I wanted to know if a week of work travel could run on nothing but QRs. Not the big malls with polished counters—real stops: breakfasts, chemists, salons, small cafés, corner stores. Kiwi provides a RuPay Credit Card that you can link to UPI in the Kiwi app and use for transactions. I’d used credit cards before; this wasn’t my first. But plugging one into UPI through Kiwi changed the way I moved.
Monday, Ahmedabad
A tiny breakfast shop, a bottle of water from a convenience store, a pharmacy stop. Every counter had the same quiet confidence—a QR stand. I scanned, chose the UPI Credit Card route, and moved on. In the Kiwi app later, the day’s trail was neat, the spends living on one cycle instead of nipping at my bank balance.
Tuesday, Jaipur
A craft market with stalls that preferred QR over everything else. Most vendors accepted credit via UPI. When they didn’t, the screen showed no credit option, so I paid from my bank account. Lunch at a family café, a ride back past Hawa Mahal, a snack from a cart. My running total felt like a story I could read.
Wednesday, Mumbai
Between meetings, street-side sandwich, then coffee at a chain with a QR by the register. No one reached for a POS machine. I scanned, confirmed, done. That night, the Kiwi view showed clean rewards stacking on eligible spends—real cashback I could later withdraw. Alongside the ones that wouldn’t earn (utilities, tolls, fuel, government payments, the usual exclusions). Knowing the edges made the middle of the journey simpler.
Thursday, Pune
A quick salon trim, tea, and groceries for a late meeting spread. The rhythm stayed the same: QR on the counter, UPI Credit Card selected, a line on my statement. Big stores were no different; a couple of national chains had a QR near the cashier. When I stopped for fuel, I didn’t expect cashback, but the fuel surcharge waiver applied within the eligible band.
Friday, back home
Four cities filed under one week in the Kiwi app—Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune—like chapter headings. The comfort wasn’t about saving seconds at the counter. It was about not second-guessing money in a week that already asked a lot. The card I used via Kiwi is lifetime free, which took the edge off the idea of “keeping a card for convenience.” I noticed the Kiwi Neon upgrade for people who want to chase higher milestone-based cashback (₹999 per year with step-ups at ₹50k/₹1L/₹1.5L and lounge access). I kept my usual plan; the point of this trip wasn’t to optimise—it was to see if QR rails could carry me. They did.
What I learned (and what stayed true)
Your new RuPay Credit Card via Kiwi can be linked to UPI and used to scan QRs across merchants. Most accepted credit-on-UPI; a few had it disabled on their QR. Rewards were paid in real cashback on eligible everyday offline UPI spends; excluded categories such as utilities, government payments/taxes, fuel, jewelry, transport tolls/fees, and certain professional/business services didn’t earn cashback. The fuel surcharge waiver applied on eligible fuel transaction amounts. Kiwi wasn’t my first credit card, and that mattered—this was an addition to a habit I already had, not a shortcut around it.
