Compare YES Marquee vs ICICI Emeralde Private Metal: Find Your Premium Companion

Choosing the right premium credit card depends largely on your lifestyle, spending habits and the kind of privileges you value the most. YES BANK Marquee Credit Card and ICICI Bank Emeralde Private Metal Credit Card are two high-end cards designed for affluent customers, offering a host of luxury benefits, such as unlimited lounge access, exclusive rewards, golf privileges, and more. While both cards are packed with features tailored to meet premium lifestyle needs, they differ in terms of eligibility, reward structure, annual fees, and the focus spending categories.

Here’s a detailed comparison of YES Marquee and ICICI Emeralde Private Metal to help you understand how they stack up against each other across key parameters, like fees & charges, reward programs, travel benefits, lounge access, and other lifestyle privileges.

Eligibility Criteria

ICICI Bank Emeralde Private Metal is offered by invitation only as per the customer’s profile. Interested customers can also contact their designated relationship manager for assistance. In contrast, YES BANK Marquee comes with a defined eligibility criteria under which the applicant must be 21 to 60 years old and have a min. Rs. 3 lakh per month net salary or min Rs. 36 lakh ITR.

Both cards cater to customers with a higher net worth. Here, Emerald Private Metal card is an invite-only card, so it has a comparatively higher focus on exclusivity and aims to provide a premium range of benefits to the cardholders.

Fees and Joining/Renewal Benefits

The joining and annual fees, along with the forex mark-up fee charged by both the credit cards are given below:

Joining/Renewal Bonus

YES Marquee Credit Card:

• 40,000 YES Rewardz Points and ETPrime subscription voucher worth Rs. 4,500 on joining fee payment
• 20,000 YES Rewardz Points on renewal fee payment

ICICI Emeralde Private Metal Credit Card:

• 1 year Taj Epicure membership on joining
• 1 year EazyDiner Prime membership and 12,500 reward points on joining/annual fee payment

Here, both the cards come at high annual charges, though the ICICI Bank credit card variant truly falls under the premium category. Though the higher charges can be avoided in case of ICICI card by meeting the spending condition for fee reversal. No such option is provided to YES Marquee’s users. When it comes to the welcome bonus, both cards offer benefits beyond their joining fee, and ICICI Emeralde Private Metal follows the same trend for its renewal bonus by offering the EazyDiner Prime membership in addition to the reward points worth its fee. Another fee type in focus here is the forex mark-up on international transactions. Both cards offer a lower mark-up than the standard 3.5%, but the YES BANK credit card takes the lead here by charging 1% less than the other.

Rewards Program

Reward Benefits of YES BANK Marquee Credit Card:

• 36 YES Rewardz Points per Rs. 200 spent online
• 18 YES Rewardz Points per Rs. 200 spent offline
• 10 YES Rewardz Points per Rs. 200 spent on other categories, including utility bill, education, insurance, etc.
• 1 YES Rewardz Point = Up to Rs. 0.25

 Reward Benefits of ICICI Emeralde Private Metal Credit Card:

• 12X rewards on hotel bookings and 6X rewards on flights/vouchers through iShop
• 6 reward points per Rs. 200 spent across categories, including grocery, education, insurance and utility.
• 1 Reward Point = Up to Rs. 1 (Rs. 1 for flights, hotel and select brand vouchers; Rs. 0.6 for rewards catalogue and Rs. 0.4 for statement credit)

Both the cards have starkly different reward structures with a focus on distinct spending categories and varied reward redemption values. On one hand, YES Bank Marquee offers accelerated value-back of 4.5% on online spends and 2.25% back on offline spends with a lower reward redemption ratio of 4:1. This percentage falls even lower to 1.25% for other select categories. On the other hand, the ICICI Bank counterpart has a strong focus on travel savings through its iShop platform and 1:1 rewards redemption ratio against travel and select brand-based redemptions. With the base reward rate of 3% and higher rate of up to 36% on hotels and 18% on flights on iShop, this card maintains a strong lead between the two. However, this value-back rate decreases on non-travel redemptions.

