The LoungeKey airport lounges you can enter with the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

The HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard is the most generous Visa or Mastercard available if you want to earn Avios.  The earnings rate is great at 1 Avios per £1 spent.

We have a full review of the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard credit card which you can find here.  Our article on the top 10 reasons to get the HSBC Premier World Elite card is here.

The official website for the card is at hsbc.co.uk as you can see here.  The representative APR is 59.3% APR variable and 18.9% APR variable for purchases, based on an annual fee of £195 and a credit limit of £1,200.

To remind you of the points benefits, you get:

40,000 HSBC points (20,000 miles) for signing up and spending £2,000 within 3 months

40,000 HSBC points (20,000 miles) for spending £12,000 in your first 12 months

2 HSBC points (1 mile) for every £1 you spend – this makes it by far the best Avios Mastercard or Visa product

4 HSBC points (2 miles) for every £1 you spend outside the UK

You can take your ‘miles’ as either Avios, Cathay Pacific miles, Singapore Airlines miles or Etihad Guest miles.

If you collect Avios, you will be pleased to know that HSBC also runs 25% transfer bonuses, roughly once per year, from HSBC points into Avios.

What London airport lounges can I get into with a HSBC Premier World Elite credit card?

The HSBC Premier credit card also comes with airport lounge access.

This is via an exclusive Mastercard company called LoungeKey.  You can access their special HSBC website here.

What is interesting about LoungeKey is that you simply show your World Elite Mastercard at the lounge door.  There is no separate membership card.  However, you must have registered your HSBC credit card via this link first.

No free guests are allowed.  However, you can get a supplementary card for your HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard for a £60 annual fee and that person can then access lounges with that.

Across Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southend and Luton, you can access the following lounges:

Gatwick:  No1 Lounge (North), My Lounge (North), Club Aspire (North), No 1 Lounge (South), Club Aspire (South), Grain Store Cafe & Bar (South, not a lounge but a restaurant where you get £15 credit!)

Luton:  Aspire, Clubrooms (£10 surcharge on the door)

Southend:  Skylife

Heathrow:  Plaza Premium (T2 Arrivals, T2 Departures, T3 Arrivals, T4 Departures, T4 Arrivals), SkyTeam (T4), No1 Lounge (T3), Club Aspire (T3, T5)

Stansted:  The Escape Lounge

LoungeKey has a better offering the Lounge Club, which comes with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  Of course, Amex Gold is FREE for the first year and comes with two FREE lounge passes per year, so in value for money terms it is a better product.  Your Amex Gold lounge passes cannot be used Southend, the SkyTeam at Heathrow Terminal 4 or the No1 Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3 lounges.

LoungeKey is indentical in scope, for the London airports, to what you can access with an expensive Priority Pass lounge card.

The full list of all UK lounges covered by Lounge Club and Priority Pass is here.

Is HSBC Premier World Elite better than Amex Platinum?

The HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard is not clearly better than American Express Platinum if you want a card with airport lounge access.

It is cheaper (£255 for the HSBC card with one supplementary card vs £575 for The Platinum Card) but the Amex Platinum package has FAR more benefits – Hilton Gold, Melia Gold, Radisson Gold, Shangri-La Jade, Marriott Gold, Eurostar lounge access etc etc (see my Amex Platinum review for details).

The choice really comes down to how much you value the additional Amex Platinum benefits on top of the airport lounge access.

PS.  Here are links to our reviews of the lounges mentioned above:

Heathrow Terminal5: Aspire T5;  Terminal 4: Plaza Premium T4,  Plaza Premium T4 Arrivals, SkyTeam T4;  Terminal 3: Club Aspire T3, No 1 Lounge T3, Plaza Premium T3 Arrivals;  Terminal 2: Plaza Premium T2, Plaza Premium T2 #2, Plaza Premium T2 Arrivals

Gatwick North: No 1 Lounge North, My Lounge North, My Lounge North #2, Club Aspire  South: Club Aspire, No 1 Lounges South, No 1 Lounges Clubrooms South

Luton: Clubrooms, Aspire  Southend: SkyLife  Stansted: Escape

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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:

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.

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.