Back in May this year HSBC launched the TravelOne card in Singapore, a general spend option offering 1.2 mpd on local transactions and 2.4 mpd for non-SGD spend, but the big news was that the bank was finally offering a wider range of transfer partners in the process, including nine frequent flyer programmes.

The bank promised “more than 20 international airline programmes” as transfer partners for the T1 card by the end of 2023, and while it hasn’t quite achieved that yet, the total has now increased to 16, plus four hotel loyalty schemes.

This includes four programmes that are new to the Singapore market – Air Canada Aeroplan, JAL Mileage Bank, Hainan Fortune Wings Club and Club Vistara.

The problem? Lousy transfer ratios render the new options quite useless in most cases.

Latest HSBC TravelOne FFP partner list

Here’s the latest list of 16 frequent flyer programmes you can transfer your HSBC Reward Points from the TravelOne card across to, and the transfer ratio.

= Original partners
= New partners

HSBC T1 FFP Transfer Partners

FFP			Transfer Ratio
			25,000 10,000
			35,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			30,000 10,000
			35,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			50,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			35,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			25,000 20,000
			25,000 10,000
			35,000 10,000
			40,000 10,000

This is an impressive list, the best for any card in Singapore, and includes Star Alliance, Oneworld and SkyTeam options. However, as we’ll mention later, the transfer ratios do sadly destroy any good value here.

Latest HSBC TravelOne hotel partner list

On the hotel loyalty programme side, HSBC already had a transfer option with Accor, IHG and Marriott Bonvoy, but in this latest update Wyndham Rewards has now been added to the list.

= Original partners
= New partners

HSBC T1 Hotel Transfer Partners

FFP			Transfer Ratio
			25,000 5,000
			25,000 10,000
			25,000 10,000
			30,000 10,000

These options are of less interest, since any value here is well and truly catered fore in the conversion rate, but they may still potentially be useful for some readers.

You can see a full list of bank and credit card points to loyalty programme miles and points options at our updated guide here.

The transfer ratios are awful

As you can probably see, the usual transfer ratio of 25,000 HSBC Reward points to 10,000 miles (2.5:1) does not apply to any of HSBC T1’s new airline partners, so the ‘advertised’ miles per dollar rates on this card are lower if you transfer into them.

For example, if you transfer only into the KrisFlyer programme (2.5:1) the HSBC T1 card continues to earn 1.2 mpd for local spend and 2.4 mpd for FCY spend, but if you transfer only into the JAL Mileage Bank programme (5:1) it’s 0.6 mpd for local spend and 1.2 mpd for FCY spend.

According to One Mile at a Time, JAL Mileage Bank miles are actually worth slightly less than KrisFlyer miles, making it a new partner to the Singapore credit card market that is more or less worthless to convert to.

Air Canada’s Aeroplan scheme has some nice sweet spots on its award chart, including Singapore to Australia and New Zealand for 45,000 miles each way in Business Class, but the poor transfer ratio of 3.5:1 makes it equivalent to 63,000 KrisFlyer miles or Avios (both 2.5:1).

It only costs 62,000 Avios to fly Qantas from Singapore to Australia in Business Class, though SIA does now charge 68,500 KrisFlyer miles for the same trip, making Aeroplan a bit cheaper, even after the lousy conversion ratio is accounted for.

In case you think we’re being unfair to expect the same transfer ratio from HSBC Reward Points to Aeroplan, Capital One in the USA has a 1:1 conversion ratio for both Aeroplan and KrisFlyer (and BA for that matter).

Transfer times

When the HSBC TravelOne card first launched, a very useful feature was the promise of instant conversion from HSBC Rewards points to frequent flyer miles or hotel points.

We can happily report that this is the case for transfers to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, based on a recent conversion, but do note that there’s a sneaky little caveat here.

HSBC has an “or within one business day” get-out, plus if you’re transferring to some programmes it will definitely take longer, as shown below.

• Club Vistara: Up to 5 working days
• Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club: Up to 5 working days
• JAL Mileage Bank: Up to 21 working days

Transfers are possible through the HSBC Singapore app (App Store | Google Play). Here’s HSBC’s step-by-step summary of how it works.

Transfers from HSBC TravelOne card Reward Points are currently free of charge, until 31st May 2024, after which the fee for transfers has yet to be disclosed.

There’s no point to the Qatar Privilege Club conversion option

When the HSBC TravelOne card first launched, one of its transfer partners was already the British Airways Executive Club (BAEC), allowing cardholders to transfer rewards points into Avios points at a 2.5:1 ratio.

As we mentioned at the time, Qatar Airways Privilege Club (QRPC) was also a de-facto inclusion, since you can link your British Airways Avios and QRPC accounts and make unlimited instant free 1:1 transfers of any amount between them, whenever you like.

See this guide if you haven’t linked your accounts yet – it’s pretty simple.

A direct conversion from HSBC Reward Points to QRPC is now also possible, but at a 3.5:1 ratio.

This is completely stupid, and no one in their right mind should ever do this with HSBC Reward Points.

Just transfer to British Airways at a 2.5:1 ratio, giving you 40% more Avios, and then instantly transfer the whole amount to QRPC.

That HSBC even offers a poorer ratio to QRPC compared to BAEC shows a total lack of understanding on the part of the bank about the very basic principles of how these FFPs work.

It’s hard to accrue HSBC T1 card Reward Points

Unfortunately HSBC does not allow you to combine points accrued on different cards, so if you have 24,999 HSBC Reward points on your TravelOne card it’s impossible to pool those with your Revolution card points, for example, to achieve a transfer.

That makes it difficult to accrue large volumes of points to make a significant transfer into miles for a long-haul award in Business Class, for example.

This will be a major drawback for this card until points pooling is potentially introduced next year.

The HSBC TravelOne card has added eight new frequent flyer programme partners and one more hotel loyalty programme partner to its repertoire, meaning there are now 20 options in total for your points.

While this makes the card the most generous in Singapore in terms of transfer partner selection, unfortunately the lousy transfer ratios make these new options quite unattractive in most examples.

That’s especially true for Qatar Airways Privilege Club, where a 40% more attractive option is to transfer to British Airways Avios, then convert them 1:1 into Qatar Avios for free.

(Cover Photo: Air Canada)