The HSBC Premier Mastercards thread

[BuildBackBetter]

sm wrote:

Just to let you know after filling in a brief form in local branch yesterday morning, I received a secure message from Hsbc saying they’d downgraded my card to the free one. All done relatively painlessly. My renewal date was today 21/5/22. No fee taken yet but that May well appear Monday but reassured they would refund me it.

Call centre told me card cannot be downgraded. The paid card will have to be cancelled and then a new agreement for free card will be set up. And i’ll lose the points when paid card is cancelled!

[memesweeper]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

sm wrote:

Just to let you know after filling in a brief form in local branch yesterday morning, I received a secure message from Hsbc saying they’d downgraded my card to the free one. All done relatively painlessly. My renewal date was today 21/5/22. No fee taken yet but that May well appear Monday but reassured they would refund me it.

Call centre told me card cannot be downgraded. The paid card will have to be cancelled and then a new agreement for free card will be set up. And i’ll lose the points when paid card is cancelled!

HUACA. I did exactly this a few weeks ago, and kept the points balance.

[sm]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

sm wrote:

Just to let you know after filling in a brief form in local branch yesterday morning, I received a secure message from Hsbc saying they’d downgraded my card to the free one. All done relatively painlessly. My renewal date was today 21/5/22. No fee taken yet but that May well appear Monday but reassured they would refund me it.

Call centre told me card cannot be downgraded. The paid card will have to be cancelled and then a new agreement for free card will be set up. And i’ll lose the points when paid card is cancelled!

That wasn’t the case for me. All points were transferred to new account. My old card worked until I activated the new free one. Perhaps go into branch to sort it out. Think they’ll know more.

[Luca M]

I have not yet managed to log in the points section of the card account, but has the yearly Avios promotion launched yet?

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

Luca M wrote:

I have not yet managed to log in the points section of the card account, but has the yearly Avios promotion launched yet?

No reports yet – the points section for me still shows 2:1 conversion for all airline partners (BA, Singapore, Cathy & Etihad) but anecdotally this was also the case in previous years and you only discovered you’d received a bonus when you’d done a transfer and received more points!

[memesweeper]

Guernsey Globetrotter wrote:

this was also the case in previous years and you only discovered you’d received a bonus when you’d done a transfer and received more points!

correct — it’s so silly! presumably the bonus is intended to shift some liability off the books or something, but then HSBC fail to promote it.

[polly]

The BA logo would pop up when you logged in, but would then disappear. No avios uplift atm. And it’s not every year either, am afraid, and definitely not a given. Etihad may be their only airline promo this year, who knows…

[Youllnever]

sm wrote:

BuildBackBetter wrote:

sm wrote:

Just to let you know after filling in a brief form in local branch yesterday morning, I received a secure message from Hsbc saying they’d downgraded my card to the free one. All done relatively painlessly. My renewal date was today 21/5/22. No fee taken yet but that May well appear Monday but reassured they would refund me it.

Call centre told me card cannot be downgraded. The paid card will have to be cancelled and then a new agreement for free card will be set up. And i’ll lose the points when paid card is cancelled!

That wasn’t the case for me. All points were transferred to new account. My old card worked until I activated the new free one. Perhaps go into branch to sort it out. Think they’ll know more.

What form did you need to fill to get the card downgraded? I asked in-branch and they said I’ll need to cancel my existing one and do a new application for the free card.

[xefo]

This is the link which I use for checking if the bonus is live yet. It worked until yesterday, now it errors. Fingers crossed it’s because they’re updating last year’s Ts&Cs.

[polly]

@xefo
Did you actually transfer any points with this link. And achieve a bonus? I searched for a link, no joy. No banner, either….

@youllnever. To downgrade is a totally new application, am afraid. They will post you the forms. Complete them, and bring them into the branch to get them scanned into their system. Or as @sm did, they should be able to print off the form in branch now. It really is an ancient system, but can be worth it.

[Youllnever]

polly wrote:

@youllnever. To downgrade is a totally new application, am afraid. They will post you the forms. Complete them, and bring them into the branch to get them scanned into their system. Or as @sm did, they should be able to print off the form in branch now. It really is an ancient system, but can be worth it.

Thanks polly! Do I need to cancel my existing WE card beforehand or can I just submit the new application form and let the system do it’s thing?

[polly]

@Youllnever
You just submit the paperwork, and keep spending on the WE. Are you already into your 2nd year with fee charged or still in your 1st bonus year? No pro rata refund tho. Might as well keep it, if fee already paid. Unless they agreed to refund you after the downgrade, on the phone. Quite tricky, hsbc.

[Youllnever]

polly wrote:

@Youllnever
You just submit the paperwork, and keep spending on the WE. Are you already into your 2nd year with fee charged or still in your 1st bonus year? No pro rata refund tho. Might as well keep it, if fee already paid. Unless they agreed to refund you after the downgrade, on the phone. Quite tricky, hsbc.

