Amex Membership Rewards vs SBI Cashback 2026: Points or Cashback?

Amex Membership Rewards and the SBI Cashback Card are aimed at different people. SBI Cashback is simple: 5% on online spends up to ₹2,000 a month, 1% offline, credited automatically. Amex pays in points that never expire and can be transferred to travel partners, but its roughly 2% effective return depends on collecting monthly bonus points, and its annual fee is ₹4,500. For pure rupee value, SBI Cashback wins at every spend level we tested. Amex is for people who value a flexible points currency and Amex dining offers more than raw cashback.

Side-by-side comparison

Feature	Amex Membership Rewards	SBI Cashback
Network	Amex	Visa
Joining fee	₹1,000	₹999
Annual fee	₹4,500	₹999
Fee waiver spend	₹1,50,000/year (check current terms)	₹2,00,000/year
Base reward rate	About 2% effective (1 point per ₹50, plus monthly bonuses)	1% offline
Online shopping	About 2% effective	5% (cap ₹2,000/month)
Exclusions	No points on fuel, insurance, utilities	No cashback on fuel
Reward type	Membership Rewards points, 30 paise each	Cashback, auto-credited
Points expiry	Never	Not applicable
Welcome benefit	4,000 bonus points on ₹15,000 spend in 90 days	None listed
Forex markup	3.5%	3.5%
Lounge access	None listed	None listed
Min monthly income	₹37,500	₹25,000

These figures come from BestCard's latest card data. Check Amex's and SBI Card's current terms before applying.

How the rewards actually work

Amex Membership Rewards

Amex Membership Rewards earns 1 point per ₹50 spent. At BestCard's valuation of 30 paise a point, that's 0.6%. The 2% effective figure assumes you also collect Amex's recurring monthly bonus points, which you get by making a set number of qualifying transactions or hitting a spend threshold each month. Points don't accrue on fuel, insurance or utilities. They never expire, and they can be transferred to airline and hotel partners, where some redemptions may beat 30 paise depending on availability.

SBI Cashback

SBI Cashback pays 5% on online spends at any merchant, not just a list of partners, capped at ₹2,000 a month. That cap is reached at ₹40,000 of online spend. Offline spends earn 1%. Fuel is excluded. Cashback is credited to your statement automatically each cycle.

Worked example 1: ₹25,000 a month

Split: ₹12,000 online, ₹5,000 groceries in store, ₹3,000 dining, ₹2,000 utilities, ₹3,000 other offline.

SBI Cashback

• Online: 5% × ₹12,000 = ₹600
• Offline: 1% × ₹13,000 = ₹130
• Total: ₹730 a month, ₹8,760 a year

Amex Membership Rewards, collecting monthly bonuses

• Eligible spend (excluding utilities): 2% × ₹23,000 = ₹460
• Utilities: ₹0
• Total: ₹460 a month, ₹5,520 a year

Without the monthly bonuses, Amex earns 460 points (₹23,000 ÷ 50), worth ₹138 a month or ₹1,656 a year. At ₹3 lakh of annual spend, both fees are waived under the terms in our data. SBI Cashback is about ₹3,240 ahead even if you collect every Amex bonus. Check SBI Card's exclusion list for utilities and other categories before relying on the 1% figure.

Worked example 2: ₹60,000 a month

Split: ₹25,000 online, ₹10,000 dining, ₹8,000 groceries, ₹5,000 utilities, ₹12,000 other offline.

SBI Cashback

• Online: 5% × ₹25,000 = ₹1,250, under the ₹2,000 cap
• Offline: 1% × ₹35,000 = ₹350
• Total: ₹1,600 a month, ₹19,200 a year

Amex Membership Rewards, collecting monthly bonuses

• Eligible spend: 2% × ₹55,000 = ₹1,100
• Total: ₹1,100 a month, ₹13,200 a year

Without the monthly bonuses, Amex earns 1,100 points a month, worth ₹330. The gap narrows only if you use Amex's up to 20% discount at partner fine-dining restaurants regularly, or get better than 30 paise a point through transfer partners.

Lounge access and travel

Neither card is a travel card. BestCard's data lists no complimentary lounge access on either, and both charge a 3.5% forex markup. Amex points can be moved to airline and hotel partners, which is the closest either card gets to a travel benefit. Amex also has lower acceptance than Visa in India, particularly at smaller merchants, and is issued only in a defined list of larger cities. If lounges matter, look at our best travel credit cards with lounge access.

Redemption: points vs cashback

SBI Cashback needs no effort: the cashback lands on your statement. Amex needs a plan. You either redeem points at a fixed value, or transfer them to a partner programme and look for good award availability. The upside is that Amex points never expire, so you can save up for a specific redemption. Our guide to cashback vs reward points walks through when points are worth the extra work.

Fees and waivers

SBI Cashback costs ₹999 a year, waived at ₹2 lakh of spend. Amex charges ₹1,000 to join and ₹4,500 a year, with a ₹1.5 lakh waiver spend in our data. Amex has also announced that its 50% renewal-fee waiver on ₹90,000 of annual spend ends on 15 November 2026, so confirm what waiver applies to you before you count on it. Amex's 4,000-point welcome bonus on ₹15,000 of spend in 90 days is worth about ₹1,200 at 30 paise a point.

Eligibility differs too: SBI Cashback asks for ₹25,000 a month of income, Amex ₹37,500.

Who should pick which

Choose SBI Cashback if:

• Most of your spending is online
• You want cashback credited automatically with no tracking
• You want the lower fee and lower income bar

Choose Amex Membership Rewards if:

• You want points that never expire and can be transferred to travel partners
• You eat out at Amex's partner fine-dining restaurants
• You'll reliably hit the monthly bonus conditions
• You live in a city where Amex issues the card

Verdict

For straightforward value, SBI Cashback is the better card: it earns more at both spend levels we tested, costs less, and needs no effort. Amex Membership Rewards makes sense as a second card for people who enjoy working with points and want Amex's dining offers and service, but it shouldn't replace a cashback card for online spending.

For more detail, read our Amex Membership Rewards review and SBI Cashback review, or see Amex Membership Rewards vs HDFC Millennia. You can also put both cards side by side on BestCard's compare tool.