Dining Credit Cards Explained: Restaurant Codes, Caps and Discounts
A dining credit card earns more when the merchant's payment code says restaurant, bar or fast food, or when you pay through a partner app such as Swiggy, Zomato or EazyDiner. The headline rates look big, up to 10% on some cards, but monthly caps, shared categories and dine-in versus delivery rules decide what you actually get. This guide explains the mechanics and works through real card terms so you can value a card against your own restaurant bills.
In short
A dining card is worth its fee only if your restaurant and delivery spend is steady enough to use most of the cap, and the card counts the way you actually eat, at the table or through an app.
Best for
- Households with a steady monthly spend on restaurants and food delivery
- Regular Swiggy, Zomato or EazyDiner users who will pay through the partner app
- People who can reach a card's fee waiver with their other spending
Skip it if
- You eat out only now and then, so a fee of ₹999 to ₹2,999 is never earned back
- Most of your food spend is at fast food outlets, which some cards exclude
- You want one card for everything, since dining caps are often shared with other categories
Highlights
- Dining is identified by merchant codes 5812, 5813 and 5814 on most cards
- HSBC Live+ pays 10% on dining, delivery, grocery, shopping and utilities, capped at ₹1,200 a month
- SBI Card PRIME and PULSE give 10 points per ₹100 on dining, worth 2.5% at ₹0.25 a point
- BOBCARD PREMIER and ETERNA exclude fast food restaurants (MCC 5814)
- EazyDiner IndusInd adds 25% off, up to ₹1,000 a bill, through PayEazy
The cards on this page
| Card | Fees | Headline reward | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSBC Live+ Credit Card HSBC India | ₹999 + GST joining and annual | 10% value on dining, food delivery, grocery, shopping and utility spends | Cashback, Dining and food delivery, Groceries |
| HSBC RuPay Cashback Credit Card HSBC India | ₹499 + GST joining and annual | 10% value on dining, food delivery and grocery | Cashback, UPI payments (RuPay), Dining and food delivery |
| Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank Credit Card HDFC Bank | ₹500 + GST joining and annual | 5% value on swiggy app and eligible online merchants and MCCs: Amazon, Flipkart... | Cashback, Online shopping, Dining and food delivery |
| HDFC Bank UPI RuPay Credit Card HDFC Bank | ₹99 + GST joining and annual | 3% value on groceries and supermarkets, dining and all PayZapp transactions | UPI payments (RuPay), Cashback, Groceries |
| Diners Club Black Metal Edition Credit Card HDFC Bank | ₹10,000 + GST joining and annual | Weekend dining at standalone restaurants, Saturday and Sunday, non-EMI, minimum... | Super premium, Premium, Travel |
| EazyDiner IndusInd Bank Credit Card IndusInd Bank | ₹2,999 + GST joining and annual | Hotel and travel booking, shopping and entertainment: 10 Reward Points per... | Dining and food delivery, Online shopping, Reward points |
| Kotak Cashback+ Credit Card Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) | ₹750 + GST joining and annual | 5% value on online food delivery and online grocery | Cashback, Groceries, Dining and food delivery |
| SBI Card PULSE SBI Card | ₹1,499 + GST joining and annual | 2.5% value on chemist and pharmacy, sports, dining and movies | Reward points, Dining and food delivery |
| SimplySAVE SBI Card SBI Card | ₹499 + GST joining and annual | 1.67% value on dining, movies, departmental stores, grocery and supermarkets | Reward points, Dining and food delivery, Groceries |
| SBI Card PRIME SBI Card | ₹2,999 + GST joining and annual | 5% value on birthday spends | Premium, Reward points, Dining and food delivery |
| BOBCARD PREMIER BOBCARD | ₹1,000 + GST joining and annual | 2.5% value on travel, international and dining | Travel, Reward points, Dining and food delivery |
| FIRST Millennia Credit Card IDFC FIRST Bank | Nil joining and annual | 5% value on hotel bookings via 'FIRST Rewards Gallery' in the IDFC FIRST Bank app | Lifetime free, Reward points, Dining and food delivery |
| Platinum Maxima Plus Credit Card RBL Bank | ₹2,500 + GST joining and annual | 2.5% value on dining, entertainment, grocery and international purchases | Reward points, Dining and food delivery, Groceries |
| Airtel Axis Bank Credit Card Axis Bank | ₹500 + GST joining and annual | 25% value on airtel mobile, broadband, Wi-Fi and DTH bill payments via the Airtel... | Cashback, UPI payments (RuPay) |
How a dining credit card earns
A card does not see your meal, it see a code. Every merchant's card machine sends a merchant category code, or MCC, and dining offers are written around three of them: 5812 for restaurants, 5813 for bars and 5814 for fast food. SBI Card PRIME and SimplySAVE count all three, so a quick burger and a long dinner earns at the same rate.
