PSA: HSBC Revolution ending bonuses for airlines, car rental, cruises and lodging

2024 has probably given HSBC Revolution Cardholders PTSD, with nerf after nerf to this once-excellent card. Bonuses for travel agents and hotels were the first to go, followed by groceries, food delivery and fast food, followed by all offline transactions. 

Will 2025 bring any relief? Maybe, but not before HSBC kicks off the year by adding even more categories to the nerf pile, namely airlines, car rental, hotels, and cruises. 

Because at this point, why not?

HSBC Revolution axes bonuses for travel-related spend

From 1 January 2025, the HSBC Revolution will no longer award 10X rewards points (4 mpd) on travel-related transactions, defined as:

These transactions will earn 1X rewards points (0.4 mpd) instead.

The implementation of this change is based on posting date, so any travel-related transactions that post by 31 December 2024 will continue to earn 4 mpd, subject to the bonus cap. If you made a travel-related transaction towards the end of December 2024 and it posts from 1 January 2025 onwards, however, you’ll only earn 0.4 mpd.

The bigger danger here is that you might have put the HSBC Revolution as your card on file for a hotel stay or car rental and forgotten about it, so it pays to give your bookings a quick check. 

This change was originally announced in June 2024, so you can’t say they didn’t give notice!

Is there any point to holding a HSBC Revolution now?

Following its 2024 bloodbath, it may surprise you to know that the HSBC Revolution still has a decent-sized bonus whitelist, consisting of shopping, dining, transport and membership clubs.

However, the fact that transactions must be processed online to earn bonuses narrows the scope even further, and I wouldn’t recommend this card to people unless they were already busting the 4 mpd caps on other specialised spending cards like the Citi Rewards, DBS Woman’s World Card, UOB Lady’s Card and UOB Preferred Platinum Visa.

In that case, here’s a few ways of making hay with the HSBC Revolution, plus a couple of workarounds for its restrictions. 

Department Stores & Retail Stores

There are two crucial MCCs here: 5311, and 5999.

MCC 5311 is used for department stores, but it also belongs to Heymax, which sells vouchers for a wide range of physical and online merchants including Amazon, Best Denki, Deliveroo, Grab, IKEA, Klook, Lazada, NTUC FairPrice Online, Pelago, Zalora and more. 

👍 700 Max Miles joining bonus

Sign up for a HeyMax account and get up to 700 Max Miles as a welcome bonus

700 bonus Max Miles

This means it’s still possible to earn 4 mpd on things like food delivery, tours and activities, groceries, and basically anything else you can buy a voucher for with Heymax, if you don’t mind the extra step of buying a voucher.

MCC 5999 is used for Atome, which partners with Agoda, Cathay Pacific, EU Holidays, KKday and Trip.com. This presents a possible workaround for the exclusion of travel-related transactions, though sadly Atome no longer works with Klook. 

Other workarounds for in-store shopping include:

• Buying gift cards on Wogi (MCC 5947), which can be used in-store at Best Denki, Challenger, iStudio, Isetan, TANGS etc.
• Buying eCapitaVouchers or Frasers Digital Gift Cards on Wogi (MCC 5947), which can then be used at any CapitaLand Mall or Frasers Mall in Singapore
• Paying with FavePay (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)
• Paying with Kris+ (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)
• Paying with ShopBack Pay (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)

Dining

While the HSBC Revolution continues to reward online dining transactions, the big problem here is that MCC 5814 was nerfed in May 2024- the MCC that food delivery platforms like GrabFood, foodpanda and Deliveroo often use. 

Still, it is possible to earn bonuses when physically dining in a restaurant if the merchant:

• Accepts FavePay (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)
• Accepts Kris+ (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)
• Accepts ShopBack Pay (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)
• Has a QR-code ordering system like Oddle that requires you to pay on your phone before submitting your order (assuming MCC falls within whitelist)

All these transactions will code as online, and you’d earn 4 mpd assuming the merchant’s MCC falls within the HSBC Revolution’s dining whitelist. However if the transaction codes as MCC 5814, you’re out of luck.

Transport

MCC 4121 remains a bonus category, which means you can continue to earn 4 mpd with Gojek, Grab, TADA and Ryde.

Membership Clubs

MCC 7997 remains a bonus category, so you can use the HSBC Revolution to earn 4 mpd with Anytime Fitness, Fitness First, BFT and most other gyms provided you pay online. Accor Plus should also code as 7997, per my most recent records.

HSBC rewards points are very valuable!

What makes this nerf all the more unfortunate is that HSBC rewards points are actually very valuable.

• HSBC has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners, by far the most of any bank in Singapore
• Conversions to all but two programmes (Hainan and JAL) are instant
• Conversion fees are now waived until further notice
• While the minimum conversion block is 10,000 miles, the subsequent block is just two miles (so you could transfer 10,002 or 20,496 miles, for example)
• Points pool across all HSBC cards
• While non-expiring points would be nice, HSBC still offers longer validity than most competing banks at 37 months

This means that 4 mpd on the HSBC Revolution is be more valuable than 4 mpd on the DBS Woman’s World Card, for instance, where the points are only valid for a year with just four transfer partners.

Since HSBC has no bonus categories on its general spending cards, and HSBC excludes points for CardUp and ipaymy, there really aren’t a lot of ways to rack up the points quickly. The HSBC Revolution being on life support doesn’t help. 

Travel insurance also getting nerfed

Currently, HSBC Revolution Cardholders receive complimentary travel insurance from MSIG when they:

• charge the full fare of their flight, rail or cruise to their card, or
• redeem a flight with airline miles, and use their card to cover the taxes and surcharges

This policy provides coverage of up to S$1,000,000 per person.

From 1 April 2025, complimentary travel insurance will no longer be offered. While I don’t see any reason why you’d use the HSBC Revolution to pay for air tickets now that bonuses have been nerfed, it’s still important to note because of the retroactive application. 

In other words, even if you used your HSBC Revolution to buy tickets before this date, you won’t enjoy coverage if your trip takes place from 1 April 2025 (if your trip straddles this date, you won’t be covered for any incident that happens after 31 March 2025). 

More details can be found in the post below.

HSBC Revolution axing complimentary travel insurance from April 2025

Conclusion

From 1 January 2025, the HSBC Revolution Card will no longer offer 4 mpd for airlines, car rental, lodging and cruise line transactions, making its already hobbled bonus whitelist even smaller.

Big spending miles chasers who have maxed out the bonus caps on other cards might still find some use for it, thanks to workarounds like Atome and Heymax, but for most, this card will likely become surplus to requirements. You can keep it handy if you want to enjoy The Entertainer by HSBC, or you can consider cancelling it to reset your new-to-bank status for a welcome gift 12 months down the road.