Complimentary Airport Lounge Access

• Domestic Lounge Access: YES Marquee offers up to 24 visits per year, max. 6 per quarter, on spending Rs. 1 lakh in the previous quarter, while ICICI Emeralde Private Metal offers unlimited visits per year.
• International Lounge Access: Both the cards offer unlimited visits every year
• Guest Visits: YES Marquee offers 2 visits per quarter to domestic lounges and 4 visits per year to international lounges. No such free guest visit is offered by the ICICI card variant.

YES Marquee and ICICI Emeralde Private Metal both offer unlimited international airport lounge access to the cardholders. This balance is, however, disturbed when it comes to domestic lounge and guest access. While ICICI card variant maintains the unlimited access to domestic lounges for cardholders, the YES BANK credit card limits this number to 6 visits per quarter and adds a spending condition to avail this feature. Nevertheless, this spending limit would be manageable for most card users. Here, the complimentary guest visits to airport lounges pose a major point of difference between the two cards as only YES Marquee offers this facility for both domestic and international lounges.

Other Features and Benefits

Some of the major features and benefits of Marquee and Emeralde Private Metal, apart from rewards, airport lounge access and joining bonus, are given below:

Common Benefit Categories

Golf Benefits
YES Marquee comes with up to 12 free golf lessons per year, max. 1 per month, and 4 green fee waivers at select golf courses in India. On the other hand, ICICI Emeralde Private Metal comes with unlimited golf games every year.

BookMyShow Discount
YES Marquee comes with the offer of buy 1 get up to Rs. 800 off on the 2nd movie ticket, thrice a month, and ICICI Emeralde Private Private Metal extends the offer of buy 1 get up to Rs. 750 off on the 2nd ticket, twice a month.

Other Features of ICICI Emeralde Private Metal

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, ICICI Emeralde also offers the following features to the cardholders:

• Dining Offers: Discount offers at partner restaurants under Culinary Treat program
• Milestone Bonus: EaseMyTrip air travel voucher worth Rs. 3,000 each on reaching Rs. 4 lakh and Rs. 8 lakh annual spends
• Travel Cancellation Cover: Cover for the first 2 cancellations of domestic flight/ hotel/ movie worth up to Rs. 12,000 combined.
• Concierge Services: 24X7 concierge services through i-Assist

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How to Choose Between YES Marquee or ICICI Emeralde Private Metal?

Both of these credit cards are for high-earning individuals and offer joining and renewal bonus, reward points, unlimited airport lounge access, complimentary golf benefits and discount on tickets booked on BookMyShow. However, there are certain marked differences in their features and benefits that makes them suitable for different customer segments.

Choose YES BANK Marquee Credit Card If:

• You earn a min. monthly salary of Rs. 3 lakh or have an annual ITR of min. Rs. 36 lakh 
• You prefer a lower annual card fee, but still wish to avail good premium level benefits 
• You frequently shop online and want higher savings on all online spends, irrespective of any spending category, like travel, dining, etc.
• You want a card with complimentary guest access to domestic and international airport lounges
• You often make international transactions and hence want a card with lower forex mark-up fee
• You enjoy perks like free golf lessons and oftentimes go out to watch movies
• You want a card suited for general lifestyle and travel-related spends with flexible rewards redemption

Choose ICICI Bank Emeralde Private Metal Credit Card If:

• You are looking for an exclusive, invite-only premium credit card with a focus on high-net-worth customers
• You are a high spender and can meet the fee waiver spending condition
• Your spending is heavily travel-oriented, especially on hotels and flights, and you can maximise travel savings through iShop
• You value premium dining offers, milestone bonuses, and travel cancellation insurance benefits
• You want unlimited complimentary domestic and international airport lounge access
• You seek higher value-back through rewards and can make the most of this benefit by redeeming the regards against travel bookings or brand vouchers
• You prefer a card that combines luxury lifestyle privileges with strong travel-related savings