Not every card take all three codes. BOBCARD PREMIER and BOBCARD ETERNA count only MCC 5812 as dining for their 5X and list fast food restaurants (5814) as excluded, while HDFC UPI RuPay names 5812 and 5814 but not bars. If a restaurant puts your bill through a machine with some other code, no dining rate applies, whatever you ate there.
Four ways a card pays you for eating
- Accelerated points on the dining code. SBI Card PRIME and SBI Card PULSE give 10 points per ₹100 on dining, BOBCARD PREMIER gives 10 points per ₹100 on MCC 5812, and IDFC FIRST Millennia 10 points per ₹200 with no annual fee.
- Cashback on a dining bucket. HSBC Live+ and HSBC RuPay Cashback both pays 10% on dining, food delivery and grocery, and Live+ puts shopping and utilities into the same bucket as well.
- Partner app cashback. Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank pays 5% on the Swiggy app, including Dineout, and Airtel Axis Bank gives 10% back on Zomato as credit in the partner's wallet, not as Axis cashback.
- Discount programmes and memberships. EazyDiner IndusInd comes with 12 months of EazyDiner Prime worth ₹3,550 and an extra 25% off through PayEazy, while HDFC Diners Club Black Metal list up to 40% off through Swiggy Dineout.
Dine-in and delivery are not always the same thing
The split between eating at the table and ordering in matter more than people expect. Kotak Cashback+ pays 5% only on online food delivery, and dining at the restaurant earns its base 0.5%. IDFC FIRST Millennia says plainly that its dining 10X includes food delivery. Diners Club Black Metal's 2X is only for weekend dining at standalone restaurants on Saturday and Sunday, so a Wednesday dinner earns the normal rate.
Since 18 June 2026 IDFC FIRST Millennia pays its 10X on dining from the first eligible transaction; before that it needed ₹20,000 of spend in a billing cycle. Changes like this one shows why the date on a card's terms is worth a look.
Working out what a dining card is worth
Start from your real monthly food spend and split it two ways: at the table versus delivery, and inside versus outside the card's partner apps. Then apply the rate, the cap and the value of a point. The caps does most of the work, as the examples show.
Example 1: ₹6,000 a month, ₹3,500 eating out and ₹2,500 delivered
On SBI Card PULSE, if all ₹6,000 bills under dining codes, you earn 600 points (60 x 10), which is ₹150 at ₹0.25 a point (600 x ₹0.25). On Kotak Cashback+ the ₹2,500 of delivery gets 5%, so ₹125, and the ₹3,500 at restaurants gets 0.5%, so ₹17.50, together ₹142.50. On IDFC FIRST Millennia ₹6,000 earn 300 points (30 x 10), worth ₹75 (300 x ₹0.25), but the card cost nothing to hold.
On HSBC Live+ the full ₹6,000 earns 10%, so ₹600, well under the ₹1,200 cap. That looks like a clear win, but the cap is shared with grocery, shopping and utilities, so a family spending ₹8,000 on those already use ₹800 of it (10% of ₹8,000) and leaves ₹400 for food.
