HSBC TravelOne
KeepA serious transfer hub at a small fee — earning has to happen elsewhere.
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 + ₹3,000 Postcard voucher + 3-mo EazyDiner Prime on ₹25k in 30 days
Active offers: HSBC TravelOne welcome pack — cashback, Postcard voucher, EazyDiner (ends in 31 days)
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 utilities and 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 ₹25,000 a month
At ₹25,000 a month — ₹3,00,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹5,000 gross (earn ₹5,000) against its ₹4,999 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 #19
Why #19 A transfer hub at a premium card's fee, and we were ranking it below cards it out-scores. ₹4,999 buys the same twenty partners the ₹20,000 Premier gets, on the same points, and our own value model already put it ahead of IDFC Ashva and both Kotak Air Plus tiers — which sat above it. Moved past all three. It does not climb higher because the earning is the weak half: 2 points per ₹100 outside travel, with utilities, fuel, insurance, education, government, wallets, jewellery and tax at zero. Hold it for where the points go, not for what they cost to collect — which is exactly what our own Axis Atlas page already tells shut-out applicants.
Our joint #1 for Transfers (2 cards level); #3 for Hotel points — 2 of the 23 questions this desk ranks.
Best real exit: Accor Live Limitless (ALL) at ₹2.15/pt (1:1 transfer, above house value).
The take
TravelOne is the surprise of the current crop: a ₹4,999 card that earns 4X on travel and forex, 2X on everything else, and — the real hook — transfers 1:1 to roughly 20 airline and hotel programs, with instant in-app moves to British Airways and Qatar Avios. KrisFlyer, Flying Blue and Air India are all in the list. For a sub-₹5,000 fee that's a genuinely serious transfer hub — the miles-mover for people who won't carry a super-premium fee to get one. The caveats: base earn outside travel is modest and heavily excluded, HSBC's eligibility footprint is narrow, and 2026 brought a gutted welcome offer plus the forex promo expiring — which is why the transfer list is the reason to hold it, not the earn.
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
₹4,999/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹4,999/yr
The waiver ₹8,00,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹66,667 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹25,000 a month — ₹3,00,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹0 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹5,100 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹20,200 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹70,500 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹1,10,800 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
- 23 Sep 2026 Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and Hilton a program these points reach
- 15 Sep 2026 Wyndham splits its three flat free-night tiers into four a program these points reach
- 8 Sep 2026 Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product a program these points reach
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
- 4 reward points per ₹100 on flights, travel portals and foreign currency
- 1:1 transfers to ~20 partners incl. Avios, KrisFlyer, Flying Blue, Air India
- Instant in-app transfer to British Airways & Qatar Avios
- Complimentary lounge access and low ₹4,999 fee
Watch out
- Fee waived only at ₹8L annual spend; forex back to 3.5% since Jul-2026 (promo over)
- Base earn is a modest 2X outside travel/forex
- HSBC's eligibility and branch footprint are narrow
- Portal redemption is weak — the value is only in transfers
- Young program; the partner list and ratios could be cut
- The 10,000-point ₹12L bonus counts an ANNIVERSARY year from your card-open date, not the financial year — and only primary-card net spend
- Issued only to residents of 21 named cities — outside them HSBC will not open the account
What these points actually fly
You hold this — the numbers below are your own points.
These points feed 23 programmes that publish an award chart. Cheapest verified seat per cabin, priced in YOUR points with this card's own ratio already applied:
- Bengaluru → Colombo Economy 6,500 HSBC Reward Points via Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) at 1:1 the play
- Chennai → Colombo Business 14,000 HSBC Reward Points via Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) at 1:1 the play
- Mumbai → Delhi First 50,000 HSBC Reward Points via Air Canada Aeroplan at 2:1 (through Accor Live Limitless (ALL)) the play
What earns, what doesn't
13 sourced rules · 9 pay zero
- Fuel · excluded MCC 5541/5542/5983/5172/5552 (listed with utilities); 1% surcharge waiver ₹400–₹4k, cap ~₹250/cycle — community
- Rent & property management · excluded MCC 6513 'Real Estate and Managers'; still counts toward ₹8L annual-fee-waiver spend — community
- Wallet loads · excluded MCC 6540; money transfer 4829 and financial institutions 6010/6011/6012/6051 also zero
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded MCC 4900 (note: 4899/4816 NOT listed — cable/other-utility MCCs technically earn; edge case)
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹8,00,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹4,999 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 TravelOne earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver and the milestones — the ₹8,00,000 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.
