NEW DELHI: Amazon's Great Indian Festival opens to all customers on 8 October 2026, and Flipkart's Big Billion Days follows a day later on 9 October, with early access from midnight on 8 October. Both retailers have published their dates, card discounts and early deals. Read side by side, the official pages show where the fine print sits.
Dates and who gets in first
On Amazon India's dates page, the festival starts 8 October, with up to 10 per cent extra for Prime members, and its deals page says early deals are already live. Flipkart's Big Billion Days page says Flipkart Plus and VIP members and eligible Flipkart credit card holders get 24-hour early access from midnight on 8 October. The general sale begins on 9 October. So 8 October is the date to watch on both apps.
Flipkart also says selected products go live at sale prices five days before the event, and that it will reveal category deals every hour in a "countdown cheat sheet". It sells "discount passes" too: a nominal advance fee that unlocks extra price drops. The page does not state the fee or what each pass covers, so read the terms before paying.
Cards decide the real price
Amazon's offer is 10 per cent instant discount on SBI credit and debit cards and on credit card EMI. Prime members can add up to 10 per cent in extra savings, and the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card earns 5 per cent unlimited cashback for Prime members and 3 per cent for others. Flipkart's headline is up to 10 per cent instant discount on eligible Axis Bank and ICICI Bank card transactions, plus 10 per cent off a first transaction on Supermoney and a flat Rs 1,000 off on Flipkart EMI. Neither page gives a per-order cap or minimum spend, so the 10 per cent on a Rs 50,000 order may not be Rs 5,000. Check the cap at checkout.
Amazon's own smartphone note shows how prices are built. The OnePlus Nord 6 at Rs 42,999 includes a Rs 2,000 credit card EMI discount. The iQOO 15R at Rs 46,499 comes "after Rs 7,500 off with coupons". The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra at Rs 84,999 includes a Rs 5,000 coupon. These are best-case numbers that need a coupon clipped or a particular card.
Fine print worth reading
Flipkart's early teasers carry asterisks and a terms line. The iPhone 17 is listed from Rs 79,999, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 with a Core i5 chip at Rs 54,990 and the Motorola Edge 70 Fusion from Rs 29,999. Each says terms apply, so treat them as the lowest possible price for one variant, not what most buyers will pay.
On price history, Amazon's pages disagree. The deals page says Rufus tracks 30 to 90 days of prices, while the smartphone note says one month to a year. Open the chart on the product page and see how far back it goes before trusting a "lowest price of the year" label.
Payment mode matters less than it did. UPI stays free for shoppers when the merchant fee begins on 15 October, as our explainer on the PIB and NPCI documents sets out. Flipkart separately lists 5 per cent off digital gift cards bought through UPI.
