The HSBC Premier Mastercards thread

[iamfugly]

sm wrote:

Thanks for info Polly. I phoned Monday to discuss fee and CSA (also very nice ) said they were charging fees now. Mine is due 21/5/22. Tomorrow! He said he’d send a ‘downgrade form’ by post but said if popped into branch they could print it and I could submit it to them same day. They couldn’t find said form in branch on Tuesday so couldn’t help me.
As I still hadn’t received it today I phoned them again and said it can take 5-7 days! They emailed the form to the branch. So I popped in and filled it in and they sent it up for processing.
The CSA said I would be refunded my annual fee if it was charged as I requested the downgrade before it was due. But let’s see….

When your daughter repays you via PayPal with BAPP, is it not treated as a cash advance and incurs appropriate fees?

[polly]

@Iamfugly

Re PayPal, it’s just a simple PP transactions to her mother, paid with her Amex… l did a wedding last year via PP also. It’s all within family payments. It’s allowed. Not charged as cash with fees, nor should it be, really.

Must ask HSBC to send me the downgrade forms today, just reminded me. So if fee is charged, it’s refunded later.

[Umgowah]

The Canadian version of the HSBC card has a conversion bonus running next month. Perhaps a (hopeful) sign of things to come. It would be nice, I’m sitting on 140k HSBC points.
https://milesopedia.com/recompenses/bonus-recompenses-hsbc-british-airways-executive-club/

[sm]

polly wrote:

Sm,Reney

Am currently in discussions with a nice csa, who was to phone me back today re the fee. Agreed we are not getting the whole benefits from the WE, and will see what they can do.. am not giving up, but made sure l discussed the drop down as my renewal date is 25th they think! They did mention some not being charged it, so a faint hope. Not the end of the world, as am putting through high spend via curve metal atm. May or may not do the downgrade after all this spend goes through…

Re stamp duty house purchase etc. am prepaying daughter’s solicitor all fees etc with WE, she repays me via PayPal on her BAPP. Win win… Both benefit. And prepaying other daughters annual rent via WE/curve. Again, PayPal Amex repay..handy, but needs close attention to have kept it going…

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.

[SteveJ]

Re PayPal friends and family, I’d be very cautious. It certainly works, no fees on either the PayPal or Amex end. BUT it’s a slippery slope, likely to be seen as cash recycling if that’s a major portion of the spend via either, both PayPal and Amex have been known to take a dim view of excessive use, including closing accounts.

[polly]

SteveJ
Agree, but they were genuine costs we had, if ever challenged. Just an unusual way of paying the girls. However, we have lots of other PayPal purchases etc in between, and they were well spread out. So hopefully we came through unscathed… am usually very cautious, but it did help get us some extra points, l think, genuinely earned.
Have never got into MS in any form, but guess this might be close.

SM, glad you got the WE drop down sorted. Will chase mine tomorrow.

[polly]

Reney,

Just re read your post, what 2nd year bonus? Do we also get one then too? Shall have to chase that up. Do we get a bonus every year. I only upgraded back to premier May 21. So have just realised am due the 2nd half of that bonus. Finally dragged the 1st bonus out of them on spending 12k or whatever… took ages. Tnx for the reminder.

[memesweeper]

@Polly there’s nothing bonus wise after the second half of the sign up bonus. I need to cancel or downgrade and wait for another SUB, I’m hardly using the card day-to-day.

[Reney]

polly wrote:

Reney,

Just re read your post, what 2nd year bonus? Do we also get one then too? Shall have to chase that up. Do we get a bonus every year. I only upgraded back to premier May 21. So have just realised am due the 2nd half of that bonus. Finally dragged the 1st bonus out of them on spending 12k or whatever… took ages. Tnx for the reminder.

I think we are thinking of the same thing, but I am calling it the second year bonus since you do the spending in year 1 but do not get the bonus unless you commit to year 2. From the HFP article:

You will receive an additional 40,000 points, worth an extra 20,000 Avios, if you spend a total of £12,000 in your first year. These will not arrive in your account until after your 12 months of membership irrespective of how quickly you hit the spending target. This means that you are committed to paying the annual fee for the 2nd year to receive the second part of the bonus.

