HSBC Premier offering you a free hotel stay – and the best Avios non-Amex credit card

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• Martin says:

  2 Jan2 January 04:55

  Yesterday, I read the post re First deals in BA lng haul sale and saw Fort Lauderdale at £2024, since then I’ve been searching and find BA only flies LGW-FLL – no First. Have I missed something?

  • AspirationalFlyer says:

    2 Jan2 January 07:05

    Hi Martin – I flew FLL to LGW in November and the aircraft was a four class configured 777. However, FIRST seats were not sold and were allocated to BA gold card holders (the catering and service remained Club World). I’m not sure but if BA were using the same aircraft they could start selling First seats and, I suspect there may offer cheap POUG through Manage My Booking etc. Just so you’re aware, there is no BA contract lounge at FLL and BA didn’t offer vouchers so (unless things have changed) don’t rush to the airport!

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 08:11

    That price shows on Low Fare Finder ….. is all I can say.

• pauldb says:

  2 Jan2 January 08:19

  The link to the hotel packages in the T&Cs doesn’t work, but I stumbled on to this page which must be a parallel offer with the same offering: http://anightonus.co.uk/

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    2 Jan2 January 08:50

    The Caledonian and Royal Lancaster look like the stand out choices on there. At the risk of being a terrible snob, I wouldn’t have described the Handpicked and Dakota chains as Premier material (there are, in fairness, a couple of great properties in the Handpicked group but the portfolio as a whole is very much in 4* territory)

    • Jake says:

      2 Jan2 January 20:50

      I tend to agree. I can’t see how those hotels would be more incentive than the cash they were giving away last month…. I would be surprised if the cash value was more than £200

• N says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:12

  Can’t believe they haven’t had any offers for existing holders of the freebie HSBC Premier cards to upgrade to the paid version.

  Surely we are a captive market?

• Nilesh says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:26

  Has the issue regarding the second set of 20,000 points and 2nd year of £195 fees been sorted out? The T&Cs make no mention of having to renew for a second year to get the second set of points. I know this was discussed last year but now that renewals start to come up, would be interesting to hear people’s experiences here to see if there is a way to get the full 40k of points without paying the second year’s fee.

  • New Card says:

    2 Jan2 January 09:44

    HSBC are resolutely refusing to pay out the second set in advance of the annual renewal date. This is clearly contrary to the Terms and Conditions and I have complained to the Financial Ombudsman.

    • Andrew M says:

      2 Jan2 January 09:58

      Good work! Let us know how you get on with the Financial Ombudsman complaint.

      • Rob says:

        2 Jan2 January 10:32

        I know at least one other reader did this and the FOS found in favour of HSBC. I honestly believe that the FOS sides with the card company in almost every case unless the evidence is blindingly clear (and HSBC saying on the website you get them after spending £12k is apparently not ‘blindingly clear’). I once made a FOS complaint about Amex and, despite it being obvious to everyone that Amex was wrong, they found against me.

      • New Card says:

        2 Jan2 January 11:08

        Thanks Andrew and Rob. Good to know that the FOS could well find in favour of HSBC despite the very clear terms and to be mentally prepared for a negative outcome. If the FOS finds in favour of HSBC I’m minded to file an MCOL claim for the value of the points, plus interest.

  • Andrew M says:

    2 Jan2 January 09:55

    I’ still waiting for my bonus 40,000 HSBC points (20,000 airline points). I spent the required amount and I’m now several months into my second year with the card. It’s my default spending card and I’ll be keeping it indefinately but I’d like HSBC to honour the comitments that they made when I opened the account. Has anyone actually received the bonus points?

    • New Card says:

      2 Jan2 January 11:13

      I had to follow up a (different) set of bonus points which didn’t post on time – mine was an extra 10,000 bonus point offer which was running when I signed up. I filed a complaint and they posted the points manually and paid £75 compensation for the screw up. Worth pursuing and relatively straight forward to do using the secure messaging within your HSBC online account.

    • Nilesh says:

      2 Jan2 January 11:19

      Would be interesting to hear what reason FOS gave when finding in favour of HSBC.

  • the_real_a says:

    2 Jan2 January 15:34

    Ive had a couple of FOS in my favor to date. There are two elements to a complaint, the first stage is a voluntary “agreement” decided by the call handler that requires both parties to accept. The second is the true arbitration stage that has many more checks and balance and is binding. If you are dissatisfied with the call handler investigation then ask for arbitration. this is particularly important if you are asking for judgement on the “fairness” of a T&C (rather than a financial institution not following its own T&C`s)

    Secondly i was told that the FOS needs a demonstration of loss that it can rectify. A complaint simply based on late arrival of points would not suffice since you have not “lost” anything. You cannot apply statutory interest to points nor can the FOS force miles to be paid. It CAN with cash however. A complaint based on the financial loss of not paying the miles stands a significantly better chance of success.

    • New Card says:

      2 Jan2 January 15:47

      Thank you for the advice. Sounds like I may need to follow through to the arbitration stage.

