New HSBC Everyday+ Cashback: Earn 1% rebate with all HSBC credit cards (including Revolution)

Open an Everyday Global Account and earn 1% cashback on all your HSBC card spending, on top of the usual credit card rewards.

HSBC is making some major changes to the bonus cashback awarded to HSBC Advance + Everyday Global Account (EGA) holders, and you’re going to want to pay attention even if you’re not a cashback card user. 

From 2 August 2021, the HSBC Everyday+ Cashback (link not live yet) scheme will launch, awarding EGA holders a bonus 1% cashback on transactions made with any HSBC credit card, on top of the usual credit card rewards.

HSBC Revolution
Apply and get S$300 cashback
Full Review

This is great news for anyone with a HSBC Revolution, as it essentially means 4 mpd + 1 % cashback on dining, hotels, supermarkets, shopping and transportation, a very tidy return indeed.

Earn 1% cashback on card spending with HSBC EGA 

Here’s an overview of how the old cashback scheme compares to the new one, which takes effect from 2 August 2021. 

  HSBC Advance Cashback
(Till 1 Aug 21)
HSBC Everyday+ Cashback
(From 2 Aug 21)
Eligible Cards HSBC Advance Any HSBC credit card or EGA debit card
Min. Trxns Per Mo. 5
Min. EGA Deposit Per Mo.
(Fresh Funds)
S$2K S$2K (Personal)
S$5K (Premier & Jade)
Cashback 1% from 1st trxn till end of mo. 1% from 6th trxn till end of following mo.
Cap S$300 S$300 (Personal)
S$500 (Premier & Jade)
Crediting Time By end of following mo. 2-14 business days

The updated T&Cs can be found here. There’s a lot to break down, so let’s go line by line.

Eligible Cards

The previous scheme only awarded 1% cashback to transactions made on the HSBC Advance card, which was a bummer for those who wanted to earn miles. 

Going forward, 1% cashback will apply to transactions made with any HSBC credit or EGA debit card. 

Minimum Transactions

This remains the same as before. HSBC customers will need to make at least five eligible purchases on their credit card within the same calendar month to qualify for bonus cashback. 

What’s unclear is how this works if you have multiple HSBC cards. For example, could a cardholder qualify by making 3x transactions on the HSBC Revolution and 2x transactions on the HSBC Visa Infinite? I’m leaning towards no, but will try and get an official response. 

Minimum EGA Deposit

The previous requirement of a S$2,000 minimum deposit in an EGA remains the same for personal banking customers. However, HSBC Premier and Jade customers will now be required to deposit at least S$5,000 to enjoy the bonus cashback.

โ“ It seems a little unfair that HSBC’s preferred customers need to plonk down more capital, but I suppose they making up for that with a higher cashback cap (see below). 

Do note that these must be fresh funds, i.e. they must come from outside HSBC. To be clear, you’ll need to make a deposit every month you want to enjoy the bonus cashback (or technically, every other month- see next section). 

I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from setting up a standing order to transfer money into HSBC and then immediately back out…

Cashback

Customers who meet the minimum transactions and minimum EGA deposit will be eligible to earn 1% cashback on their credit card spend during the qualifying period. 

What’s changed is how the qualifying period is defined. 

Till 1 Aug 2021
Meet req. in Earn 1% cashback during…
Jul 2021 1-31 Jul 2021

Originally, customers who met the five transaction minimum would earn 1% cashback on all transactions made during that calendar month. For example, if I made my 5th transaction on 8 July 2021, I would earn 1% cashback on all transactions from 1-31 July 2021. 

From 2 Aug 2021
Date req. are met Earn 1% cashback during…
10 Aug 2021 11 Aug to 30 Sep 2021
5 Sep 2021 6 Sep to 31 Oct 2021
8 Oct 2021 9 Oct to 30 Nov 2021

Going forward, 1% cashback will be awarded for transactions made from the day after the requirements have been met, till the end of the following calendar month. For example, if my 5th transaction posts on 10 August 2021, I would earn 1% cashback on all transactions from 11 August to 30 September 2021. 

In other words, the qualifying spend period starts on the day after your 5th transaction posts, and runs till the end of the following month. Do remember there may be a lag of 1-2 days between the time a transaction was made and the time it posts to your account, so refer to your online banking when in doubt. 

Since you only earn 1% cashback from your 6th transaction onwards, the best way to start this is to make five microtransactions early in the month. Maybe head to the supermarket and buy five of the cheapest item, or just make 5x 1 cent payments to your telco or utilities provider. 

The boon of this new qualifying period definition is that you only need to transfer funds in every other month (since meeting the requirement this month covers you till the end of the following month). 

Cap

The previous monthly cap of S$300 is maintained for regular HSBC customers, and is boosted to S$500 for HSBC Premier and Jade. The cap applies on an account level, i.e. it doesn’t matter how many credit cards you have with HSBC. 

In practice though, the 1% cashback rate means it’s going to be almost impossible for most people to bust the cap. Doing so would require spending at least $30,000 each month on your card! If you’re a HSBC Revolution user, you’ll be charging (I hope) at most S$1,000 per month to the card, so this is hardly a limiting factor. 