Sounds good! Already in my 2nd year with the anniversary bonus received as well, therefore looking to downgrade.

[JDB]

Youllnever wrote:

polly wrote:

@Youllnever
You just submit the paperwork, and keep spending on the WE. Are you already into your 2nd year with fee charged or still in your 1st bonus year? No pro rata refund tho. Might as well keep it, if fee already paid. Unless they agreed to refund you after the downgrade, on the phone. Quite tricky, hsbc.

Sounds good! Already in my 2nd year with the anniversary bonus received as well, therefore looking to downgrade.

You won’t get a pro rata refund, so you might as well wait until nearer the end of your year – it sounds as though you are nearer the start and, as others have said, there is no facility to downgrade. You need to cancel and reapply for the free card.

[ZW]

I have had the WE card for years. Last year’s card fee was waived, and I just received 40k welcome points when I checked my points on the new platform. Does the new platform treat all cards as new members? Maybe another 40k anniversary bonus too?

[JDB]

ZW wrote:

I have had the WE card for years. Last year’s card fee was waived, and I just received 40k welcome points when I checked my points on the new platform. Does the new platform treat all cards as new members? Maybe another 40k anniversary bonus too?

Oh wow! Thank you for this. Just checked my account and also received an extra 40k points on 1 Sep. Having put forward my seemingly heretical view that it was rather churlish and poor form to cancel or downgrade (and seemingly quite a pain) after the generosity of two free years, our loyalty has been rewarded.

[Luca M]

Did you guys hit the spending targets (cannot remember what it was) or it was just an automatic 40,000? I also have had the WE for years so if there is a way to get this free bonus I would like to try it.

[JDB]

Luca M wrote:

Did you guys hit the spending targets (cannot remember what it was) or it was just an automatic 40,000? I also have had the WE for years so if there is a way to get this free bonus I would like to try it.

@ZW said he had held the card for years, I am in Y3 (as a refugee from Tesco Premium after they stopped Avios) but received my spend related bonus in Feb. This is something different; difficult to ask for something that has no rhyme or reason – have you checked for it as I’m sure we are not the only two to have received it.

[BuildBackBetter]

ZW wrote:

I have had the WE card for years. Last year’s card fee was waived, and I just received 40k welcome points when I checked my points on the new platform. Does the new platform treat all cards as new members? Maybe another 40k anniversary bonus too?

Was there a fee charged this time?

[Luca M]

JDB wrote:

Luca M wrote:

Did you guys hit the spending targets (cannot remember what it was) or it was just an automatic 40,000? I also have had the WE for years so if there is a way to get this free bonus I would like to try it.

@ZW said he had held the card for years, I am in Y3 (as a refugee from Tesco Premium after they stopped Avios) but received my spend related bonus in Feb. This is something different; difficult to ask for something that has no rhyme or reason – have you checked for it as I’m sure we are not the only two to have received it.

As posted upthread, I only recently managed to log back into my card point section, and no, there is no bonus there but also I do not think I have yet accessed the new portal. Is that still on a trial basis?

[JDB]

@Luca M the new portal isn’t on a trial basis – has been up and running since 18 July.

[Youllnever]

JDB wrote:

Youllnever wrote:

polly wrote:

@Youllnever
You just submit the paperwork, and keep spending on the WE. Are you already into your 2nd year with fee charged or still in your 1st bonus year? No pro rata refund tho. Might as well keep it, if fee already paid. Unless they agreed to refund you after the downgrade, on the phone. Quite tricky, hsbc.

Sounds good! Already in my 2nd year with the anniversary bonus received as well, therefore looking to downgrade.

You won’t get a pro rata refund, so you might as well wait until nearer the end of your year – it sounds as though you are nearer the start and, as others have said, there is no facility to downgrade. You need to cancel and reapply for the free card.

I’m actually nearing the end of year 2 – the annual fee should hit around mid January next year so I wanted to check the process in preparation for it. 🙂

[ZW]

Luca M wrote:

Did you guys hit the spending targets (cannot remember what it was) or it was just an automatic 40,000? I also have had the WE for years so if there is a way to get this free bonus I would like to try it.

On the statement, it says “Initial signup bonus”. I wonder if the platform assumed “everyone signed up” when the new platform went online in July, and give 40k points after £2000 spend in 90 days.

[ZW]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

ZW wrote:

I have had the WE card for years. Last year’s card fee was waived, and I just received 40k welcome points when I checked my points on the new platform. Does the new platform treat all cards as new members? Maybe another 40k anniversary bonus too?

Was there a fee charged this time?

No, but it may appear on my Oct statement.

[Umgowah]

Looks like the end of days as far as using the bendy one to pay off other cards onto HSBC.
It was good while it lasted.