HSBC’s latest offer for their World Elite Mastercard is now out. This offer is very similar to the offer we saw on the card earlier this year in that a portion of the bonus is based on spending but instead of only 2x points you’ll earn 3x points which means you can get to maximum welcome bonus faster.
A little background on this card – this is not their ‘Premier World
Elite’ which is meant for people who
bank at HSBC but rather this card is for any Canadian and it is
essentially the same as the Premier version. When HSBC launched this
card last year it became obvious they didn’t want to only market
their credit cards to those who bank with them, rather they wanted to
get into the entire lucrative Canadian credit card market. To learn
more about this card outside of this bonus offer I would recommend
reading our review of the card.
From now until December 16th you can apply for the HSBC World Elite Mastercard and
get up to 60,000 bonus HSBC Rewards Points along with having the first
year $149 annual fee waived on the primary card. The bonus is awarded as follows:
- 20,000 Point Welcome Bonus on your first purchses
- Earn 3X points on all purchases for the first 3 months up to a maximum earn of 40,000 Points
The 60,000 points once achieved are worth $300 in travel rewards but
this card isn’t just a travel points card, it is actually a Hybrid Card.
This means points can also
be converted to partners outside of HSBC Rewards. In this card’s case,
they can be transferred to British Airways Executive Club, Cathay
Pacific Asia
Miles or Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. The points convert as follows:
- 2.5 points to 1 Avios
- 3 points to 1.35 KrisFlyer Miles
- 3 points to 1.2 Asia Miles
This means the sign up bonus is worth 24,000 Avios in British Airways’
Executive Club which if you have followed us for sometime now know that
is a good amount for a lot of various redemptions.
Here are some options
to check out
- How to get select Canada to U.S. award flights faster by utilizing British Airways’ Executive Club
- How you can easily get a free flight between Toronto and Dublin, Ireland (pre taxes/fees) or 4 flights for $240+fees
The sign up bonus isn’t the only good feature about this card however.
It is one of only eight cards in Canada that has No Foreign Transaction
fees, it also comes with a $100 annual travel enhancement credit (to use
on bag fees, seat selection etc) and like most World Elite Mastercards
in Canada it has airport lounge access membership via LoungeKey.
Related: No Foreign Transaction Fee Credit Cards for Canadians
Also note the first year free waiver option is not available for Quebec
residents so instead they offer up to 90,000 bonus points for getting
the card and simple holding on to it:
Now we have heard from a handful of our readers who have applied for this card in the past that the credit limits HSBC gives new customers tends to be on the low side which for some can make it difficult to be able to spend enough on the card to max out the spend portion.