The best ever offer for the HSBC +Rewards™ Mastercard® went live today. The card is HSBC’s low interest rewards card now comes with a welcome bonus of 35,000 points and the first year $25 annual fee rebated*. This offer eclipses the previous best offer on this card of 30,000 points with the first year free.
The Welcome Bonus
Here is the simple breakdown of this new offer:
- Earn 30,000 points* when you spend $2,000 within 6 months of account opening ($150 travel value)
- Earn 5,000 points* when you start your application online ($25 travel value)
This offer starts out the same as the previous offering by awarding 30,000 points when you spend $2,000 on the card in the first 6 months but now they have added in an online application incentive. They will award an additional 5,000 points when you start your application online. I put ‘start’ in a bold font as HSBC’s reputation has a lot of people applying online for cards but they end having to complete it in branch to verify income and identification. HSBC has attempted to move away from this with their EasyID feature where you can be verified digitally but I am still receiving word from some of our readers that the bank is requesting applicants to come in.
Why this card?
There are two primary reasons people like to get this particular HSBC card. The first is to build a relationship with the bank when the applicant may not be in the position to apply for the higher end HSBC World Elite Mastercard just yet and second is for the lower full time interest rate. This is the key factor on this card – it is an actual rewards card that comes with set lower interest rates so if you are someone who carries a balance and wants to earn rewards this card is an option. The set interest rate is 11.9% across the board which is roughly 7 to 9% lower than most cards in the market save for those that compete in this low interest space. The only difference in the low interest space is that most of the competitors don’t offer rewards on their cards.
Being a low interest card and an entry level card the rewards are not as rich as what is offered by it’s higher end sibling but they aren’t bad considering what some other entry level cards offer. And to have a welcome bonus that is worth $175 towards any travel with no annual fee on the primary card for the first year is actually kind of unheard of for an entry level lower interest card.
Earning Points
The card earns 2 points per dollar on dining and entertainment purchases which translates to a 1% return when redeeming towards any travel. The rest of the spending on the card comes in at 1 point per dollar or a 0.5% return towards those travel redemptions. Yes that latter earn rate is low but you have to remember the primary reason most people get this card is for that lower interest rate. So there is some give and take here.
Redeeming Points
Once you’ve earned those points they
can be redeemed for any
travel that is booked with any provider. Simply put, you
book the travel
where you want and charge it to your card,
you can then call up HSBC Rewards or go online to redeem
your points against that travel
charge. This is the same feature found on quite a few
cards in Canada that have their own proprietary rewards program. One
thing that does make HSBC’s program different than most of the other
programs is the fact that this is the only way to redeem for travel with
HSBC. HSBC Rewards discontinued their own travel booking service. What
this means is that you can go to any travel provider, be it an airline,
hotel, all inclusive, travel agency, car rental company, you name it,
you book your travel with them. The beauty of this is that you have
complete control and flexibility to book the travel you want, on the
days you want. Once the charge shows up on your account you can choose to pay for a portion of it or all of it with points.
What’s also cool about cards
like this one is you don’t need any points at time of booking as you
have up to 60 days after the charge posts to redeem points against it.
Which means you can actually be travelling and make additional bookings
while away from home and redeem points for it at a later date.
Points can also be redeemed for many other non-travel
items like merchandise, experiences, gift cards, HSBC financial
products and even for any purchases made on the card. HSBC calls this
last option their Cash Back Rebate and that option is 25,000 points for a $75 statement credit.
One more key feature of this card is that it has Price Protection Service. That is if you find a lower price within 60 days of your
purchase, the difference will be refunded, up to $500 per eligible item.
Click here to learn more about and/or to apply for the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard
*Terms and Conditions apply
®/TM Mastercard and World Elite are registered trademarks, and
the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International
Incorporated. Used pursuant to licence
This offer is only available to residents of Canada other than the
province of Quebec (Quebec residents eligible for separate offer). The offer is available for new applications made by October 31, 2022