HDFC Millennia vs SBI Cashback Card: which should you use?
Quick answer. At Millennia's ten 5% brands — Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato and the rest — SBI Cashback pays the same 5%, because it pays 5% on online transactions generally. What separates the two is the ceiling: Millennia's 5% stops at ₹1,000 of cashback a month, SBI's at ₹2,000 a cycle. Choosing between them, take SBI Cashback; holding both, use SBI Cashback online and keep Millennia for Uber and Cult.fit. Neither is any good abroad.
Based on the two cards' own terms documents, both last checked on 2026-08-16, and on Beni's engine over a modelled ₹5,22,000 of annual spending.
Do Millennia's ten 5% brands beat SBI Cashback?
HDFC Millennia's whole pitch is a list of ten brands paying 5%. Every one of those ten is a place you pay online — and SBI Cashback pays 5% on online transactions generally, without a brand list. HDFC calls all ten of them online merchants in its own terms, and SBI Cashback pays 5% on online transactions and 1% at a Point of Sale. Here is each brand against SBI Cashback, on ₹10,000 of annual spending at each:
| Brand | HDFC Millennia | SBI Cashback Card | Who wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Flipkart | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Myntra | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Tata CLiQ | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Swiggy | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Zomato | 5% | 5% | tie |
| BookMyShow | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Sony LIV | 5% | 5% | tie |
| Uber ◆ | 5% | 1% | Millennia, in our data |
| Cult.fit ◆ | 5% | 1% | Millennia, in our data |
On eight of Millennia's ten brands the two cards pay the same. A brand list negotiated shop by shop is, on these figures, level with a card that negotiated nothing.
◆ The last two rows are the engine's answer, and it may be a data gap rather than a real edge. The card data behind these tables does not record Uber or Cult.fit as online merchants, so the engine scores eight of the ten as ties and hands those two to Millennia. Both issuers' documents point the other way: HDFC lists Uber and Cult.fit among its ten online merchants, and SBI defines offline as Point of Sale, and names no merchants at all — a card payment inside the Uber app is not a Point of Sale transaction. One caution on that: SBI decides what counts as online from the indicator the card network sends, not from a list of shops, so no single merchant can be proven to qualify. If a payment is not flagged online — a gym counter is a plausible case — those two rows would be Millennia wins worth ₹400 a year each.
Three restrictions in HDFC's terms make Millennia's list narrower still, and none is on its product page. Millennia's 5% on Uber covers rides only — an Uber Eats order is not in it. Paying through SmartBuy or PayZapp drops Millennia's 5% to 1% at those same ten merchants. And the 5% is worked out from the terminal and merchant IDs the partner shares with HDFC, and a transaction whose ID is missing from that set-up simply does not qualify.
Do this: if you hold both cards, use SBI Cashback at Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato, BookMyShow, Sony LIV and Tata CLiQ; keep Millennia for Uber rides and Cult.fit until the data question above is settled.
What actually decides it: the monthly ceiling
Both cards run two buckets with separate ceilings. The sizes differ by a factor of two.
| HDFC Millennia | SBI Cashback Card | |
|---|---|---|
| Ceiling on the 5% | ₹1,000 a month | ₹2,000 a cycle |
| Ceiling on the 1% | ₹1,000 a month | ₹2,000 a cycle |
| Hard ceiling across both | — | ₹4,000 a cycle |
| Spending that fills the 5% bucket | ₹20,000 a month | ₹40,000 a month |
Millennia caps that 5% at ₹1,000 a month and its 1% on everything else carries a second ₹1,000 ceiling. On the other side, SBI caps the online 5% at ₹2,000 of cashback per statement cycle, the 1% has its own separate ₹2,000 ceiling, and total cashback in one cycle can never exceed ₹4,000.
In practice: spend ₹20,000 in a month at these shops and Millennia has stopped paying you, while SBI Cashback keeps going to ₹40,000. This is what a comparison of rates alone will miss — the rates are identical and the outcomes are not.
Do this: if you put more than ₹20,000 a month through these shops, the ceiling is the whole decision, and it favours SBI Cashback.
Which card earns more overall?
| HDFC Millennia | SBI Cashback Card | |
|---|---|---|
| Rewards on the spending we model | ₹4,860 | ₹7,980 |
| Annual fee | ₹1,000 | ₹999 |
| Fee waiver in the issuer's own terms | above ₹1,00,000 of spend | none we could find |
SBI Cashback returns ₹7,980 a year on the spending profile modelled here; HDFC Millennia returns ₹4,860 a year on the same profile. These totals come from the category model, which cannot see brand-locked rates like 5%-at-Swiggy — so read them alongside the brand table above, not instead of it.
