HSBC Live+
Keep₹999, 1.99% forex and three lounge visits — the cheapest travel insurance policy on this board.
a year at ₹40,000 a month, after the fee
Skip the arithmetic — the board, ranked → · nothing to sign up for
What it's worth to you, after the fee
Welcome: ₹1,000 cashback for downloading and logging on to the HSBC India app and spending ₹25,000 within 30 days of card issuance, plus a voucher worth ₹750 for Amazon Pay, Zomato or Swiggy on activation with a single transaction of ₹300 or more, and a ₹250 Amazon eGift Voucher for a video-verified online application
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied: it earns nothing on fuel here, so that spend is dropped, not paid at the headline, and stops pacing milestones and the waiver. Plus milestones, minus the fee. No accelerator credit — the ranking model on /compare adds ~20% of spend at the card's best accelerator, so its ₹ for this card reads higher.
How these numbers are computed — and why the rankings show a bigger one →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
Pays for itself at ₹6,000 a month
At ₹6,000 a month — ₹72,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹1,000 gross (earn ₹1,000) against its ₹999 fee = ₹0 net — the first rung at or above ₹0. The ladder runs in ₹1,000 steps to ₹1,00,000 a month and ₹10,000 steps to ₹5,00,000; figures are rounded to the hundred, and the accelerator is never credited.
3 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · the network variants · why it ranks #61
Why #61 The value model likes this card more than we do, and it is right about the arithmetic: 1.5% uncapped on a ₹999 fee that HSBC hands back at ₹2,00,000 of spend is better money than most of the board. It is held here because the money stops being money — Live+ pays statement cashback, so nothing it earns can ever become an award seat, and it earns nothing at all on the international spends its 1.99% markup exists to court. Ranked as the second card it is, not the earner the score reads it as.
Our joint #1 for Telecom (2 cards level), Utilities (2 cards level) and Dining (3 cards level); #3 for Cashback and Groceries — 5 of the 23 questions this desk ranks.
The take
Live+ is not a miles card and does not pretend to be — HSBC's own service guide says "there is no separate Rewards programme". What it is, at ₹999 that HSBC gives back in full the moment you spend ₹2,00,000 in a card year, is the cheapest way an Indian traveller buys down a forex markup. 1.99% is a full point and a half under the 3.5% the rest of the HSBC shelf charges, and on ₹5 lakh of overseas spend that gap is ₹7,550 a year against a fee of ₹999. Read the trade honestly, though: HSBC took the markup down and took the cashback off international spend at the same time, so foreign swipes now earn nothing at all. Domestically it is a clean 1.5% on most things and 10% on dining, groceries, shopping and utilities up to ₹1,200 a month — ₹14,400 a year if you max it every month, which is more than most premium cards return. Amazon and Flipkart are cut back to 1.5% inside that 10%; Myntra is not, but only until 31 October 2026, which HSBC calls a launch offer and prices as one. The lounges are thin — two domestic a year, and since 1 September 2026 one international, claimed off a separate Thriwe platform rather than by tapping the card — and the exclusion list is long. HSBC threw a 1GB global eSIM in alongside that lounge visit; it is a week of data, not a roaming plan. As a second card behind a real points earner, it does exactly one job and does it for free.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
Here is the fee, the spend that clears it, and everything that has moved under this card since you last decided.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹999/yr
The waiver ₹2,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹16,667 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹6,000 a month — ₹72,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹4,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹8,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹16,900 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹50,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹84,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
Everyday earn plus milestones, minus the fee — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
Your copy of this card
You hold this card.
Kept on this device, in your browser. It is never sent to us, never synced, and nothing else on the site reads it yet.
The downgrade
HSBC publishes no document naming a card you can step down to, so we name none — an invented product change is a phone call you would waste. That leaves keep or cancel, and the numbers above are the whole of it.
What has changed under this card
- 1 Sep 2026 HSBC Live+ switches on its international lounge visit, and adds a 1GB global eSIM
- 15 Aug 2026 HSBC zeroes the forex mark-up on every card it sells — for 32 days issuer-wide
We price what is in force today — a change that has not happened yet is not in these numbers. the full archive for this card →
If you call to cancel
What the bank offers to keep you is the one fact this desk cannot compute. We are collecting those reports — dated, and only in aggregate — before publishing any: an offer one reader was made is not one you are owed. Called about this card? Tell us what they offered →
The desk publishes subscribable .ics feeds for the dates it knows — offer deadlines, devaluations, expiry audits. Your renewal date is not one of them: only your statement knows it.
