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Every festive season I get some version of the same question: “which card should I get before the Amazon and Flipkart sales?” And every year my answer disappoints people a little, because it isn’t “get this shiny new card” — it’s “check what’s already in your wallet first.” The card you use at checkout during these sales is, for most purchases, a bigger lever than the sale discount itself. A 10% bank instant discount on a ₹40,000 purchase is ₹4,000 — that’s often more than the difference between “festival price” and “regular price” on the product itself, which is a quieter, harder-to-verify number.
So here’s what I actually found when I went and checked, at source, which banks are real 2026 partners for Amazon Great Indian Festival and Flipkart Big Billion Days — not which ones a comparison site wants you to click on.
Which card gets you the Amazon discount
SBI. Amazon’s own newsroom confirms a 10% instant discount on SBI credit and debit cards, including EMI transactions, for the 2026 Great Indian Festival — on top of up to 10% extra for Prime members, which is a separate benefit layered on top, not part of the bank discount itself. This is the one bank Amazon names in its own announcement, and it’s been the consistent anchor for Amazon’s festive-sale bank offer every year I could check, back to 2023.
I also came across a report of a 10% HDFC Bank offer for 2026, capped at ₹1,500 with a ₹2,000 minimum spend — but that came from a single tech-news outlet, not from Amazon’s own page, so I’m flagging it as unconfirmed rather than treating it as fact. If you have an HDFC card, it’s worth checking the offer banner once the sale is live; just don’t plan a purchase around it based on one article.
There’s also the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card, which gives 5% unlimited cashback — but that’s the card’s standing, year-round co-brand benefit, not a festive-sale-specific instant discount, so it’s a different kind of saving from the SBI offer.
Which card gets you the Flipkart discount
Axis or ICICI. Multiple reputable 2026 sources — Business Today among them — report a 10% instant discount on Axis Bank and ICICI Bank cards for Big Billion Days 2026, citing Flipkart’s own sale page, plus a separate 10% on the co-branded Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card and a 10% first-transaction cashback via Super.money. I want to be precise about the sourcing here: I couldn’t find a Flipkart-owned press release stating these numbers directly — the trail is Flipkart’s live sale page as reported by independent tech and business press, not a Flipkart newsroom URL. Treat it as well-corroborated, not Flipkart-self-published.
During the October 8 early-access window, Flipkart Plus/Premium members reportedly get a boosted 12% instant discount and Flipkart Black members up to 15% — but the same coverage hedges that “the entire 12% or 15% discount may not apply to every product or transaction.” Read that as a real but conditional bonus, not a blanket rate you should assume applies to whatever’s in your cart.
I’m putting Axis front and centre in this piece rather than ICICI for one honest reason on top of the accuracy one: Axis is a card I can actually point you toward here on KnowWiser with a real partnership behind it, so if you’re going to open a new card specifically for this, that’s the one I can vouch for end-to-end. But ICICI genuinely qualifies for the same 10% Flipkart discount — I’m not going to pretend otherwise just because it isn’t one of our own card links.
Which card for which sale — the comparison
| Card | Sale it unlocks the instant discount on | 2026 instant discount | Card type | Eligibility note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBI | Amazon Great Indian Festival | 10% instant discount (Amazon’s own source) | Credit and debit, plus EMI | Cap/minimum: check the offer banner on the actual product page — Amazon hadn’t published 2026 fine print at the time of writing |
| Axis (any Axis card, or the co-branded Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card) | Flipkart Big Billion Days | 10% instant discount; Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card gets its own separate 10% | Credit (Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card is credit-only; plain Axis cards — check with the issuer) | Cap/minimum: check the offer banner — not published for 2026 as of this writing |
| ICICI | Flipkart Big Billion Days (also a standing Amazon Pay co-brand cashback) | 10% instant discount on Flipkart (reported, citing Flipkart’s sale page); 5% unlimited cashback on Amazon via the Amazon Pay ICICI co-brand (year-round benefit, not sale-specific) | Credit (Amazon Pay ICICI); check with the issuer for the Flipkart-side card type | Not one of the cards we earn a commission from on this site — mentioned here because it’s actually relevant, not because we benefit from it |
| HDFC | Amazon Great Indian Festival (reported, unconfirmed) | 10%, reported with a ₹1,500 cap and ₹2,000 minimum — but from one outlet only, not on Amazon’s own page | Credit and debit, per the same report | Treat as unconfirmed until you see it on Amazon’s own listing |
| AU Bank / Kiwi | Neither — no sourced 2026 tie-in to either sale | Not applicable | — | Good general-purpose cards (see the comparison linked below), but not the reason to shop either sale with them |
The three-year pattern (why SBI and Axis aren’t a guess)
I went back through 2023–2025 to see whether SBI-on-Amazon and Axis-on-Flipkart is a one-year coincidence or an actual pattern. It’s a pattern.