Crediting Time

Cashback was previously credited by the end of the following month, e.g. cashback earned in July 2021 would be credited by 31 August 2021. 

Going forward, cashback will be credited to your EGA as early as two business days from the date posted, and no more than 14 business days. Zippy. 

Exclusions

The 1% cashback will not be awarded on any transaction that’s on HSBC exclusion list, namely: 

  • Foreign exchange transactions (including but not limited to Forex.com);
  • Donations and payments to charitable, social organisations and religious organisations;
  • Quasi-cash transactions (including but not limited to transactions relating to money orders, traveler’s checks, gaming related transactions, lottery tickets and gambling);
  • Payments made to financial institutions, securities brokerages or dealers (including but not limited to the trading of securities, investments or crypto-currencies of any kind);
  • Payments on money payments/ transfers (including but not limited to Paypal, SKR skrill.com, CardUp, SmoovPay, iPayMy);
  • Payments to any professional services provider (including but not limited to GOOGLE Ads, Facebook Ads, Amazon Web Services, MEDIA TRAFFIC AGENCY INC);
  • Top-ups, money transfers or purchase of credits of prepaid cards, stored-value cards or e-wallets (including but not limited to EZ-Link, Transitlink, NETS Flashpay and Youtrip);
  • Payments in connection with any government institutions and/or services (including but not limited to court costs, fines, bail and bond payment);
  • Any AXS and ATM transactions;
  • Tax payments (including HSBC Tax Payment Facility);
  • Payments for cleaning, maintenance and janitorial services (including property management fees);
  • Payments to insurance companies (including but not limited to sales, underwriting, premiums and insurance services);
  • Payments to educational institutions;
  • Payments on utilities;
  • The monthly instalment amounts under the HSBC Spend Instalment;
  • Balance transfers, fund transfers, cash advances, finance charges, late charges, HSBCโ€™s Cash Instalment Plan, any fees charged by HSBC;
  • Any unposted, cancelled, disputed and refunded transactions; and such other categories of transactions which HSBC may exclude from time to time.

The main ones to take note of are charitable donations, insurance, education, government payments, utilities bills and CardUp/ipaymy. 

Implications for HSBC Revolution cardholders

This is pretty much a no-brainer for HSBC Revolution cardholders. The 1% cashback is given on top of 4 mpd, and even if it’s effectively capped at S$10 per month (1% of S$1,000, the max anyone should be spending on the HSBC Revolution), it costs you nothing.

Alternatively, those who use the HSBC Advance can earn up to 3.5% cashback on all transactions, subject to the regular monthly cap. 

We don’t even need to consider opportunity cost, because all that’s required is to deposit S$2,000/S$5,000 into the EGA; there’s no requirement to maintain it. You could transfer in the money and then move it out immediately. 

Conclusion

To recap: in order to earn 1% cashback on your HSBC credit card, you’ll need to:

  • Make at least five transactions in a given calendar month
  • Deposit at least S$2,000 (S$5,000 for Jade/Premier) of fresh funds into your EGA

For those who don’t mind moving money in and out of the EGA every other month, you’ll get some extra cashback for your troubles. And if/when Amaze adds support for Visa credit cards, there’ll be an opportunity to stack a further 1% cashback on top of everything.

Aaron Wong
Aaron Wong
Aaron founded The Milelion to help people travel better for less and impress chiobu. He was 50% successful.

Similar Articles

Comments

9 COMMENTS

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

9 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Adam

In theory, if you’re making at least 5 transactions every month, you don’t have to worry about the 5 microtransactions after the first month. Just deposit the $300 every month. This is because your first 5 transactions for August will qualify you for August and September, first 5 transactions for September will qualify you for September and October (while these transactions still earn you 1% cashback), and so on. Refer to this clause in the T&Cs: An Eligible Purchase made within the same calendar month can count as both: a. the 6th or later Eligible Purchase within an ongoing qualifying… Read more »

Last edited 3 years ago by Adam
Adam

That does mean you’ll have to transfer money every month. FTR, you can FAST the money in and then out immediately – been doing that for my HSBC Advance card

Ben

Did this for awhile then found it was simpler to just let it deduct every month since my spending came up to ~ S$2k anyway.

Syok

haha, i got premier master card to stack with amaze!

Gallen

According to HSBC’s T&C for fee charges, there will be a minimum account balance fee of S$5 if the average daily balance for the Everyday Global Account falls below S$2,000.

Last edited 3 years ago by Gallen
Adam

Can’t deduct a fall-below fee if there’s nothing inside ๐Ÿ˜‰

Alternatively, use it as your banking account.

Joshua

The updated T&Cs here appear to suggest that fund transfer will qualify as a transaction too? That means if we transfer in $400 five times it should mee the criteria?

https://cdn.hsbc.com.sg/content/dam/hsbc/sg/documents/accounts/everyday-global/terms-and-conditions-governing-everydayrewards-programme.pdf

Gallen

“This Programme is offered to customers who hold an HSBC Everyday Global Account (โ€œEligible Accountโ€)”

“Fund transfers from an Eligible Account to a non-HSBC account.”

Should be referring to outward bound fund transfers from the HSBC Everyday Global Account