Long post alert!!! Mainly because I included a badly formatted but useful calculator at the end
First of all, I need to caveat that I have both cards. I got the Amazon card as soon it was available, but Flipkart never deemed me worthy of the card till a month or so ago. Second of all, I am a credit card fanatic. If I find a special purpose card, I need to have it. That is how I ended up with the Zomato Edition Card last year. But that is a story for another year.
I got the Amazon card because it just made sense to have it when I was buying most everything online and it especially helped during the lockdown.
Here is a basic table of important features - excluding timebound offers that may crop up now and then
| Amazon ICICI | Flipkart Axis |
Joining Fee/Annual Fee | Free for life | INR 500 each |
Joining benefits | Varies, but it is mostly in the form of discount coupons | INR 500/- voucher for Flipkart on first swipe. Other coupon codes for INR 2K+, but this is main tangible one |
Applicability | Mainly for use on Amazon website @5% for most purchases for Prime members | Benefits accrue in both Flipkart and Myntra at 5% |
Reward modality | Credited at the end of every cycle as Amazon Pay balance | Credited back to the Flipkart Card account as cashback |
Travel cashback | 2% for bookings on Amazon | 5% cashback via Flipkart |
Food ordering | No specific tie up | 4% cashback on Swiggy |
Other expenses | 1% cashback | 1.5% cashback |
Cashback credit | At the end of the CC cycle | One cycle delayed |
Obviously the driver has to be where you spend more money. But if you want to give up the luxury of next day delivery, Flipkart does have most of the same items at the same or lower price than Amazon. As an all round credit card, Flipkart Axis Bank card is better given the points accrual across categories. I also like the fact that the cashback is adjusted against the statement outstanding in Axis Bank, but in case of Amazon, you have to use the cashback on the Amazon website only. In other words, if you spent 10K two months in a row on either website
Your cashback on Flipkart would actually be on INR 20K i.e. INR 1K
On Amazon, you would get INR 500 as amazon pay in the first month, and hence your second month spend on card would be only 9,500/- which means effective cash back would have been INR 975
Effectively Flipkart would be give you 2.5% more cashback over 2 cycles.
I have to say this loud: my credit card issue process back in 2019 for Amazon was seamless. I literally clicked on "Send me the card" and I got the card, since I was an existing ICICI bank customer. Axis Bank was a pain. eKYC did not work so they went back and forth and got my KYC done 3 weeks after my application, and card came a further 2 weeks later.
Here is a basic calculator to compare the two for you to play around with your spends.
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