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No card bonus unless you pay for Year 2? Updates on Creation / IHG and HSBC World Elite

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There are two ongoing bonus sagas in the travel credit card world at the moment – one relating to the Creation IHG Rewards Club Premium card and one relating to the HSBC Premier World Elite card.

Both have the same core problem:

The cards promise a year-end bonus, but the issuer insists that you pay the non-refundable fee for the next card year before you can get the bonus you are due from Year 1.

IHG Rewards Club Premium

…. which I am legally obliged to tell you has a representative APR of 41.5% variable including the £99 fee based on a notional £1200 credit limit.

It is becoming clear – the card is just one year old, so this is a new problem – that Creation will not credit your free night voucher for spending £10,000 until after you have renewed.

I am relatively sanguine about the IHG card, because I think most people WILL want to keep it.  All you are paying is £99, and this gets you:

on-going IHG Rewards Club Platinum status which comes with some decent benefits

a free night voucher for spending £10,000 (worth £250+ if spend wisely)

an excellent earnings rate of 2 points (worth about 0.8p – 1p) per £1 

and these points count towards status if you are going for top tier Spire Elite

All of this, to my mind, makes the IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard an excellent product and one worth keeping.

However, if you are looking to cancel but still want your free night voucher, the only course of action seems to be:

stop using the card (you must not make a transaction after the card fee has been charged)

wait for your free night voucher to show in your IHG Rewards Club account

cancel the card and ask for a refund

Do not refuse to pay the final bill containing the £99 fee as this may impact your credit report.  Creation will probably not agree to this, so you may end up taking your complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman.  

At the moment, telephone conversations imply that the Ombudsman does not seen keen to get involved but, as this is a contractual issue, I don’t think they have a choice when faced with a claim in writing.

HSBC Premier World Elite credit card

HSBC Premier World Elite

…. which I am legally obliged to tell you has a representative APR of 59.3% variable including the £195 fee based on a notional £1200 credit limit.

When you take out the HSBC Premier World Elite card, you receive 40,000 HSBC points after spending £2,000 in three months and a further 40,000 HSBC points (worth 20,000 Avios) when you spend £12,000 in 12 months.  The bonus is even higher at the moment due to a short term promotion.

This is a more contentious problem for three reasons:

For many people, there is NO good reason to keep this card after the first year.  You need to pay a £195 fee but there is no spending bonus.  You will continue to keep the card benefits, such as free airport lounge access, but this may not justify £195.

The published terms and conditions for the card are wrong.  As I discussed in this article, it states that you receive the second batch of 40,000 points within 60 days of spending the £12,000:

3. If you meet the requirements for this offer as described above, we will award 40,000 Premier Reward Points to your HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard Credit Card within 60 days from point of qualification

HSBC claims this is an error and it was meant to say that you will receive the second batch of 40,000 points within 60 days of your card renewal date.

A lot of people DID receive the second batch of 40,000 points when they rang up HSBC and complained.  The bank has now seems to have taken a firm position that you are not getting the points until after the first year is up.

There is some good news here, however.

Based on correspondence with a HFP reader, HSBC will now give you 10,000 bonus points as compensation for the ‘error’ in their terms and conditions if you have already passed the £12,000 spend target and ring to ask where your points have got to.

More importantly, they have agreed that – once you have paid the £195 and received your second batch of 40,000 points – you can call them, downgrade to the free Premier credit card and receive a refund of your £195.

To be honest, I still think that the Ombudsman would tell HSBC to take a running jump over its refusal to credit the points within 60 days, since they are clearly – and admitting it – breaking their own published terms and conditions over when you receive the bonus.

On the other hand, if you can receive an extra 10,000 bonus points – worth 5,000 Avios points – for your trouble then it might be worth holding on and going through the process of getting your £195 refunded.

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Category

HSBC Premier Mastercard, IHG One Rewards

Comments (98)

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

  • Anna says:
    2 Jul2 July 05:53

    Slightly hotel related – no sign of the Marriott avios yet…

  • Nick says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:13

    “HSBC claims this is an error and it was meant to say that you will receive the second batch of 40,000 points within 60 days of your card renewal date.”

    LOL! When I went overdrawn £1 on my HSBC bank account, and was charged a significant fee for doing so, I had clearly MEANT not too!

    • Gareth says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:38

      This is a lie, if you go over by less than £10 they do not charge.

  • Liz says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:13

    Has anyone got any experience of cancelling the Tesco Premium card yet after getting the bonus the year 1 5000 Clubcard points and not paying the 2nd year fee. My anniversary is in Oct.

