Axis Bank cracks down on customers who gamed its rewards system—even those who left

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A Gurgaon resident was blindsided by an email from Axis Bank demanding ₹23.25 lakh for excess reward points acquired through a loophole. "Since you have redeemed X excess reward points beyond what is rightfully accrued by your transactions, we request you to pay INR 23,25,639 to the Bank as per MITC clause..." The notice was part of the bank’s recent effort to recover rewards points accumulated by some credit card holders through a technical loophole in 2023.

The recipient had closed his Axis Magnus credit card in December 2023, and is no longer a customer—yet the bank is still pursuing repayment Ordinarily, when a credit card transaction is refunded, the reward points earned on that transaction are reversed. In 2023, Axis Bank failed to do this for cancelled transactions. Read this | How small credit card disputes with banks can snowball into major mistrust Some customers exploited the oversight.

They placed high-value orders on e-commerce platforms, earned the corresponding rewards, and then cancelled the orders. Axis Bank refunded the amounts but did not revoke the reward points. Industry experts say reversing points upon refund is a standard practice across all banks.

This glitch persisted for two years before Axis Bank finally fixed it in January 2024, said Sumanta Mandal, founder of TechnoFino, an online platform that reviews banking products such as credit cards. Now, Axis Bank is clawing back the excess rewards. It has begun deducting points from affected customers’ Edge Rewards (ER) accounts.