What's good
- 1.99% foreign-currency markup — standing rate in the tariff sheet, not a promotion
- 1.5% unlimited cashback on most domestic spend, credited straight to the statement
- 10% cashback on dining, food delivery, groceries, shopping and utilities, up to ₹1,200 a month
- ₹999 annual fee including GST fully reversed above ₹2,00,000 of eligible spend
- A complimentary 1GB global eSIM every calendar year — 7 days across 98 countries — plus 20% off every top-up
Watch out
- International spends earn NO cashback — HSBC removed it when it cut the markup to 1.99%
- The 10% rate is capped at ₹1,200 a month, and Amazon and Flipkart are explicitly excluded from it — Myntra keeps the 10% only until 31 October 2026, then joins them at 1.5%
- Cashback is 0% on fuel, rent, insurance, education, government, financial institutions, e-wallets, jewellery, hospitals and business-to-business MCCs
- Cashback runs on MCC alone — 'the Bank's decision on classification is final' — and posts up to 45 days after the FOLLOWING statement, not the one the spend was on; a refund or reversal claws it back too, netted against next month's cashback or debited outright
- A telecom recharge (MCC 4814, HSBC's own 'Utilities' bucket) DOES earn the 10% inside the same cap — but only if the biller's gateway actually tags it 4814; a differently-coded recharge earns just 1.5%
- Only 2 domestic lounge visits a year, and no more than one every 6 calendar months
- The international lounge visit is ONE a calendar year and it does not arrive on the card — HSBC redeems it through a separate platform, hsbcliveplus.thriwe.com, and you go there to claim it. It went live on 1 September 2026; before that date the card carried two domestic visits and nothing else
- The global eSIM is a taster, not connectivity: 1GB, valid SEVEN DAYS, one pack a calendar year. Past day seven or gigabyte one you are buying top-ups at 20% off
- Cashback cannot become a flight — there is no rewards programme, no transfer partner and no points balance
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes HSBC Cashback into a programme that publishes an award chart. These points buy catalogue and portal redemptions, not award seats — so this page has no flight to show you, and will not invent one.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
What earns, what doesn't
13 sourced rules · 9 pay zero
Cashback is assigned purely by MCC, never by merchant name or what the spend "felt like" — the guide's own line is final: "Cashback will be credited solely on the MCC categorisation, as outlined below. The Bank's decision on applicability, classification and all other purposes shall be final and binding." (Cashback Illustration, p.20-21). It doesn't land same-cycle either: the guide's own worked example ties a statement dated 2nd-of-month to "Eligible cashback amount to be posted 17th of June — within 45 days from the [next] statement date" — so cashback from a cycle can take up to two billing cycles to actually show up. And it isn't safe from reversal: Key Things §2 states cashback on a transaction that "subsequently get[s] reversed, cancelled or nullified (for any reasons)" is clawed back, "either being adjusted against cashback of the next statement or by debiting the card account in the next statement" — a refunded purchase, not just a disputed one.
- Fuel · excluded MCC 5541/5542/5983/5172/5552 — 0% cashback
- Rent & property management · excluded MCC 6513/7349/7012 — 0% cashback, and rental payments also carry a 1% processing fee
- Wallet loads · excluded MCC 6540 E-Wallets — 0% cashback; financial institutions (6010/6011/6012) and money order/wire transfer (4829) are also zero
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · capped MCC 4900 (Utilities) earns 10%, inside the same shared ₹1,200-a-month accelerator cap
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹2,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹999 fee. A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Not published. HSBC states what the HSBC Live+ earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹2,00,000 bar. We won't guess it from the earn table or from a sibling card: Axis published three cards' rules on one day and all three lists differed. If you hold this card and have it in writing from the issuer, send us the document and we'll source it.