Example 2: ₹25,000 a month for a family that eats out a lot
| Card | Dining rate | Before the cap | Cap | Accelerated value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSBC Live+ | 10% | ₹2,500 | ₹1,200 a month | ₹1,200 |
| Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank, all on Swiggy Dineout | 5% | ₹1,250 | ₹1,500 a cycle | ₹1,250 |
| SBI Card PULSE | 10 points per ₹100 | 2,500 points, ₹625 | 7,500 points a month | ₹625 |
| BOBCARD PREMIER, all MCC 5812 | 10 points per ₹100 | 2,500 points, ₹625 | 2,000 points a cycle | ₹500 |
| RBL Platinum Maxima Plus | 10 points per ₹100 | 2,500 points, ₹625 | 1,000 points a month | ₹250 |
How the rows work: 10% of ₹25,000 is ₹2,500, cut to the ₹1,200 cap on Live+; 5% is ₹1,250 on Swiggy Ornge, inside its ₹1,500 cap. The three points cards earn 2,500 points (250 x 10), worth ₹625 at ₹0.25 each, but PREMIER keeps only 2,000 (₹500) and Maxima Plus only 1,000 (₹250). The table count only the accelerated part; where a bank says spend beyond the cap falls back to a base rate, like PULSE, that small extra is left out. The card with the top rate and the card with the roomiest cap is not the same card.
Example 3: a discount on one big bill
A ₹4,000 dinner paid through PayEazy on the EazyDiner app with EazyDiner IndusInd gets the extra 25% off, which is ₹1,000, the most allowed per bill. Two such dinners use the ₹2,000 monthly limit unless you spent ₹30,000 on other things the month before, which lift the limit to ₹5,000. The same ₹4,000 at 2.5% on SBI Card PULSE is ₹100. A discount like this are worth far more per bill, but only at partner restaurants and only up to those limits.
Fees and charges on dining cards
Dining cards sit at every fee level, so the first question is whether your restaurant spend can carry the fee at all. IDFC FIRST Millennia has no joining or annual fee. HDFC UPI RuPay costs ₹99, Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank ₹500, HSBC Live+ ₹999, SBI Card PULSE ₹1,499 and RBL Platinum Maxima Plus ₹2,500, with SBI Card PRIME and EazyDiner IndusInd at ₹2,999, all plus 18% GST. IndusInd also say the actual fee is confirmed when you apply.
Waivers
- HSBC Live+ reverses its fee, GST included, on ₹2 lakh of eligible yearly spend.
- SBI Card PULSE reverses the renewal at ₹2 lakh, and SimplySAVE at ₹1 lakh.
- Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank waives the fee from the second year on ₹1.5 lakh.
- BOBCARD PREMIER waives the first-year fee on ₹10,000 spent in the first 60 days, and later years on ₹1,20,000.
- EazyDiner IndusInd and RBL Platinum Maxima Plus lists no spend-based waiver, so their fee is a fixed cost every year.
To test a waiver, divide it by 12. ₹2 lakh is about ₹16,667 a month and ₹1.5 lakh is ₹12,500, so restaurant bills alone rarely gets you there and the rest of your spending has to go on the same card.
A fee against a light diner
Someone spending ₹3,000 a month at restaurants on EazyDiner IndusInd pays ₹2,999 plus ₹539.82 GST (18% of ₹2,999), so ₹3,538.82 a year. Earning that back need about ₹295 of discount every month (₹3,538.82 divided by 12), and the PayEazy saving only come at partner restaurants.
Other charges that touch dining
- Redemption: SBI Card charges ₹99 plus taxes on statement credit, so redeem PULSE or PRIME points in big lots; HSBC and Swiggy Ornge cashback is credited automatic with no fee.
- Expiry: SBI Card points last 24 months, but EazyDiner IndusInd points expire at the end of every anniversary year.
