HSBC Star Alliance credit card in Australia

For those that went with AC for their gold status, what benifits did you choose?

Choose two benefits​

1500 Status Qualifying MilesReceive Status Qualifying Miles
Receive 1500 Status Qualifying Miles to help elevate your Aeroplan Elite Status and benefits.

50% bonus Aeroplan points with Air Canada and select airline partnersEarn bonus Aeroplan points every time you fly with Air Canada.
Earn 50% bonus Aeroplan points on eligible flights operated by Air Canada, Air Canada Express, Air Canada Rouge, Copa Airlines and United Airlines. Also earn a 25% bonus on eligible flights operated by Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa and SWISS.

2 Status PassesGive a status pass to someone special so they can travel in style even without you.
We believe benefits are even better when they're shared. Choose Status Pass as a Select Benefit and treat someone to Elite Status for their entire journey. Anyone with Aeroplan 50K Status or higher can choose these passes.

10 eUpgrade CreditsReceive eUpgrade credits to upgrade to a premium cabin.
Receive 10 eUpgrade credits to upgrade to a premium cabin on eligible flights operated by Air Canada, Air Canada Express and Air Canada Rouge. Credits are deposited directly into your Air Canada eUpgrade account.
 
Been looking into this card as it looks a decent option based on my travel habits (ie. a couple of domestic trips each year with VA and at least one trip to the UK - always in Y and often with SQ).

It seems that nominating Air Canada as airline provides the best bang for buck in terms of *G tenor, but are there any flaws in selecting Aeroplan if my long-hual travel is going to be on SQ metal?

It seems to me the only benefit of Krisflyer Gold over AeroPlan 50K would be complementary Forward Zone Seats on SQ (and 15% off extra legroom seats). Is that it or am I missing something? Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks!
 
Sponsored Post

Struggling to use your Frequent Flyer Points?

Frequent Flyer Concierge takes the hard work out of finding award availability and redeeming your frequent flyer or credit card points for flights.

Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, the Frequent Flyer Concierge team at Frequent Flyer Concierge will help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

I just flew with Asiana from Syd to ICN. I found that if you bought a discounted ticket from Asiana, it is counted as 50% with Air Canada Aeroplan. I didn't think of this but lesson learned. My suggestion is to use your *G to get all those benefits at the check-in desk and get a boarding pass with lounges and priority boarding. When you are in the lounge, I would talk to the help desk to switch your FF to Asiana or whatever program you want to earn status with.

I just noticed this since I found that I could have earnt 100% miles with Asiana instead of 50% :(
 
Shinjetter said:
I just flew with Asiana from Syd to ICN. I found that if you bought a discounted ticket from Asiana, it is counted as 50% with Air Canada Aeroplan. I didn't think of this but lesson learned. My suggestion is to use your *G to get all those benefits at the check-in desk and get a boarding pass with lounges and priority boarding. When you are in the lounge, I would talk to the help desk to switch your FF to Asiana or whatever program you want to earn status with.

I just noticed this since I found that I could have earnt 100% miles with Asiana instead of 50% :(
Click to expand...
True, but bear in mind whether you'll use them in future - will you top them up another way before they expire?

For example, 50% of SQ miles may be worth more to someone than 100% AC miles, if they actively collect and use KrisFlyer miles, and the Aeroplan points would just sit there dormant (I did this a few years ago on some SAS flights, crediting them to Eurobonus would have been useless to me, so I credited them to KrisFlyer).
 
aisle seat said:
Been looking into this card as it looks a decent option based on my travel habits (ie. a couple of domestic trips each year with VA and at least one trip to the UK - always in Y and often with SQ).

It seems that nominating Air Canada as airline provides the best bang for buck in terms of *G tenor, but are there any flaws in selecting Aeroplan if my long-hual travel is going to be on SQ metal?

It seems to me the only benefit of Krisflyer Gold over AeroPlan 50K would be complementary Forward Zone Seats on SQ (and 15% off extra legroom seats). Is that it or am I missing something? Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Must admit I'm not all over Star Alliance benefits, but would have thought Gold on one would bring similar enough benefits on the others that it wouldn't matter all that much.