Lounge access
0 of 793 tracked doors
No lounge access. This card opens exactly 0 of 793 tracked lounge doors — board with the crowd, or find a card that doesn't →
Can you get it?
income, age and the route in
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
per the official HSBC MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the board by what you can get →
The fine print
6 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Joining ₹999, annual ₹999 — the annual fee INCLUDING GST is fully reversed once eligible spend across the primary and add-on cards passes ₹2,00,000 in the anniversary year. The tariff sheet is shared with HSBC Platinum and prints the two forex rates side by side, 3.5% against 1.99%, which is what makes the 1.99% a standing rate rather than a promotion. Cheque bounce ₹500. Free credit period 45 days (Platinum gets 48). Rental and related payments 1% processing fee. Income and age criteria from the official product page.
per the official HSBC MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
8 dated changes
Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to. Every one is dated here; the tracker carries each one's before → after and the write-up.
- 1 Sept 2026HSBC Live+ switches on its international lounge visit, and adds a 1GB global eSIM2 complimentary domestic lounge visits a year (one every 6 calendar months) and nothing international — HSBC's own footnote read "1 international visit per year will be available from 1 September 2026" → The same 2 domestic visits plus 1 international visit per CALENDAR year, claimed through a separate HSBC platform powered by Thriwe, and 1 complimentary 1GB global eSIM a calendar year (7 days, 98 countries) with 20% off every top-up
A dated benefit arriving on time is not news; what HSBC did around it is. The w.e.f. date was published in advance in the Live+ Service Guide — this desk read it there on 16 August — and as it landed HSBC rewrote the product page's own footnote, the `airport-lounge-live-plus` anchor in its dpws-footnotes.json, to drop the future tense and, for the first time, say HOW you get the visit: "To access your benefits, visit the dedicated platform powered by Thriwe." That matters more than the wording suggests. This is not a lounge network and not a card tap; it is a claim you make on hsbcliveplus.thriwe.com, and a benefit you have to go and fetch is a benefit a fair share of cardholders will never fetch. HSBC still names no network for either quota, domestic or international, which is why our lounge map carries the counts and no scheme. Riding in on the same rewrite, undated by HSBC and therefore logged here rather than on a date of its own: "1 Complimentary 1GB valid Global eSIM per calendar year, plus a 20% discount on every top-up. The 1GB pack will be valid for 7 days across 98 countries." Read the numbers before you rate it — one gigabyte, seven days, once a year. That is a long-weekend's maps and messages, not a roaming plan, and the honest framing is a taster that sells top-ups at a discount. On a ₹999 card HSBC reverses at ₹2,00,000 of spend it is still free money; it is just much less money than "complimentary global eSIM" sounds. Nothing in this changes what the card earns: the 10% capped at ₹1,200 a month, the 1.5% uncapped, the zero on international spend since 26 July 2026 and the 1.99% markup are all untouched.
- 1 Sept 2026HSBC's RuPay Platinum welcome suite lapses — ₹500 cashback, EazyDiner and the UPI ₹250 all end together
- 1 Sept 2026HSBC's RuPay Cashback welcome suite lapses — ₹500 cashback, EazyDiner and the UPI ₹250 all end together
- 31 Aug 2026HSBC's 0% forex window on the RuPay Cashback card closes
- 15 Aug 2026HSBC zeroes the forex mark-up on every card it sells — for 32 days
- 1 Jul 2026HSBC TravelOne guts its welcome offer for new applicants
- 1 Dec 2024HSBC TravelOne arrives — a 20-partner airmiles card
- 28 Nov 2023HSBC Premier Credit Card returns as a metal card
Every HSBC change we've dated → 9 events since 1987, 6 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against HSBC's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 5 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Shared Platinum / Live+ tariff sheet — Live+ ₹999 a year, reversed with GST above ₹2,00,000 of eligible spend, and 1.99% on foreign currency where Platinum pays 3.5%
- official Service Guide — 10% cashback capped at ₹1,200/month on dining, groceries, shopping and utilities, MCC-classified; 1.5% unlimited elsewhere; three lounge visits a year
- official Welcome cashback T&C — ₹1,000 for downloading the HSBC India mobile app and transacting ₹25,000 within 30 days of issuance, for cards applied for between 26 July 2026 and 31 December 2026
- official Product page — Visa Infinite, three welcome clauses, 10% at Myntra until 31 October 2026, the international lounge visit now live via Thriwe, and a 1GB global eSIM a year
- official The retired HSBC Cashback Credit Card page — HSBC states there that the Cashback Credit Card is now this card