 lakh a month on one card would find the ₹500 cap leaves half the spend (₹50,000) unrewarded.

AU doesn't publish any insurance cover for SPONT either, so don't count on one. Against other AU cards the trade-off is fee versus simplicity: no waiver, but no features to manage either. For other UPI-first picks see our best credit cards for UPI payments, and for a first card our list of cards for beginners. Very much useful card for small shop payments, honestly, if your monthly spends stay in that band.

SPONT and other UPI cashback cards

Every card here is a RuPay card that works on UPI. The table on this tab sets out fees and caps; below is how they differ when you actually use them.

HDFC Bank UPI RuPay

At ₹99 plus GST, the HDFC Bank UPI RuPay card costs the least of the fee-paying cards here, and it waives that from the second year on ₹25,000 of yearly spend. It pays 3% in CashPoints on groceries, dining and PayZapp and 1% on the rest, yet each rate has a 500-CashPoint monthly cap, worth ₹125 at 25 paise a point (500 times ₹0.25). Each cashback redemption also cost ₹50 plus GST.

HSBC RuPay Cashback

From HSBC's RuPay Cashback card you get 10% back on food delivery, dining and groceries, 1% on the rest, but total cashback stops at ₹400 a month, less than the ₹500 on SPONT. Its ₹499 fee goes away on ₹2 lakh of yearly spend. It wants ₹6 lakh a year of income from salaried applicants and is offered only in listed cities.

Kotak UPI RuPay

The Kotak UPI RuPay card is lifetime free and virtual only, meant for them who already hold a Kotak credit card. Its earn rate is 3 Reward Points per ₹100, which at the 7 paise cash value is ₹0.21 per ₹100, about a fifth of the ₹1 SPONT pays.

Which one to choose

Choose SPONT for a flat rate with a higher cap than HSBC and no per-category limits like HDFC. Choose HDFC UPI RuPay for its ₹99 fee if groceries and dining dominate, HSBC if food is your biggest bill and you meets its income bar, and Kotak only if you already carry a Kotak card and want zero fee. If in-store cashback with an easy fee waiver appeals more, look at the AU Altura Plus, and browse others on our credit cards hub.