      How would you go about proving loss in the case of points? Presumably as the HSBC points transfer to Amazon gift vouchers I could claim in respect of any out of pocket Amazon spent to the relevant value? I suspect air miles would be a preferable claim but tbh for me it’s rarely a case of points v cash booking, these days it’s a case of wait until I have the miles for a points booking, so I can’t readily point to a recent cash booking to show loss. There are redemptions I have had to forego because of not having the miles but it is difficult to prove a negative.

      • the_real_a says:

        2 Jan2 January 16:22

        Points are pretty easy to value since BA sells them. I used the Tariff at which BA sell them. However you also need to think about your “loss” between getting the points now and getting the points “later” when HSBC wants to award them.

      • New Card says:

        2 Jan2 January 16:59

        Sorry, think I misread your original post the first time – that makes perfect sense.

• Brian says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:30

  Rob – any idea on how HSBC measures the £100k?
  I specifically keep my taxable income at £99k so I don’t lose my free 3 yr old child care 🙂
  And I object to paying a 60%+ marginal tax rate!

  • Nilesh says:

    2 Jan2 January 09:31

    might be easier to put £50k in your HSBC account, get the account opened, and then take it out. That’s what I did years ago and I’m sure it would still work.

    • Brian says:

      2 Jan2 January 10:09

      would that mean removing it from my ISA though?
      or can you put £50k in an HSBC ISA?
      I don’t really want to lose the tax advantage..

      • the_real_a says:

        2 Jan2 January 15:23

        I went through this in the summer. HSBC are quite flexible in terms of the £50k of savings. Simply bunging cash into a current account (or currency) is acceptable. The base products open to all are shockingly bad value (ISA and savings accounts), the premier version are acceptable but not market leading. So be aware of the opportunity cost which at 50k is a lot of money, you could be paying an extra £200 a year to HSBC as lost interest.

        You will be offered a credit card as part of the interview process (since they credit check you for the premier account) – if you don’t accept immediately then it will be another credit check at a later date which might be a concern for some people. So be ready to accept if that’s what you want to do.

        As i understand it you could transfer into the basic ISA and then upgrade to Premier and then transfer the ISA again for the enhanced interest. Ask the premier team to come up with a solution for you.

    • Axel says:

      2 Jan2 January 10:19

      HSBC Premier said they’d monitor the funds for 3 months when I went to Jade so Im not so sure if it would work.

      Have any Jade Premiers got their Etihad Gold status confirmed by Etihad?

      • Andrew M says:

        2 Jan2 January 10:35

        Yes, it was very fast and easy. I asked Quintessentially to arrange the upgrade to Etihad Gold. I’ve been Gold got more than a year now via this upgrade and I haven’t flown with Etihad yet. It wll be interesting to see if the status continues indefinately for Jade members. The Jade promo material on the HSBC website certainly gives that impression.

      • Andrew M says:

        2 Jan2 January 10:36

        “for more than a year”

      • the_real_a says:

        2 Jan2 January 15:24

        What they say and do are different things 😉

      • Ben Chode says:

        2 Jan2 January 17:03

        Any idea on what the criteria for Jade are?

      • New Card says:

        2 Jan2 January 17:40

        Googled it – seems to be £500k in relationship assets…

  • pauldb says:

    3 Jan3 January 13:16

    I’m juggling the same hurdle. I presume they would be happy with a P60 showing earnings from last year over £100k, or a regular salary into your account of the equivalent net amount. Given the 30hrs is a 1 year thing (per child) perhaps you weren’t bothered by the hurdle in the prior year? Or presuming you make some personal pension contributions or gift aid donations to get under the £100k, there’s no reason AIUI you can’t be “taking home” more than £100k.

• Tom H says:

  2 Jan2 January 10:32

  I earn six figures but as a non-home-owning millennial type I don’t have the requisite savings/investments.

  Nevertheless I’d read that HSBC can be relatively accommodating at accepting even a low cost insurance product as sufficient. However when I went into a branch a few months ago to enquire, they were fairly insistent I needed the full £50k Investment. Anyone had any better luck? Perhaps through phoning up?

  • New Card says:

    2 Jan2 January 11:19

    £100k per year income and ANY investment product qualifies, eg £500 in Global Investment Centre.

    I found the same – branches very unhelpful and couldn’t understand the terms properly. Over the phone was much easier.

    • Graham Walsh says:

      2 Jan2 January 11:33

      How easy is it to setup the £500 in GIC? Can it be done online or do you have to speak to a human?

      • New Card says:

        2 Jan2 January 11:37

        Online once normal HSBC bank account and online access all sorted out.

• Rob says:

  2 Jan2 January 10:36

  That is new. They did something last Autumn like that but it was just Apple Pay.

• Graham Walsh says:

  2 Jan2 January 15:13

  OT – An interesting read on Accor’s strategy https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/accorhotels-teardown-expert-intelligence/

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 16:01

    Good article. Need to hope they decide to move into travel blogs as their 14th online investment 🙂

  • Brighton Belle says:

    2 Jan2 January 21:11

    I know a few folks in Nice that rent out via Airbnb. They loved it because they could pocket the income without declaring it to the tax authorities. Hotels hated them as they were always getting undercut, carrying big overheads, social charges, tourist tax etc. An enormous glut of room ensued.

    As soon as Airbnb said they going to cooperate with tax jurisdictions rental owners have been falling over themselves to sell and get out.

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