Where the miles go
20 programs
Ratios read card points : partner miles — 2:1 means 2 points become 1 mile. Never the other way round.
every HSBC route, side by side → · the HSBC Reward Points hub →
Lounge access
43 of 793 tracked doors
Opens 43 of 793 tracked lounge doors across 24 airports , via Mastercard India — see the full map →
Memberships included
1 included · ₹2,000/yr
- EazyDiner Prime ₹2,495 ₹2,000welcome/milestone 3-month Prime with the welcome pack; new applicants from 1 Jul 2026 need ₹25,000 spend in 30 days (was ₹10,000)
Not counted in our net-value math above — worth ₹2,000 a year only if you'd actually use it. Sticker prices struck through; our number assumes you show up. The full matrix →
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.
Fee ₹4,999, waived at ₹8L annual spend. Eligibility restricted to 21 serviceable cities (official product page; Trivandrum added Aug-2026). Unusual MPD-linked late fee formula rather than balance slabs.
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.
- 23 Sept 2026Axis EDGE brings Accor back, drops ITC, and adds Cathay, Miles & More and HiltonAccor and Marriott off the grid since 2 April 2026; Club ITC live; no Cathay, Miles & More or Hilton → Accor live at the punished rates; ITC removed; Cathay, Hilton and Miles & More live; Marriott still gone
Axis's own Travel EDGE terms, re-read 25 September 2026, already show the grid that went live on 23 September. Accor ALL is back, and not at the old Atlas 1:2: EDGE Miles convert at 2:1 (Olympus 1:2) and EDGE Rewards at 5:1, with Magnus for Burgundy at 5:2 and only Burgundy Private still at 5:4. Club ITC is off the table. Three partners are new. Cathay Asia Miles sits on that same punished grid. Hilton Honors is the ordinary one: EDGE Miles 1:2, EDGE Rewards 5:2, Burgundy 5:4. Lufthansa Miles & More is the exception on Atlas, which converts 1:1 there while every other standard airline on that card is 1:2; the EDGE Rewards side of Miles & More is the ordinary 5:2. Marriott stays removed. Qatar Privilege Club was already back. Flying Blue, Air India and Qantas moved into Group A, which is the capped group. The Axis Rewards credit card's Amex network is advertised as joining-fee and annual-fee nil for a limited period; there is no separate Amex variant on this board, so that offer is not modelled as a fee change.
- 15 Sept 2026Wyndham splits its three flat free-night tiers into four
- 8 Sept 2026Flying Blue splits award tickets into Light / Standard / Flex — a 25% rise for the same product
- 1 Sept 2026HSBC Live+ switches on its international lounge visit, and adds a 1GB global eSIM
- 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
- 25 Aug 2026Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles opens a broad SkyTeam status match — up to Elite Plus
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 — 7 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Product page (₹4,999 joining and annual fee, free above ₹8,00,000 of yearly spend, welcome ₹1,000 cashback + ₹3,000 PostCard + 3-mo EazyDiner Prime on ₹25k/30d; issued in 21 cities)
- official Transfer-partner table — 15 airlines + 5 hotels; AirAsia 1 pt = 3 miles (official wording), Hainan/Turkish/United 2 pts = 1 mile, Shangri-La 5:1, the other 16 at 1:1
- official TravelOne MITC / tariff sheet — ₹4,999 joining, ₹4,999 annual waived only above ₹8,00,000 of primary-card spend in the FY
- official Service Guide (11-Dec-2025) — confirms the 2X accelerator on airlines/travel agencies/foreign currency carries a 50,000 accelerated-RP calendar-month cap
- official Milestone Offer T&C — 10,000 reward points for ₹12,00,000 of net eligible spend in an ANNIVERSARY year from the card-open date; primary cards only, add-ons have no separate eligibility
- community CardExpert review (4X 50k-RP/mo cap, forex promo end)
- community Magnify review — full 20-partner table (15 airlines incl. AirAsia 1:3, Turkish/United/Hainan 2:1; 5 hotels incl. Shangri-La 5:1)