    • Danny says:
      2 Jul2 July 09:08

      No, but I cancelled my card last month (didn’t need the card anymore and I wasn’t used it at Tesco often enough to reach the £5000 spent) and received a pro rata fee refund, which was a real surprise. So I got 2500 bonus club card points; £60 cash back, £67 fee refund and £100 off BA CE flights – all in all not a bad deal at the time.

      • Rob says:
        2 Jul2 July 12:05

        Interesting ….

        • Danny says:
          2 Jul2 July 12:13

          Yes and was meaning to let you know once the refund hit my bank account, which was last week.

  • Joseph Heenan says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:29

    Are there not a fairly significant number of people that have had the HSBC points post within 60 days of hitting the target? I’m pretty sure mine did.

    Is there some way to view the history of point credits to my card? Looking online I can only seem to find current balance.

    • Yuff says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:35

      I think my wife’s did and mine didn’t.
      I’ve just been charged(last month) the fee. But the improved earning rate and the recent end of year bonus probably tips me towards keeping our cards 😉

    • Rob says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:59

      Yes. But HSBC is now saying this should not have happened.

    • Mike says:
      2 Jul2 July 09:56

      Pretty sure mine did or I’d have complained. That said I can’t find a way to see history on their site. I do have points moved to BA during the 50% promo that look like them though.

  • The Original Nick. says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:55

    Sorry, O:T, has anyone had their 8000 VS miles added to thier accounts from taking out the new Virgin ISA? If so, how long after they took it out.

  • Brian says:
    2 Jul2 July 08:15

    Re IHG card, sure that has to be illegal?

    I’m already Spire now so have no need for the card in the second year.

    No way did I sign up for the card thinking I’d be paying £198 fees. Definitely still want the voucher though.

    Anyone got any other thoughts on what customers can do here?

    • Genghis says:
      2 Jul2 July 09:17

      MCOL if FOS refuses to take it?

    • john says:
      2 Jul2 July 10:04

      What if you downgrade to the free version after hitting 10k / at renewal time?

      • Mr Dee says:
        2 Jul2 July 21:11

        This is not Amex its creation and they don’t bother to phone back when you want to upgrade so good luck with a downgrade and there wouldn’t be a pro rata refund in any case.

    • Mr Dee says:
      2 Jul2 July 21:11

      Agree with MCOL.

      I don’t think their practices are illegal but questionable for sure.

  • Brian says:
    2 Jul2 July 08:19

    Creation told me on the phone it is ihg who credit the voucher and “nothing to do with them”.

    The customer service from Creation is terrible. Can’t wait to get rid.

    • Beefy says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:32

      Never thought I’d say I miss the barclaycard version but I really do. Why is there no proper mobile app for creation either?!

      IHG used to post the voucher when barclaycard advised them the 10k spend was hit so I don’t believe creation at all.

      Has anyone actually had their free night voucher from the creation version yet?

      • Alan says:
        2 Jul2 July 14:32

        The cards only launched 5th July last year (according to Rob’s article at the time), so I don’t think anyone will have had it for 12 months yet.

        I must say I’ve found the Creation website works fine for me on mobile and desktop so quite happy with no extra app being required.

        Definitely don’t believe them saying that IHG would add it on their own accord – clearly is triggered by Creation. However given the reliable points posting every month I’m fairly sure it’ll post fine – I’m planning to keep the card though so not hit by the fee issue if it take a month to post.

        • RussellH says:
          2 Jul2 July 17:06

          I find the website OK, and do not have anything that would run a separate ‘app’, so no problem there. But I do have to chase missing points (only getting one per IHG stay, not two) every month. I have had one chunk of compensation from Creation for this, and an assurance that ‘the problem is known and being looked into’, but currently I only use the card (white, free) for IHG stays as that keeps it simple to check up on the points.

          • Alan says:
            2 Jul2 July 18:30

            Ahh OK, I’ve only had a couple of IHG stays – they did post with the enhanced rate correctly, but I agree this side of things does seem a bit flakey. Most of my spend is non-IHG and at least the points seem to transfer across reliably each month.

      • RIcatti says:
        3 Jul3 July 01:52

        It actually makes sense if Creation deliberately waits on passing on info on 10K spending being hit until the card’s anniversary. So that they collect the fee.

  • Brian says:
    2 Jul2 July 08:40

    Creation also told me on phone months ago the second year fee but was not payable but no surprises have refused to put it in writing.

    Contacted them several times via online message and the replies are hopelessly generic and ignore the issue. Either incompetent or deliberate.

    I really think this is unacceptable re the second year fee to get the year one voucher and pretty much amounts to extortion. I can’t believe they are allowed to do this.

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

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