- Forex: 3.5% on most of these cards, 1.99% on HSBC Live+ and zero on IDFC FIRST Millennia, which matter for meals abroad.
- Interest: 3.75% a month on SBI Card and HSBC Live+ once you carry a balance, which on PULSE is more than its 2.5% dining rate in a single month.
Dining cards in our data, one line each
Grouped by how they pay you. Rates are the dining part only, the card pages has the rest.
Points on the dining code
- SBI Card PULSE: 10 points per ₹100 on dining, chemists, sports and movies, up to 7,500 points a month.
- SBI SimplySAVE: 10 points per ₹150 on dining, movies, departmental stores and grocery, capped at 5,000 points a month, ₹499 fee.
- BOBCARD PREMIER: 10 points per ₹100 on MCC 5812, travel and international, up to 2,000 points a cycle, with fast food excluded.
- RBL Platinum Maxima Plus: 10 points per ₹100 on dining, entertainment, grocery and international, only 1,000 points a month.
- IDFC FIRST Millennia: 10 points per ₹200 on dining including delivery, lifetime free, and no cap published.
- HDFC Diners Club Black Metal: 10 points per ₹150 on weekend dining at standalone restaurants, ₹10,000 fee.
Cashback on dining and delivery
- HSBC Live+: 10% on dining, delivery, grocery, shopping and utilities, capped at ₹1,200 a month.
- HSBC RuPay Cashback: 10% on dining, delivery and grocery, with all its cashback capped at ₹400.
- Kotak Cashback+: 5% on online food delivery inside a 750-point cycle cap; dining in earns 0.5%.
- HDFC UPI RuPay: 3% CashPoints on dining, grocery and PayZapp up to 500 a month, with HDFC valuing a CashPoint at ₹0.25 for cashback.
Partner apps and programmes
- Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank: 5% on the Swiggy app including Dineout, capped at ₹1,500 a cycle, plus Swiggy One for 12 months.
- EazyDiner IndusInd: EazyDiner Prime and 25% off through PayEazy; IndusInd do not state an earn rate for dining.
- Airtel Axis Bank: 10% back on Zomato as partner wallet credit, up to ₹200 a month on orders of ₹499 or more.
How to compare two dining cards
Dining cards differ more in their rules than in their rates, so compare them on how you actually eat, not on the biggest number on the card page.
- Split your food spend. Look at last month's restaurant bills, delivery orders and the app you ordered through. A delivery-heavy month favour Kotak Cashback+ or Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank, and a dine-in month favours code-based cards such as SBI Card PULSE.
- Check which codes count. If you eat a lot of fast food, rule out cards that drop MCC 5814, such as BOBCARD PREMIER and ETERNA.
- Turn the cap into rupees of spend. HSBC Live+'s ₹1,200 cap is reached at ₹12,000 of 10% spend (₹1,200 divided by 10%), Swiggy Ornge's ₹1,500 at ₹30,000 on Swiggy (₹1,500 divided by 5%), and RBL Platinum Maxima Plus's 1,000 points at ₹10,000 (1,000 divided by 10 points, times ₹100).
- See what shares the cap. Live+ put dining in one bucket with grocery, shopping and utilities, and HSBC RuPay Cashback caps all its cashback, the 10% and the 1% together, at ₹400.
- Price the fee honestly. Add 18% GST, and count the waiver only if your whole yearly spend, not just food, reach it.
- Value the programme, not the logo. A membership or a discount is worth something only if the partner restaurants is where you already eat.
Our best dining credit cards page ranks cards against set spend profiles, and the cashback cards guide goes deeper into how shared cashback caps behave.
Mistakes that shrink a dining card's value
- Loading the app wallet. On Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank, Swiggy Money wallet loads and Swiggy Liquor are left out of the 5%, so pay for the order with the card directly.
- Assuming every food bill is dining. Bakeries and liquor shops carry their own codes, and IndianOil HDFC Bank for one lists bakeries and package stores selling beer, wine and liquor among its exclusions.