[Reney]

@Polly, does this mean after your nice conversation with them they are still charging the fee since you are downgrading.

It sounds like you have downgraded and still qualified for the second half of the bonus? I thought you have to pay another year of fees. Sorry for all the Qs, I’m clearly confused.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[polly]

Reney,

Yes it just occurred to me when l glanced again at your post.
I had completely forgotten the hassle l had getting that 2nd 40k points last time. I had to get them to agree to wait until the exact date of 1 year in order to get the bonus applied, then downgrade…we had lots of discussions around this very issue here before. Took a hard neck to argue our case ie. We should not be forced to sign for the 2nd year fee just to qualify for our 2nd set of due points. Will know more after l speak to them in the morning. He was very vague about my actual renewal date, deliberately perhaps, so the 2nd year kicks in. Got to have the fee refund agreed before the drop down. And making it absolutely clear am only waiting until the bonus kicks in before downgrading. Or else they can agree to just waive the fee again….not looking forward to this call at all…

[colinc57]

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/content/dam/hsbc/gb/pdf/premier-worldelite-mastercard.pdf

It is always assumed ( and in the write up on this site) that you have to keep the card to get the anniversary bonus … others here may be interested if you get this agreed otherwise. Did you pay the year 1 fee.?

[polly]

Colinc57

Meant fee waiver agreed, before renewal, not refund.

Fee was charged x 3 times, then waived x 3 times last year. Took til August to sort it.
When l dropped down a Few years ago, was well into my 3rd month before the bonus points got added. Then it took 3 sets of postal forms to get it done. My local branch really didn’t have a clue. I was their 1st branch customer to get the WE card, they were surprised by it. Unreal! Was using WE card throughout these delays.
May have to go into my local branch this time to get them to print off forms! Long queues. Postal doesn’t work.

Yes, will update progress here.

[iamfugly]

polly wrote:

@Iamfugly

Re PayPal, it’s just a simple PP transactions to her mother, paid with her Amex… l did a wedding last year via PP also. It’s all within family payments. It’s allowed. Not charged as cash with fees, nor should it be, really.

Must ask HSBC to send me the downgrade forms today, just reminded me. So if fee is charged, it’s refunded later.

Thanks for clarifying. Good luck with HSBC!

[polly]

Phone call over. V efficient WE specialist this time. Seems like my chap the other was not quite upfront on my renewal date. Lady today told me it was on May 21st, he knew this, but didn’t disclose it.doesn’t tie in with the statement date, it seems. He knew l needed to decide by year end.. Now l know why he didn’t call me back. But, good news, NO FEE charged. Said it was due to the 3 months hassle last summer. So they may be personalising the charging of fees or not this year. She also said if does appear on the statement on the 25th, phone back and they will remove it. The bonus points are automatically applied the statement after the renewal month.
Good luck to others renewing.

[colinc57]

So you got no fee in yr1 or yr2 but still getting both bonuses ( worth £400) . That’s a good outcome for you, especially as seems you got bonuses previously.

[polly]

Colin,

If you drop down to premier for 6 + months, and chose to upgrade to WE, you start again from scratch. Am only getting the yr 1 2nd part of the bonus.. and yes, l did get the full bonus years ago for 1 year, and kept the card a 2nd year paying a fee. Then l downgraded when BAEC silver. Plus, they get a huge amount of spend from us too. This is only the 2nd time to upgrade since the card started. So not a big churn, actually.
Think they are aware of the Barclays new cards, so may be not charging some fees, am not sure…

[Luca M]

After lengthy conversations with CS and Complaint team, I can confirm that they no longer waive or refund the card fees as they see travels benefits back to normal and/or keep mentioning the T&C. So I have downgraded to the free card (or should say requested the form to do so). NB there are no longer branches near me, as they have all closed during covid /last round of massive closures. I would need to go in the London west end to get to one, and I am not keen on it, so hopefully the slow mailing will get to them before fee is charged

[Reney]

Luca M wrote:

After lengthy conversations with CS and Complaint team, I can confirm that they no longer waive or refund the card fees as they see travels benefits back to normal and/or keep mentioning the T&C. So I have downgraded to the free card (or should say requested the form to do so). NB there are no longer branches near me, as they have all closed during covid /last round of massive closures. I would need to go in the London west end to get to one, and I am not keen on it, so hopefully the slow mailing will get to them before fee is charged

Thanks for the info, sounds like from earlier comments as long as you started the downgrading process before renewal date, it would be fine.

