HSBC's New Travel Rewards Marketplace: Game-Changer or Just Another Portal?

Max My Card
6 days ago
2 min read

HSBC India has quietly launched its very own travel booking portal – HSBC Rewards | Travel with Points. Think of it as HSBC’s version of HDFC SmartBuy or Axis TravelEdge, but with some shiny new features and plenty of fine print.

If you hold an HSBC Premier, Prive, TravelOne, or Platinum card, then the HSBC Travel Rewards Marketplace could be your ticket to earning accelerated reward points on bookings made through the bank’s portal. But as always, it’s not all sunshine and air miles.

So, What’s New?

With this launch, eligible HSBC cardholders can now book:

Flights
Hotels
Car Rentals

And earn up to 12X reward points when doing so. Here's what that means:

Category	Max Accelerated Rewards
Flights	6X points
Hotels	12X points
Car Rentals	2X points

Sounds good, right? Well, it’s worth zooming in on the details.

Where Can You Book?

Only on the HSBC Travel with Points portal – powered by Hopper (yes, that Hopper). These accelerated earnings don’t apply on direct airline or hotel websites. It’s an OTA-style marketplace, just like HDFC’s or Axis’s versions, built to nudge you into booking through HSBC’s ecosystem.

So if you’re wondering whether booking a flight on Vistara.com will give you 12X rewards — it won’t.

How Much Can You Really Earn From HSBC's Travel Rewards Marketplace?

There’s a monthly cap on the bonus:

Premier Cardholders: max 18,000 accelerated points/month
That means roughly ₹1L/month on flights or ₹50K/month on hotels to max out.

Points are valued at ₹1 per point, but redemption for travel is restricted to Prive and Premier users.

You also earn base rewards on top, and those are uncapped.

Why Hotel Bookings Are Still Meh

We’ll say it again for the people at the back: booking chain hotels via third-party portals usually means forfeiting all elite benefits.

No upgrades. No free breakfast. No status night credits. No loyalty points.

So unless you don’t care about hotel loyalty programs (Accor, Hilton, Marriott, etc.), those juicy 12X multipliers come at a cost.

How Does It Compare?

Feature	HSBC Travel	Axis TravelEdge	HDFC SmartBuy
Flights Reward Rate	6X	5X–15X (Atlas)	Up to 10X
Hotel Reward Rate	12X	5X–15X	10X
Transfer Partners	Yes	Yes	Yes
OTA Booking Engine	Hopper	EaseMyTrip	Yatra/GoIbibo
Convenience Fee	₹300–₹700	Usually Zero	Varies

MaxMyCard POV

HSBC’s entry into the travel rewards game is definitely welcome — more choice is always good. But is it a game-changer?

Not quite. It’s a solid addition, but not a disruptor yet.

Pros: Great multipliers, Hopper integration, price protections.
Cons: Restricted portal use, limited ecosystem, hotel loyalty drawbacks.

Where it shines is for revenue flight bookings, especially if you stack it with HSBC Premier benefits. But it won’t dethrone Axis Atlas or HDFC Infinia just yet.