| Category | Annual spend modelled | HDFC Millennia | SBI Cashback Card | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online Shopping | ₹72,000 | 1% | 5% | 4 points — ₹2,880 a year |
| Streaming | ₹6,000 | 1% | 5% | 4 points — ₹240 a year |
| Dining & Restaurants | ₹60,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Travel | ₹60,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Groceries | ₹1,20,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Transit & Cabs | ₹18,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Pharmacy | ₹12,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Entertainment | ₹18,000 | 1% | 1% | tie |
| Fuel & Petrol | ₹36,000 | 0% | 0% | neither pays |
SBI Cashback leads online shopping and streaming in the category model. Read that as a statement about the model, not about your shopping: the brand table shows both cards at 5% at Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and Tata CLiQ, which are online-shopping merchants; the category model prices them at 1% for Millennia because it cannot see brand-locked rates. Streaming is different — streaming counts because you cannot buy a subscription in a shop. On fuel, both cards earn nothing: SBI pays no cashback at all on fuel, and Millennia earns nothing on fuel, rent, wallet loads, EMI or government payments — both in the issuers' own terms. The nine rows above cover all of it except an "everything else" bucket of ₹1,20,000 where both cards pay 1% and tie.
Why there is no "net after fee" line. HDFC waives the Millennia renewal fee above ₹1,00,000 of annual spend — that is on HDFC's own page, and the profile modelled here spends ₹5,22,000, so a Millennia holder at this level would pay nothing. On the other side, the card data behind these figures records an SBI renewal-fee reversal above ₹2,00,000 of annual spend, but SBI's own terms document does not contain it as far as we could find, so we have not confirmed it. A net figure would therefore lean the wrong way for both cards, and it is left out. The rewards line is unaffected.
Which is better abroad? Neither
Both cards charge a 3.5% foreign-currency markup. The figures here add 18% GST to each card's markup, taking the real cost to 4.13%. After the 1% each earns back, both land at −3.13% on everything spent abroad. On this question the two cards are identical and both are a poor choice — see the guide to foreign transaction costs, where four cards in our data actually come out ahead.
So which one should you use?
- Choosing between them: take SBI Cashback, with one real caveat. It is level with Millennia on eight of the ten brands, its ceiling is twice as high, and its 5% needs no list at all. But its exclusion list is the longer of the two: SBI names thirteen categories that earn no cashback at all, whatever channel you use — fuel, rent, utilities, insurance, education, wallet top-ups, jewellery, railways, tolls, government payments, gift and novelty shops, quasi-cash and digital gaming platforms. Paying those online does not make them 5%. If a lot of your spending sits there, the gap narrows.
- Already holding Millennia: eight of the ten brands are no reason to reach for it over an SBI Cashback in the same wallet. Uber and Cult.fit are the exceptions the data still gives Millennia, worth about ₹400 a year each at ₹10,000 of spend.
- Spending above ₹20,000 a month at those shops: the gap becomes real rather than theoretical.
- Abroad: neither.
Holding both and not sure which to tap at checkout? That is exactly what Beni does — you name your cards, it names the one to use at each shop, ceiling included.
What this comparison leaves out
- The totals ignore brand-locked rates. The ₹7,980-against-₹4,860 figures come from a model blind to the ten-brand rules, which is why the brand table exists. Read both, not one.
- Millennia pays in CashPoints, not rupees: HDFC charges a ₹50 fee each time you redeem them against your statement, with a 500-point minimum; SBI credits its cashback automatically.
- Annual fees attract GST, which the figures here do not add. The amounts actually billed are higher than the ₹1,000 and ₹999 shown when a fee is charged at all.
- Both cards exclude more than fuel. SBI's thirteen categories are listed above. Millennia earns nothing on rent, wallet top-ups and government payments, and since 1 September 2024 education paid through a third-party app earns nothing either — paid directly to the school or college, it still earns. Beni has no categories for most of those, so it cannot warn you there, and every 1% above is a ceiling rather than a promise.
- A typical spending profile is modelled, not yours. Every rupee figure scales with the spending assumed for that row, which is stated in each table. Rates are estimates compiled from each issuer's published terms, and they change.
- This page compares these two, and says nothing about a third card that might beat both — the India data behind it covers 23 cards, not the market.
How these numbers were made
The rates, totals and category figures are Beni's engine output; the caps and the fee-waiver thresholds — ₹1,000 a month, ₹2,000 a cycle, ₹4,000 a cycle, ₹1,00,000 — are quoted from the issuers' terms, and every card name in a table links to the issuer's own page. Where a card's cap is documented it is applied at the spending level shown in that table; both cards' caps are documented, while the ₹4,000 combined ceiling and Millennia's ₹1,00,000 waiver are not modelled at all. Both cards' terms were last checked on 2026-08-16; confirm against your own schedule of charges before relying on this. Full method: how these guides are made.
No affiliate links — Beni earns nothing whichever card you use. Beni is not a bank, takes no payment and never asks for card numbers; if one card wins a row here, it is because the arithmetic says so.
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