Do many people forgo the spend 12k bonus to aviod the fee? I have done the 12k spend but not too keen to pay the second year fee. Although saying that, I didn’t pay year 1 due to Covid so I’ve benefited either way. I don’t have too much spend to put on this card in the next 12 months and would be eligible for BAPP and Barclays SUB so feels like I am just paying for the card to get the second half bonus.

I note Polly said she managed to downgrade and get bonus but I can’t get my head around how that works.

[polly]

Reney,

The most important part of the discussion was around my right to the bonus 40k points. Despite dropping down. We agreed that they would post automatically. And after the card converted, the fee refunded. So the date of dropping down to premier card is vital, that it is exactly the 1st day of the 2nd year. You just must get the calculations correct, as they will try to fudge them as l found out last week. It took ages to Establish the actual issue/start date.

Note: this does NOT correspond with the statement date. That’s where it will catch you out.
So, lucky for me, it took 3 attempts to get forms to me, and return, in the meantime, my bonus points posted. Finally the card was changed, and as agreed, the fee returned in full. Just an antiquated, manual system. They take a week to reply to in internal email too.

The smart really nice lady who sorted mine last week, told me they have actually just completed an online upgrade, which allows you to now print the forms yourself. She was leading a roll out workshop informing CSAs how it works. But not all are trained yet. So their process may well improve in the near future. But, to upgrade it’s a full new application on real paper forms!

[mattxcheung]

I just received an email from HSBC outlining some upcoming changes to the rewards programme. Apparently they are transitioning to a “Mastercard managed” reward programme for point redemptions. I’m not sure if that means the same transfer partners will be available or if new ones will be added since they also mention “hotel programme” point transfers in the email as well. I couldn’t figure out how to upload a photo to this post so here is the text copied directly from their email instead:

“You can request to transfer points to an airline frequent flyer or hotel programme via the Loyalty Portal. You’ll be able to check the available options and their points value there.”

[Reney]

polly wrote:

Reney,

The most important part of the discussion was around my right to the bonus 40k points. Despite dropping down. We agreed that they would post automatically. And after the card converted, the fee refunded. So the date of dropping down to premier card is vital, that it is exactly the 1st day of the 2nd year. You just must get the calculations correct, as they will try to fudge them as l found out last week. It took ages to Establish the actual issue/start date.

Note: this does NOT correspond with the statement date. That’s where it will catch you out.
So, lucky for me, it took 3 attempts to get forms to me, and return, in the meantime, my bonus points posted. Finally the card was changed, and as agreed, the fee returned in full. Just an antiquated, manual system. They take a week to reply to in internal email too.

The smart really nice lady who sorted mine last week, told me they have actually just completed an online upgrade, which allows you to now print the forms yourself. She was leading a roll out workshop informing CSAs how it works. But not all are trained yet. So their process may well improve in the near future. But, to upgrade it’s a full new application on real paper forms!

Polly, wow thanks for the detail. I think I understand better now.

[polly]

Here’s hoping for Marriott Bonvoy partnership…..yes, hinting at hotel partners, finally…..have asked repeatedly for airline partners, l keep quoting how good Amex are!

@Reney, hope it’s a bit clearer now, or just clear as mud.. it’s just a much more rigid process. We are quite spoiled with how good Amex are online etc..

[BuildBackBetter]

polly wrote:

We are quite spoiled with how good Amex are online etc..

+1. People keep blaming Rob for Barclaycard issues, when it was clear no one would be matching Amex for many aspects of customer service.

[Reney]

Can anyone confirm if you get charged a cash transaction fee or interest associated with it, will it show as soon as the transaction has posted it or at statement date?

Thanks