I took the card out for the points bonus, I'm SQ Gold so focus on that for Star Alliance, I've already got QF/BA to worry about for Oneworld and VA on top of that, so didn't want to add Aeroplan into that mix too (especially without a way of accumulating a large amount of them quickly). With no annual fee, 32k SQ KrisFlyer miles was worth it for me (I'm not eligible for any QF credit card related SUBs at the moment).
 
Applied for the HSBC Star Alliance card 1st May and the saga continues.

We are already a client of HSBC, and they have our financial records, but that has not proved to be of any benefit. Continuing to receive emails from them to contact them and then find that they require more info or the same info again.

Today's request is that they want a 12 month bank statement of share income. We are frustrated and worn out and have redrawn our application. It is just too difficult. We were waiting for them to ask for our first born!
It is all for the minimum credit amount of $6000!

All the best to anyone else applying for the card!
 
Kangarucci said:
Applied for the HSBC Star Alliance card 1st May and the saga continues.

We are already a client of HSBC, and they have our financial records, but that has not proved to be of any benefit. Continuing to receive emails from them to contact them and then find that they require more info or the same info again.

Today's request is that they want a 12 month bank statement of share income. We are frustrated and worn out and have redrawn our application. It is just too difficult. We were waiting for them to ask for our first born!
It is all for the minimum credit amount of $6000!

All the best to anyone else applying for the card!
Click to expand...
I have just written them a very 'firm' email

We have been trying to re-finance our mortgage with them since late March. Same story as you - just keep asking for more info. The re-finance amounts to less than one year of my salary. They have queried, amongst other things, why we have understated my wife's income - but we don't need her income to qualify for the loan

I have just emailed them and said they either approve it by CoB tomorrow - with no further info - or they can stick it. It is like swimming in treacle.
 
When this sort of things happen, this give me the feeling the security team needs to meet some kpi rejection quota. I had one ridiculous experience with ANZ for a credit card. I ended up talking to someone reasonable from the customer service team, who understood those repetitive silly document request sounded abusive. A few days later I got approved.
 
Just signed up and I linked United Club as my FF.
I'm looking at booking flights with Virgin, couple of questions:
1) Is there free luggage through Gold if I book the Lite fare
2) Do I need to put my United number in the booking or can I still get the *A benefit by just showing the card? (I've got Velocity and the status credit would be more useful)
 
rocky7st said:
Just signed up and I linked United Club as my FF.
I'm looking at booking flights with Virgin, couple of questions:
1) Is there free luggage through Gold if I book the Lite fare
2) Do I need to put my United number in the booking or can I still get the *A benefit by just showing the card? (I've got Velocity and the status credit would be more useful)
Click to expand...
1) not sure, not really familiar with UA - however, if there is free luggage via status and you don't add the number to the booking you won't get it, which brings me to...
2) For some benefits (seat selection, baggage, etc., for instance) you would, for some (lounge access, priority boarding, etc.) you won't*.

*in theory - especially re lounge access, some of the lounge dragons might insist on the FF# granting access being on the booking, but it's not a necessity, and in my experience it doesn't come up very often these days - this is OW related of course, but I recently flew CX J and for some reason the BP didn't show my QF Platinum FF# - the lounge staff were happy to let me in on the basis of my card. They asked if I wanted to add the number to my booking (assuming it wasn't because it wasn't on the card), but didn't insist on doing it (I did accept their offer, just to make sure it was, and they confirmed it was in any case, just not shown on the BP for whatever reason, but it wouldn't have affected my ability to access the lounge anyway).

Edit - I should add that for the former benefits which do require it, such as seat selection that you only get for free because of your status, you *should* be able to add the UA number, select the seat, then switch it back to VA. The seat selection should stick. But if there's any changes to the booking and you're moved, you'd need to swap it back again to be able to re-select any seats you're allowed to only because of your status, if that makes sense.
 
Very important datapoint, thank you for sharing. Have we seen any equivalent reports on AC or any other carriers?
 

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..

Recent Posts

Staff online

Currently Active Users

... and 15 more.
Total: 802 (members: 65, guests: 737)
Back
Top