[INTERVIEW] Earn 1,000,000 Points with HSBC

Today, we are featuring Ryan Swain, Head of Product and Acquisition, Credit Cards at HSBC Bank Canada. Today he is going to share with us how to earn up to 1,000,000 points and highlight other significant features offered by HSBC. Thank you Ryan for taking the time to answer our questions and to help celebrate our 10 year anniversary with us! 

1) Please tell us about yourself and your role with HSBC.

I am the Head of Product and Acquisition for the HSBC credit card portfolio. My role is to ensure we have products that meet our customer needs, such as travel rewards cards, a low interest rate card and cash back card. Recently we launched our new No-Fee Cash Rewards card and the No-fee Travel Rewards card to provide our clients with a good mix of high value fee cards to choose from – such as our HSBC World Elite card and no fee cards to better meet their needs.

2) Looks like HSBC mortgage clients can earn up to 1,000,000 points. My question is, what can someone do with 1,000,000 points?

While most reward cards allow you to collect points on everyday purchases, at HSBC, we’re providing our clients the opportunity to collect points for quite likely their single largest transaction – their mortgage. New, eligible mortgages can bring our clients a whole new level of rewards. In essence, creating Pointillionaires in Canada! Yes, that’s a new word that we hope will catch on with this program.

The great thing about our rewards programmes is how easy it is to redeem your points. And there are so many options to choose from. For starters, a million points is worth $5,000 in travel rewards that can be used to cover eligible travel purchases paid for on your credit card, whether that’s trips abroad or a local camping trip. Pass the marshmallows!

If looking for a redemption option a little closer to home? A million points gets you a $4,000 credit against the balance of your HSBC residential mortgage.

You can also redeem your points for a variety of gift cards, merchandise, charitable donations, swap them for frequent flyer miles at our participating airlines, or put points towards your credit card balance or savings account.

3) HSBC is also one of the rare companies who waived foreign exchange fees. How did the thought process come about in putting more emphasis on this?

We have a significant amount of customers who are international or who travel internationally, and we wanted to help our customers overcome some of the pain points when using their credit cards outside Canada. The removal of additional Foreign Currency Conversion charge is a value add feature for our customers on every foreign transaction and is a key differentiator from other premium travel cards in the Canadian market. We think it’s a great competitive advantage – and when banks compete, the customer wins. This feature adds to a winning combination of travel benefits that are unique to our World Elite card.

4) What else is HSBC working on?

We recently just added a new accelerator category for our HSBC World Elite Card. Spending on travel still rewards customers with 6 pts for every dollar spent on their card but now customers can get 4 pts on every gas, grocery and drug store purchase – making many of life’s purchases even more rewarding.

We currently have a very strong offers on our cards including a $649 offer* (points & $ value) on our HSBC World Elite card and $200 offer *(points & annual fee waiver) on the HSBC Plus Rewards Card which is our 11.9% low interest rate card

5) Pointshogger is fast approaching its 10 year anniversary this fall. Do you have any thoughts for us as we embark on our next 10 years?

What a great milestone! Congratulations on your success over the past 10 years. Clearly you’ve created an entity that people value. I hope you continue to provide transparent coverage of the credit market in Canada to help your audience make educated choices. We will do our part to continue to compete hard to offer your readers the best possible solutions and provide you updates on our new offers and benefits of using HSBC credit cards.