Update 4/15/19: Sign up bonus is now 3% cash back on all purchases for the first year. Maximum of $10,000 in spend. Previously you received $150 for spending $2,500. You’re actually worse off than before with this new offer as you need to spend $10,000 to get the full $300 ‘bonus’. If you put that spend on a 2% card you would earn $200 so it’s an effective bonus of roughly $100. Alternatively under the old offer you could have spend $2,500 to trigger the $150 bonus and then put the remaining $7,500 on a 2% card. That would have earned you a total of $337.5
Update 10/23/18: Minimum spend requirement has increased from $500 to $2,500, making this offer significantly worse.
Update 02/14/18: They are no longer offering the 2% rate for the first six months
HSBC has launched a new credit card ‘HSBC Cash Rewards Mastercard‘. Let’s take a look in this quick review to see if it makes sense to apply.
Contents
Card Basics
- No annual fee
$150 sign up bonus after $500 or more in purchases within the first three months of account opening- 0% introductory APR on balance transfers for the first 15 months from account opening
2% cash back on all purchases made within the first 6 months from account opening, after that receive 1.5% cash back- 1.5% cash back on all purchases
- 10% anniversary bonus on all cash rewards earned each year
- No foreign transaction fees
Our Verdict
In terms of cash sign up bonuses, $150 isn’t terrible especially considering the minimum spend requirement is quite low. I’m not sure if you receive the 10% anniversary bonus on the sign up bonus as well (even after reading all the fine print), that would make the bonus $165 instead of $150. The card doesn’t make much sense for everyday spend even with the 10% bonus as it would be earning at a rate of 1.65% and there are much better cards out there for every day purchases.
For the majority of people there are much better sign up bonuses available, but if you’re already hitting limits with the other card issuers and you can make use of the 2.2% cash back for the first six months then the card could be useful. Obviously this depends on what sort of approval criteria HSBC has and what sort of credit limits they offer. If you have any information regarding HSBC and their credit cards, please let us know and we will do a dedicated post regarding them.
Hat tip to RedditWing7 on /r/churning
Avoid HSBC at all costs. I ended up losing much more than the measly $100 higher reward than other cards. Paid via Square for something that never arrived. It took so long for HSBC to talk to Square that it’s past their return window, and neither of them is willing to pursue this further, even after I found out that I met a professional scammer and have reported to the police. In the end I told them this would be the last charge to my card, and they happily said ok.
IF interested, it looks like you can go through Swagbucks to earn $15 through them.
Applied and was approved last April. Just received the 10% anniversary bonus on my initial $150 sign-up bonus.
Applied & immediately approved $9500 line at 15.24% inquiry Equifax, existing customer with checking and savings.
For those new to HSBC and who did not open an in-person account, a helpful hint: if your brand new CC starts getting declined for no reason, you need to call their oh-so-helpful security center to verify your identity. Half the time you call in, the clueless overseas CSRs will claim nothing is wrong so you need to instruct them to specifically check if there’s a security hold on your account. They will then give you the number in Buffalo, NY to call (716-something; my apologies, I don’t remember anymore). Note: they are only open from 8am to 5pm EST. It used to take a week of calling and an average of 2 hours on hold, but is now much better taking only 40 minutes at most (as of a month ago). And, no, no amount of complaints and screaming will get anyone else to budge on this – that office is the ONLY one you can talk to. You are much more likely to succeed if calling right at opening (but not before since it transfers overseas and not late, since they simply hang up at the 5pm cutoff). Once you get ahold of the security people, they will instruct you to send an unencrypted email (or fax) with a copy of your driver’s license and utility bill to them. They are very picky about which docs they accept so I just send two bills with my address to be sure. After this, it usually takes 1-2 days to unlock your account but occasionally you need to call in again about this. Sincerely, HSBC veteran.
PS: These instructions should be pretty much mandatory on any post relating to HSBC USA. My story can be found at https://data.consumerfinance.gov/dataset/HSBC-Complaints/6shc-s32f, Complaint ID3106453. Have fun!
They actually changed three cards together:
HSBC Cash Rewards Mastercard® credit card
HSBC Platinum Mastercard® with Rewards credit card
HSBC Advance Mastercard® credit card
The Advance deal seems significantly worse now. I got in on it when it was get 25k points ($250) for $1500 in spend.
Good for you. I applied last week but I’ve not received the card yet. I was actually not sure what was the offer attached to my card now.
What changed with the other cards?
It used to be 15000 points after $500 spend for HSBC Platinum Mastercard® with Rewards credit card and 25000 points after $1500 spend for HSBC Advance Mastercard® credit card. Now all three have the 3X points structure for the first 10k or so.
Ah good to know, thanks
Anyone able to hold 2 of these cards simultaneously?
Remember hsbc doesn’t report to transunion. Their approvals were extremely easy. Lol/24 aaoa under a year (before I know about 5/24).
Max 2 hsbc accounts per person
Easy to approve but very stingy with credit line. Customer service is based in India. Their online account management is stuck in the 2010.
The public offer got worse (higher minimum spend for the bonus): “$150 cash back after spending $2500 or more in the first 3 months”
When did this happen? Was gonna sign up last night but was too tired, now I check today and I see they changed this : /.
In case this helps, I just got a targeted bonus offer from HSBC that includes the 2% introductory cash back + $150/500 in 90 days offer.
Quick online approval for a $4,250 credit limit at 18.49% APR.
For what it’s worth, a $150 return on the $500 of forgone spend toward other bonuses seems hard to beat. The only better I’ve seen is $200 for $500 in 90 days so I’d think this would be a no-brainer to apply for? Unless the additional inquiry is the concern?
Won’t know about he inquiry until I get an updated credit report.