HSBC has announced a number of changes to the HSBC Premier card on January 1st, 2021. Changes are as follows:
- $100 travel credit will be replaced with a credit of up to $400. You’ll receive a $100 credit for every $2,000 spent via the HSBC travel portal.
- Two airport lounge visits will be replaced with unlimited lounge visits for you and a guest
- Addition of Travel Services Medical Protection Insurance (specifics not provided)
- $100 Lyft/Uber credit to be replaced with a $120 Lyft credit
- Surprise Luxury gifts when you spend $50,000, $75,000 and $100,000 annually (up to 3 total gifts)
- Earn 2x points Home & Health purchases, including: groceries, gas, healthcare, and pharmacy (up to a max combined spend of $3,000) from January 1, 2021 through June 30, 2021
Does anyone know what the luxury gifts at $50k, $75k, and $100k are? Just wondering if I should open two cards for wife and I to double the benefits or stick to one to reach the luxury gift spend more quickly.
They renamed it to HSBC Elite (short name) and HSBC Elite World Elite (full name) — no Premier
Garbage, at least I can still top up Uber before the end of the year
What do you mean by top up?
Uber cash
These make a garbage card probably not even worth the signup bonus – 50K pts cashed out at 1.25 gets you $625 vs the $450 annual fee, with a $120 Lyft credit being the only other useful benefit that isn’t cheaper elsewhere.
This seems like a downgrade to me, unless you highly value the lounge visits (and don’t have another card that gives those).
$100 Uber/Lyft credit also worked on UberEats, no minimum spend. New system is $10 off per month that you take 5 Lyft rides, which adds to $120.
$100 airline credit worked on any airline tickets, now you have to spend $2000 through the new Priceline-powered portal just to match that value.
New insurance benefits are probably a plus.
More details: https://www.us.hsbc.com/credit-cards/products/premier-elite/new-benefits/
I’m sure I’ll downgrade after one year as was the plan, shame I won’t get to double the $100 airline and Uber credits across one fee paying year (since the change starts on Dec 31).
Has anyone opened an HSBC Premier credit card after closing their HSBC Premier checking account?
I closed the checking account 8 months ago, but the statements for my HSBC Direct savings account still say “Premier”. Does the Premier status stick around for 1 year or something? And I wonder if that’ll let me open a Premier credit card.
(I actually asked them to close the checking 11 months ago but I kept getting statements for the checking, so I asked them to close it again; after that, I got a statement in the mail saying the account is closed, so I think it’s really closed now.)
You probably can’t get the Premier Elite card in this case. Their site says “To apply for an HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard® credit card, you must have an existing U.S. HSBC Premier checking account relationship.” No existing checking account = can’t apply. Unless savings also counts, but I’ve never used HSBC so idk.
hey be super careful! i closed a large joint MM account, but kept a few other personal ones open (checking, savings, CC). i technically didn’t qualify for top status anymore after that, because of lowered total balances, but they did not automatically downgrade my status. so i was hit with maintenance fees for failing to maintain enough balance to waive them. i had to manually downgrade status through a branch manager (forms were involved), wait for it to take effect, then downgrade the CC (otherwise CC would also charge annual fee for not having status). branch manager said the CC would have to be a ‘cancel and reapply’ process and could affect age of account. i told him i’d do it myself over the phone with CC dept. and it ended up being a normal downgrade, same CC history but new acct #.
based on this, i think it is possible to have a relationship card without the proper relationship type, for a potential fee depending on card level, since you may be considered legacy for your other account like i was.
their depts are really disjointed, so make sure to do things in order. i learned the hard way that some changes are entered, but still need manual review to take effect, so give it time to lock in, otherwise the different depts see conflicting info and will undo each other’s changes. so don’t believe everything you see on their web portal, it’s not necessarily real time with what the rep sees on back-end
hsbc reps have always been polite, despite worse than normal outsource accents. but even with their friendliness and desire to help, their procedures and systems are really stacked against you, so not a pleasant experience at all.
Hmm, how does this affect me if I’m one of those terrorist groups/drug cartels who likes to launder billions of dollars to HSBC while they turn a blind eye?
Maybe try signing everyone up for a card so you can take advantage of the 3 gifts?
Does the lounge access include priorty pass restaurants on this card? I currently only have PP through Amex.
The card gives Lounge Key, rather than Priority Pass membership today. Not clear if that changes.
I hope it doesn’t change. IMO, lounge key is a little better compare to PP.
More details here: https://www.us.hsbc.com/credit-cards/products/premier-elite/new-benefits/
Yes it’s still LoungePass. And yeah this is for the World Elite card with $395 fee not the standard Premier card.
It seems to me that is a positive change. Also, it is only a $95 annual fee if you are not a premier customer, and no annual fee for premier customer. Did I miss anything?
yeah, looks like I mix HSBC Premier World Elite Credit Card with HSBC Premier World Credit Card. My bad
Just to clarify this update is for the HSBC Premier World ELITE Mastercard, and not the regular HSBC Premier World Mastercard Offered to Premier customers
Yes, their naming for these cards is terrible. The WE is the Black lion card versus the ‘regular’ Premier (no fee) is Purple.
Sad, they got rid of the black lion. That was a cool looking card.