HSBC Platinum Visa

[halogen]

Hi all

Haven't seen this posted anywhere on AFF yet.

HSBC Platinum have recently added Velocity to their reward schemes.

If anyone is on the same boat as me, running the Citibank Signature and American Express Platinum Edge, you may be missing rewards on some transactions like insurance / council rates / ATO payments.

The transfer rate isn't great, $1:0.5 Velocity points, as I prefer KF miles, this is again further devalued, but its free for life at the moment and at least I get something from otherwise dead transactions.

Anyone have the card at the moment and care to confirm my thinking around eligible transactions (insurance / council rates / ATO payments)?

Anyone else have better suggestions to grab points off the above transaction types? I'm not sure if they were eligible for citi reward points, their points system and balances always confused me.

Links below.

https://credit.hsbc.com.au/ccol/rewardsite.html#/rewards/category/5

https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Specials/CreditCards/hsbc-specials/

 

[Mark3000]

I thought citibank signature did pay points for council rates

 

[shifty]

Citibank paid on my council rates and also on insurance premiums last month. Are you just reading the t&c's and assuming?

 

[halogen]

Citibank paid on my council rates and also on insurance premiums last month. Are you just reading the t&c's and assuming?

I haven't had any experience with council rates as I just bought my first home but good to know that citi still pay on these.

Out of interest, how do you tally the points? Just via the statement at the end of the month?

 

[eckorock]

Just out of interest, has anyone worked out whether its better to keep the HSBC rewards points or transfer them into Velocity points?

current rate is 1.15 Velocity points for every 2 HSBC Points

 

[eckorock]

Just out of interest, has anyone worked out whether its better to keep the HSBC rewards points or transfer them into Velocity points?

current rate is 1.15 Velocity points for every 2 HSBC Points

Not sure if someone added this elsewhere, but just ran the numbers on this one, re : converting HSBC points to Velocity (2:1.15)

From on the rewards page,

HSBC Rewards, $50 Myer/DJ Gift Card : 10,000 pt
Velocity Rewards, $50 Myer/DJ Gift Card: 9,000 pt

so if you transfer 10,000 HSBC pts ($50 real store dollars) becomes 5,750 Velocity pts, ($31.90 real dollars)

big loss on my calculations, your points are losing 64% of their value.

Conclusion : Far better off keeping the points in HSBC Rewards scheme.

 

[JohnK]

That's assuming you want to redeem HSBC rewards points for gift cards which is poor value.

Not sure what a business class flight one-way SYD-LAX costs but I think it's 92,000 Velocity points + a few dollars in surcharges. So 20,000 HSBC rewards points could be $100 in gift cards or ~11% towards that flight. I guess that's another way of looking at it.

 

[eckorock]

That's assuming you want to redeem HSBC rewards points for gift cards which is poor value.

Not sure what a business class flight one-way SYD-LAX costs but I think it's 92,000 Velocity points + a few dollars in surcharges. So 20,000 HSBC rewards points could be $100 in gift cards or ~11% towards that flight. I guess that's another way of looking at it.

true , i just tried to pick an apple-apple way of comparing it , but yeah, it would be good to run a bunch of other comparisons like you mentioned.

 

[eckorock]

That's assuming you want to redeem HSBC rewards points for gift cards which is poor value.

Not sure what a business class flight one-way SYD-LAX costs but I think it's 92,000 Velocity points + a few dollars in surcharges. So 20,000 HSBC rewards points could be $100 in gift cards or ~11% towards that flight. I guess that's another way of looking at it.

Melbourne - LA , 10th May 2016 , example flight i pulled up is $759.28, or 66,600 pt
so 20,000 HSBC points could get you 11,500 velocity points, versus $100 as a gift card

the 11,500 velocity points is 17.2% of the flight total, which is supposedly $ equivalent to $130.50

so 30% more value in that example, by transferring points to Velocity.


For business:

LA - SYD , 17th March 2016 , example flight i pulled up is $2909.78, or 102,800 pt
the 11,500 velocity points in this example is 11.2% of the flight total, which is supposedly $ equivalent to $325
so in this case you are getting 325% more value by using it on a business class flight.


Conclusion: transferring to Velocity points and using it on business class or premium reward flights get you the best value.
caveat: those bus/prem rewards seats appear to be extremely rare , using the normal virgin au rewards search engine