HSBC Revolution axing 4 mpd for contactless payments, online travel spend

The HSBC Revolution card has made headlines for the wrong reasons so far in 2024, with the removal of some hotels and online travel agent spend from bonus miles earning from 1st January, followed by a significant removal of groceries and food delivery from bonus earning from 1st May.

Unfortunately the bad news for this card doesn’t end there, with the bank today announcing that all contactless transactions will earn only 0.4 mpd from 15th July 2024, leaving only selected online spend eligible for 4 mpd accrual.

Furthermore, online travel-related spend will also be axed from the 4 mpd benefit from 1st January 2025, though this does give you the rest of the year to benefit on spend like flight tickets before it too drops to 0.4 mpd earning.

HSBC Revolution latest changes

HSBC has announced the following changes for its Revolution card.

This is a further huge hit for Revolution cardholders, and will seriously damage the card’s appeal with only a very limited 4 mpd earning list left to benefit from.

Effectively:

• From 15th July 2024 all contactless spend and mobile wallet spend will no longer earn 10X bonus points (4 mpd) with the HSBC Revolution card, but instead will revert to this card’s standard unattractive 1X points (0.4 mpd) rate.
• From 1st January 2025, travel-related spend will no longer earn 10X bonus points (4 mpd) with the HSBC Revolution card, but instead will revert to this card’s standard unattractive 1X points (0.4 mpd) rate.

That means there’s only one more month for you to be able to tap the card’s 4 mpd rate for contactless spend, and just over six months to benefit from 4 mpd in the travel category, which will also become an online-only category from 15th July 2024 to 31st December 2024.

In case you thought HSBC might at least increase the monthly bonus cap after these changes (the least they could do?), that’s not happening, so you’re still stuck with a S$1,000 per calendar month spend limit for 4 mpd.

These significant changes mean the HSBC Revolution card will become useless for contactless spend, switching to a narrow selection of online-only eligible bonus categories, and for all travel spend from next year.

Despite the HSBC Revolution card recently gaining 21 frequent flyer and hotel loyalty transfer partners, there really looks to be very little value in holding on to this one from mid-July.

The good news is that your HSBC Reward points now pool with other cards you hold with the bank, and even if you need to cash them out before cancelling you can do so provided you have at least 25,000 points accrued, with transfers after that rounded to the nearest whole frequent flyer mile, and no transfer fee till February 2025.

See our recent article for full details.

New bonus earn list for HSBC Revolution cards (online only)

Here’s a rundown of the eligible MCCs for online only purchases that will earn at the 4 mpd rate for the first $1,000 of monthly spend using the HSBC Revolution card, from 15th July 2024.

Non-eligible spend, or any amount over the S$1,000 calendar month cap, will earn at the basic 0.4 mpd rate, as will contactless spend from 15th July 2024 (so don’t tap your card at these merchants after that!).

Online-only 4 mpd catgories
From 15th July 2024

Which cards still earn bonus miles for air tickets?

One of the current benefits of the HSBC Revolution is the 4 mpd earn rate on up to S$1,000 spend per month when purchasing air tickets with the likes of Singapore Airlines, Scoot and Jetstar.

That won’t fundamentally change from mid-July, because this spend tends to be online anyway rather than contactless, so you still have a few months to take advantage.

However, from 1st January 2025 you’ll have to look elsewhere for bonus miles on air ticket spend. Here are some of the alternative options.

Cards earning bonus miles
for air ticket spend

Card	Earn rate	Spend Cap per calendar month
UOB Lady’s	4 mpd	S$1,000 (Lady’s) or S$2,000 (Lady’s Solitaire) Online or in-store Subject to Travel as one of your bonus categories
DBS WWMC	4 mpd	S$1,500 Online spend
UOB VS	4 mpd	Min S$1,000 Max S$2,000 per statement month FCY spend
Maybank VI	3.2 mpd	No cap Till 31 Aug ’24
Maybank HVS	3.2 mpd	Min S$800 all spend Max S$10,000 air ticket spend Till 30 Jun ’24 (2.8 mpd from 1 Jul ’24)

The KrisFlyer UOB credit card also earns 3 mpd for air tickets, but only those booked with Singapore Airlines and Scoot.

From 15th July 2024, you’ll no longer earn 4 mpd with your HSBC Revolution card when making contactless payments in eligible bonus earn categories like dining, department store spend and at selected retail stores.

That will put the card in an online-only restricted 4 mpd bonus category from the middle of next month – hardly the most appealing concept.

Furthermore, travel-related transactions that include categories like SIA, Scoot and Jetstar spend will only earn 4 mpd until the end of 2024, completely removing this bonus category from the card’s arsenal from the start of next year.

It’s hard to see any appeal for the Revolution card once these changes take effect, especially following recent useful spend category removals like groceries and food delivery, since earlier this year.

That’s a big shame as this spend will soon need to be diverted onto other bonus earning cards on the market, which you may already be maxing out within their own bonus categories.

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)