Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Breaking news – a new UK Mastercard offering 1 Avios per £1 spent

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I will write a full post on this later, which will go up tomorrow. However, for now, here is a quick taster.

HSBC has relaunched its HSBC Premier credit card this morning.

HSBC Premier World Elite credit card

From today, for every £1 spent on your HSBC Premier Mastercard, you will receive:

1 Avios, or

1 Etihad Guest mile, or

1 Asia Mile, or

1 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer mile

Now, there are strict requirements for HSBC Premier which will exclude a lot of people. I will cover this tomorrow, though.

For now, you can check out the details here.


Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Comments (41)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Polly says:

    Just keep on using the Tesco MasterCard then, really….less hassle!

    • Rob says:

      Agreed. It is not worth jumping through lots of hoops to get this when the Tesco card gives 0.6 per £, so 0.78 with a 30 per cent conversion bonus.

      However, if you do meet the income criteria then it may be worth looking at. HSBC is also, arguably, the best of the big banks to deal with.

      • Farringdon says:

        I’ve used HSBC Premier for several years and have been very impressed with the level of service. I don’t have their credit card – this might tempt me to get one – but their banking services seem to be a cut above their UK competitors (and I have direct experience with 2 of the other major banks).

  • Wozza2404 says:

    At 2 points per £10 and 5 Avios per point, I’m not interested. My BMI MC pays a better rate for free. Well, unless they offer a 500k sign up bonus or something ridiculous.

    At 5 Avios per £, I’m in.

    • Rob says:

      It is quite a while now since the BMI card was available … we can’t keep comparing cards to that!

      • Mark says:

        By the same token I get 1CC point per £2 spend on my Tesco World MasterCard, i.e. effectively 1.2 Avios per £1 at standard conversion rate.

        But that isn’t available anymore either….

  • RF says:

    I had 2600 points collecting dust on my Premier card so have just converted them to over 13000 Avios. Thanks for the heads up Raffles!

    • Marc says:

      My wife and I have these cards for about 18 months and only use them where Amex not accepted.
      Always assumed they were pretty useless. Not anymore! Does anyone know if they are likely to offer a conversion bonus? We have 7000 points- undecided to convert or wait.

  • Danny says:

    Thanks for the info Raffles. Can easily use a relative’s UK address to sign up. UK bank account is also no problem since I have that through HSBC Premier. Do you happen to know if they ask for the mailing address for the bank account?

  • Rob says:

    I’m not sure that is how it works, though. I cannot find the T&C’s but it may be based on the total monthly spend and not per transaction.

  • GlennM says:

    I have to admit, as a Premier Account & Card user for many many years, I have found little value for this product, yes, if you can’t get the points elsewhere its okay, but given the options on points transfer from HSBC to Avios/Argos/Amazon etc, I think you are better off with other loyalty cards. As pointed out, the tipping point on £x to generate points also makes it less of interest, but then again Tesco CC do the same @ £4 spend. As a long standing user of HSBC Premier, I’d recommend keeping your Tesco CC in your wallet &/or BA Premium Amex.

    • GlennM says:

      … and just to add, I have never known HSBC to ever do a points transfer bonus. Its not in their nature.

  • Thunderbirds says:

    It is all a lot easier with the Virgin AMEX & VISA package! Plus BAPP and AMEX Gold of course.

  • creampuff says:

    I thought great…. until I read HSBC.

    Oh man, they have screwed up in the past in several different countries where I’ve used them. Where could I begin…. was it the failure of HSBC to respond to several letters telling them to close my account, the time I rang up phone banking and the operator’s English was so poor they couldn’t understand me, so they blocked my account and I had to post in a certified copy of my passport to unblock it, the Visa cards which still arrive 5 years after I closed the account, the time they could tell me what monthly repayments would be on a mortgage, but couldn’t tell me what the APR was despite a legal requirement to do so.

    Totally incompetent.

    HSBC never again, even for 1 avios per £ on a Mastercard.

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