| Year | Amazon’s bank partner | Flipkart’s bank partner |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | SBI, 10% instant discount (credit/debit/EMI) — Amazon’s own 2023 newsroom announcement | Axis + ICICI (+ Kotak Mahindra, per one report), 10% instant discount; Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card separately |
| 2024 | SBI, 10% instant discount (debit/credit/EMI) — Amazon’s own 2024 dates page | Likely Axis + ICICI by pattern from adjacent years — I didn’t find a 2024-specific bank-offer source to independently re-verify this one, so hold it a little more loosely than the others |
| 2025 | Reported as SBI-led, consistent with the surrounding years, though I didn’t find a 2025-dated Amazon source specifically to re-check it against | Axis + ICICI, 10% instant discount — consistent with 2026 |
| 2026 | SBI, 10% instant discount (Amazon’s own source) | Axis + ICICI, 10% instant discount, plus the Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card and Super.money |
The takeaway I’d actually stand behind: Amazon’s instant-discount anchor has been SBI every year from 2023 to 2026, and Flipkart’s has been Axis plus ICICI every year in the same window. That’s a real, stable pattern — but “stable pattern” isn’t the same as “guaranteed for next year.” Each year’s terms get confirmed close to the sale, not months ahead, so treat 2026’s numbers above as what’s actually confirmed for 2026, not an extrapolation from history.
The fine print that eats the discount
A flat “10% off” reads very differently depending on what’s capped and what isn’t. Two things to know going in:
- Neither the SBI (Amazon) nor the Axis/ICICI (Flipkart) 2026 offer has a published cap or minimum transaction as of this writing. That’s not the same as “no cap exists” — it likely means the fine print lands closer to the sale date, on the actual offer banner. Don’t assume either offer is uncapped just because no number has surfaced yet.
- Past years had real caps. One ICICI/Flipkart offer I found — dated 2021 on ICICI’s own offer page, since expired — was capped at ₹14,000 per credit card and ₹5,000 per debit card, with a ₹5,000 minimum transaction (₹2,500 for groceries). The reported 2026 HDFC/Amazon offer, unconfirmed as it is, comes with a ₹1,500 cap and ₹2,000 minimum. A 10% badge on a ₹50,000 purchase against a ₹1,500 cap is really a 3% discount — so before you factor “10% off” into a big-ticket buying decision, check the specific cap on the specific offer, not the headline percentage.
Card-type exclusions are also common — historically, offers like this exclude Corporate/Commercial cards, and EMI inclusion varies by bank. Check the listing’s own offer section rather than assuming your card variant qualifies just because the bank name matches.
Should you get a new card just for the sale?
Honestly, probably not — and I say that as someone whose whole beat is helping people pick the right card. A new credit card application is a hard inquiry on your credit file whether or not you’re approved, most of these cards carry a joining or annual fee (SBI and Axis both do, on their mass-market cards — see my AU vs Axis vs SBI vs Kiwi comparison for the exact figures), and approval is never guaranteed regardless of what a listicle implies.
Run the actual maths. If you were already planning to spend, say, ₹30,000 during the sale, a 10% instant discount is worth ₹3,000 — useful money, but it needs to clear the cost of a new card (annual fee, plus the hit to your file from the inquiry) to be worth applying just for this. If you were going to get an SBI or Axis card anyway, sure, time the application to land before the sale. If you weren’t, one October discount usually isn’t a strong enough reason on its own.
If you already hold an SBI or Axis card, there’s nothing to decide — you’re already positioned for whichever sale that card unlocks. If you’re deciding which card to add to your wallet more generally (not purely for this sale), the fuller side-by-side is in my AU Bank vs Axis vs SBI vs Kiwi comparison, and for the sale mechanics themselves — dates, real-vs-inflated discounts, EMI — see the Amazon Great Indian Festival 2026 guide and the Flipkart Big Billion Days 2026 guide.
Where this leaves you
If you’re shopping Amazon this October, SBI is the card Amazon itself names — credit or debit, both work. If you’re shopping Flipkart, Axis and ICICI both genuinely qualify for the 10% instant discount, with Axis being the one I can point you to directly here. AU Bank and Kiwi are decent cards in general, but neither one is the reason to shop either sale — don’t let a comparison site (including, if it ever drifts this way, this one) tell you otherwise. And whatever the badge says, check the actual offer banner on the product page before you buy — the cap and minimum are what decide whether “10% off” is real money or a rounding error.
I checked every figure above against the sources linked in the text on September 21, 2026. Bank tie-ups, caps, and minimums for these sales are typically finalised closer to the sale date, so recheck the live offer banner before you rely on any number here, including mine.