IDFC First's second cut of 2026: movie tickets need ₹20,000 of spend, points now expire, and rewards stop at your credit limit

We published IDFC First's April earn-rate cut in July. This is the second wave, and it is the more consequential of the two, because it changes the shape of the reward program rather than its rate. Two independent write-ups, CardInsider on 12 May and LiveMint on 13 May, agree line for line on what follows.

The three changes that hit every card

The credit-limit clause is the one that will catch people out, because nothing about it is visible until it has already happened. If your limit is ₹2,00,000 and you run ₹2,40,000 through the card in a cycle (perfectly possible if you pay down mid-cycle and keep spending), the last ₹40,000 earns nothing. You will not be declined, you will not be warned, and the missing points will simply not appear.

CardInsider lists the credit-limit clause and the movie gate as applying across the IDFC First range, and names the FIRST WOW! specifically for both the credit-limit cap and the 24-month expiry on newly earned points, with existing WOW balances valid till July 2028. Our catalog holds the FIRST Wealth, the FIRST Select and the FIRST Wow, and the universal changes reach all three.

There is a defence, and it is the same one that has always applied: ask for a limit increase, or split high-spend months across two cards. What has changed is that the cost of not doing it is now real.

Points expiry is the end of an era for FIRST Wealth

IDFC First built its reputation on reward points that never expired. From the July 2026 statement cycle, points on the FIRST Wealth and FIRST Millennia expire 24 months after they are credited.

Both sources confirm the transition treatment: balances held as of the July 2026 statement stay valid until July 2028. That is a two-year runway, which is fair as these things go, and it is also two years in which a large accumulated balance has to find a use.

The one clean piece of good news in the whole announcement is on the same card: the FIRST Wealth's 10X rate on dining, travel and international spends now applies from the first eligible transaction, where it previously took ₹20,000 of monthly spend before the higher rate applied at all. That is a genuine improvement for anyone who was spending below the threshold and earning the base rate as a result.

FIRST Millennia's travel bonus is cut

Both sources give the same two figures for the FIRST Millennia's bonus reward points on travel booked through the bank's portal:

CardInsider additionally reports the FIRST Power's travel bonuses at 26.67% on hotels and 13.33% on flights after the change. LiveMint says only that the Power's travel rewards were cut without giving figures, so treat the Power numbers as reported by one source.

The pattern, and why it matters more than the numbers

Look at what the three universal changes have in common. None of them cuts a headline rate. The 10X stays 10X. What changed is that a benefit acquired a spend gate, a reward acquired an expiry date, and earning acquired a ceiling nobody sees.

This is the same design HDFC used on lounge access, IndusInd used on lounge access, and Axis used on milestone eligibility: leave the advertised number intact and put a condition in front of it. A card's marketing page is now a materially worse guide to what the card does than it was two years ago, because the marketing page states the rate and the conditions live in a revision notice.

What to do

If you hold a FIRST Wealth or FIRST Millennia, find out your current point balance and plan a redemption inside the window rather than discovering the expiry in 2028. If you use the movie benefit, it is now worth roughly what a ₹20,000 monthly spend commitment is worth to you, which for many people is nothing. And check your credit limit against your heaviest month.

The points calculator shows what a balance is actually worth across redemption routes, and Polo Match ranks cards on net annual value after the conditions, not on the headline multiplier.