HSBC TravelOne guts its welcome offer for new applicants
From July 1, 2026, new TravelOne applicants need ₹25,000 of spend instead of ₹10,000 to unlock the welcome perks, and the 3,000-point bonus for ₹1L in 90 days is scrapped. Existing cardholders are unaffected.
HSBC just made the TravelOne meaningfully worse to acquire. From today, new applicants need ₹25,000 of spend — 2.5x the old ₹10,000 — to unlock the same welcome stack of cashback, the PostCard voucher and EazyDiner Prime. And the 3,000 reward-point milestone for hitting ₹1 lakh in 90 days is gone entirely.
Existing cardholders are untouched. But the ₹4,999 card that undercut HDFC and Axis on entry-level accessibility just got a lot less generous at the front door. Classic delivery too: no press release, just a quiet update to HSBC’s own T&C page.
The core case for the card survives — 1:1 transfers to roughly 20 airline and hotel programs is still the cheapest serious transfer hub in India. The welcome math is what changed.
Our take: if you already hold TravelOne, nothing to do — the transfer list is why you keep it. If you were about to apply, the first-year haul just shrank by 3,000 points and the spend hurdle got 2.5x steeper. Apply for the partners, not the welcome kit.