- Missing the minimum order. Airtel Axis Bank's 10% on Zomato needs an order of ₹499 or more and stop at ₹200 a month.
- Forgetting the weekend rule. Diners Club Black Metal's extra dining points are only for Saturday and Sunday; a Friday dinner earn the base rate.
- Letting points expire. EazyDiner IndusInd points lapse at the completion of every anniversary year, so spend them through PayEazy before the date come round.
- Using a card abroad that stopped paying abroad. HSBC Live+ gives no cashback on international spends since 26 July 2026, and IDFC FIRST Millennia stops points on international spends from 26 October 2026.
- Carrying a balance. A month's interest at 3.75% on a ₹10,000 restaurant bill is about ₹375, more than the ₹250 a 2.5% dining rate earn on it.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Real accelerated rates on a common spend, from 1.25% on IDFC FIRST Millennia to 10% on HSBC Live+
- Partner app cards pay on delivery too, such as 5% on the Swiggy app with Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank
- A discount programme can beat points on a big bill, such as EazyDiner IndusInd's extra 25% off up to ₹1,000
- Some dining cards are cheap or free: IDFC FIRST Millennia has no fee and HDFC UPI RuPay costs ₹99
- Memberships such as Swiggy One or EazyDiner Prime come bundled on some cards
Cons
- Caps are low: RBL Platinum Maxima Plus stops at 1,000 points a month, which is ₹10,000 of category spend
- Shared caps let grocery and shopping use up the dining allowance, as on HSBC Live+
- Some cards exclude fast food (MCC 5814), and Kotak Cashback+ pays only 0.5% on dining at the restaurant
- Partner benefits tie you to one app, and Swiggy Money wallet loads earn no 5% on Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank
- EazyDiner IndusInd has no spend-based fee waiver and its points expire at every anniversary year
Frequently asked questions
How does a credit card know a payment is dining?
Do dining credit cards pay on Swiggy and Zomato orders?
What is the most a dining card can pay me in a month?
Is a dining discount programme better than cashback?
What fees should I expect on a dining credit card?
Do dining credit cards work for restaurant bills abroad?
Related
- Best Dining Credit Cards in India 2026: Restaurants, Swiggy and Zomato
- Cashback Credit Cards Explained: How Caps, Cycles and Exclusions Work
- Reward Points Credit Cards Explained: What a Point Is Really Worth
- Swiggy Ornge HDFC Bank vs HSBC Live+: Which Food Card Pays More?
- Credit Cards in India 2026: Choose by Spend, Know the Costs and Rules
Sources
- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, India (HSBC India): HSBC Credit Card Key Fact Statement
- HDFC Bank: Part I Key Fact Statement cum Most Important Terms and Conditions (MITC), English, Version 4.18
- IndusInd Bank: IndusInd Bank Credit Card Most Important Terms & Conditions (MITC_Premium.pdf, PDF created 13 Oct 2026)
- Kotak Mahindra Bank: Most Important Terms & Conditions and Cardholder Agreement, Retail Cards (English)
- SBI Cards and Payment Services Ltd: Most Important Terms & Conditions (PDF 'MITC- Common-30OCT26', Ver FY 27, 16)
- BOBCARD Limited: Key Fact Statement (KFS), dated 17 Jul 2026
- IDFC FIRST Bank: Most Important Terms & Conditions - Credit Cards (MITC and Schedule of Charges)
- RBL Bank: Schedule of Charges (RBL-CC-SOC-V2-04-06-2026)
- Axis Bank: Most Important Terms and Conditions (MITC), PDF dated 8 October 2026
- Business Today: New rules for Axis Bank credit cards valid from December 20
Last verified: 5 November 2026
Written by Pankaj Pandey, reviewed by BankCreds Financial Experts
BankCreds does not sell cards or take applications. Fees and rewards change; the bank's own terms on the day you apply are what count, and approval is the bank's decision.