Axis Bank ACE Credit Card vs HDFC Millennia

What the numbers don't show

HDFC Millennia's 5% is narrower than its marketing suggests. Under the HDFC T&C of 20 July 2026, the 5% CashPoints rate applies to 10 named merchants (Amazon, BookMyShow, Cult.fit, Flipkart, Myntra, Sony LIV, Swiggy, Tata CLiQ, Uber, Zomato) with a combined cap of 1,000 CashPoints a month. Other spends earn 1%, also capped at 1,000 points a month. The fee is ₹1,000 (waived at ₹1 lakh annual spend).

Axis ACE pays 1.5% on most spends with no cap and a ₹499 fee (waived at ₹2 lakh).

Worked example: ₹10,000 a month spread across the named merchants and ₹20,000 elsewhere. Millennia: 5% of ₹10,000 = ₹500 plus 1% of ₹20,000 = ₹200, so ₹700 a month or ₹8,400 a year. ACE: 1.5% of ₹30,000 = ₹450 a month or ₹5,400. Millennia wins while the merchants are on the list; it caps out at ₹20,000 a month of named-merchant spend (₹20,000 × 5% = ₹1,000). If your online spending is at stores outside the list, Millennia falls to 1% and ACE is clearly ahead.

Millennia also offers a quarterly milestone: on ₹1 lakh spend in a calendar quarter, a ₹1,000 voucher or one domestic lounge visit (not both). Its old unconditional lounge programme was withdrawn on 1 December 2023, so older articles describing "8 lounge visits" are out of date. ACE lists 4 domestic visits a year.

Break-even and ceilings. With the named-merchant share f of your spend, Millennia earns 5%f + 1%(1−f) and ACE a flat 1.5%, so Millennia is ahead only when f is above 12.5% (0.04f = 0.005); at 10% of spend at the named merchants ACE is still slightly ahead, at 1.4% against 1.5%. Millennia also runs into its ceilings: the 5% tier stops at ₹20,000 of named-merchant spend a month and the 1% tier at ₹1 lakh of other spend, so its yearly cashback tops out at ₹24,000 before the quarterly milestone, while ACE has no ceiling on its 1.5%. That is why the table above flips back to ACE for the ₹1.5 lakh a month profile even though Millennia wins the online-heavy ones.

Fees, exclusions and eligibility. Millennia's ₹1,000 fee falls away at ₹1 lakh of annual spend, ACE's ₹499 at ₹2 lakh, so a light spender between the two thresholds pays nothing on Millennia and ₹499 on ACE. Both exclude fuel and rent; Millennia also excludes EMI, wallet and government spends, and ACE from 28 August 2026 pays nothing on tolls or gift cards. The eligibility figures in our data are not from the banks' own documents for ACE (an aggregator's ₹3 lakh a year), and we have HDFC's only from a third-party card portal, so confirm both on the issuers' application pages.

Figures from the issuers' own T&C/MITC as recorded on each card page (checked 30 Oct 2026); sources are listed on Axis Bank ACE Credit Card and HDFC Millennia. Estimates, not offers: terms change, so confirm with the issuer.