HSBC credit cards compared

Built for travellers who don't want to commit to a single airline or hotel programme, the HSBC TravelOne prioritizes redemption flexibility above all else. It connects to a full 20 transfer partners with no caps — 15 airlines and 5 hotels — and most conversions land at a clean 1:1, including a direct Accor ALL route that's rare among Indian cards right now. Regular purchases return 2 reward points per ₹100, jumping to 4 points per ₹100 on flights, travel aggregators and foreign-currency spends (with a monthly ceiling on the accelerated rate); categories like utilities, fuel, insurance, education, government payments, rent and wallet top-ups don't generate any points at all. Routing bookings through HSBC's own Travel with Points portal boosts earning further, up to 6X for hotels and 4X for flights, though bonus points cap out at 18,000 monthly. The card also throws in 6 domestic and 4 international lounge entries each year, plus a 10,000-point bonus once annual spending clears ₹12 lakh. Worth flagging: the 3.5% forex markup is nothing special, so the real value here comes from transfer flexibility rather than cheap spending abroad. As for the ₹4,999-plus-GST annual fee, it's fully refunded, GST included, once combined spending across the primary and any add-on cards hits ₹8 lakh within the card's anniversary year.

The HSBC Live+ speaks directly to a familiar modern spending pattern — households whose monthly statement is dominated by Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, BigBasket and recurring bill payments. Following the 26 July 2026 overhaul, it pays a uniform 10% across dining, food delivery, groceries, shopping and utility payments, all sharing a single ₹1,200 monthly cap, with a 1.5% base rate covering most other spends. Two exceptions are worth flagging: purchases on Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra fall back to the 1.5% base rather than the accelerated rate, and OTT subscriptions have never qualified for the 10% tier. The forex markup was cut to a competitive 1.99%, though as a trade-off, international spends no longer earn any cashback at all. Lounge benefits now stand at 2 domestic visits a year (one every six months) plus 1 international visit starting 1 September 2026, alongside the Live+ Reserve dining programme (running on DineWithTimesPrime from 1 August 2026), a quarterly ₹250 cashback on contactless fuel purchases, buy-one-get-one movie tickets through District and BookMyShow, and Visa Infinite benefits. The ₹999 annual fee is waived once spending crosses ₹2 lakh in a year. New cardholders can claim a ₹250 Amazon eGift voucher for completing Video KYC, plus ₹1,000 in mobile-app cashback for spending ₹25,000 within the first 30 days — this offer runs from 26 July through 31 December 2026. For anyone whose spending fits that pattern, this card is a strong match; the main constraint is the shared ₹1,200 monthly cap, which gets used up after roughly ₹12,000 of spend across the accelerated categories.

For customers who qualify as HSBC Premier, the ₹20,000 annual fee on this card is waived outright, though a ₹12,000 joining fee still applies once the card is activated. What you get in return is a genuinely strong package: a forex markup of just 0.99% — among the lowest available — combined with unlimited domestic and international lounge access spanning more than 1,400 lounges (plus 8 guest visits) and ₹1 crore in travel insurance, none of it gated behind the spend thresholds that typically complicate rival cards. Everyday spending earns 3 reward points per ₹100, rising to as much as 12X when travel is booked through the HSBC Travel with Points portal; points don't expire and can be transferred to roughly 20 airline and hotel partners, mostly at a 1:1 ratio. It's worth being aware of the April 2025 revisions, though: eleven everyday spending categories — utilities, insurance, education, government payments, wallet loads, rent and others — now share a combined monthly earning cap of ₹1 lakh, and fuel purchases no longer earn any points at all. This card won't out-earn something like an Infinia on raw rewards, but for anyone already banking with HSBC Premier, the combination of unlimited lounges, a sub-1% forex markup and ₹1 crore of cover makes it an easy decision. The real gatekeeper here isn't the card itself but qualifying for the underlying banking relationship.

As the first super-premium hotel co-brand in India, the HSBC Taj Credit Card is built entirely around the IHCL (Taj) ecosystem. The joining and annual fee runs steep at ₹1,10,000 plus GST, but a Taj voucher bundle — two breakfast-inclusive Taj nights, one Palaces night, along with meal, spa and club-access vouchers — arrives both on activation and at every subsequent renewal under the offer terms, structured so a genuine Taj guest can recover a meaningful chunk of that fee each year (cards issued or renewed by 30 September 2026 also get a limited-period bonus Palaces night). Cardholders receive Taj InnerCircle NeuPass Platinum status, which brings priority or in-room check-in along with 2-hour early check-in and late checkout, and 8 NeuCoins accrue per ₹100 spent at IHCL properties (4 at Ginger) in addition to the card's own points — 5 reward points per ₹100 at Taj, SeleQtions, Vivanta, Gateway and amã, dropping to 1.5 per ₹100 everywhere else (roughly ₹1 per 1.5 points). The card also throws in unrestricted airport lounge access and the full suite of Visa Infinite privileges. Given the steep 3.5% forex markup, waived only for HSBC's executive-banking clientele, this isn't a card built for spending overseas — it functions instead as a loyalty tool for people already committed to staying at Taj properties.

HSBC retired the Cashback brand in July 2024, folding it into HSBC Live+ — this listing stays up purely as a historical reference for the earlier product. In its original form, the card suited anyone unwilling to babysit a rewards programme: a flat 10% back on dining, food delivery and groceries sharing one ₹1,000-per-month cap, plus a solid 1.5% uncapped rate on everything else, all posted to the statement automatically with no points, portal or category switch required, and the ₹999 fee dropped entirely once annual spend hit ₹2 lakh. Its successor, Live+, was itself overhauled on 26 July 2026 with a broader 10% category list and revised caps, lounge terms and forex pricing — check the Live+ listing for what applies now. This card was rarely the top earner on any single purchase, but it rarely disappointed either.

As the RuPay/UPI counterpart in HSBC's cashback lineup, this card offers 10% back on dining, food delivery and groceries — a smaller set of categories than the Visa Live+ now covers, since that card picked up shopping and utilities on 26 July 2026 — but it makes up for that by linking directly to PhonePe, Google Pay or Paytm so rewards accrue on ordinary UPI payments. The annual cost is ₹499 (waived once yearly spend hits ₹2 lakh), with the 10% dining/delivery/grocery earn and a 1% flat rate elsewhere both governed by a shared ₹400 monthly cashback cap. It also brings a perk the Live+ skips entirely: as many as 10 airport lounge visits annually, split into 2 domestic entries per quarter plus 2 international ones. Set against Live+, that means giving up cap room (₹400 versus ₹1,200) and base-rate strength (1% versus 1.5%) — a fit for lighter spenders who'd rather have UPI rewards and lounge perks than a bigger cashback ceiling. Its 0% forex window closed on 31 July 2026, so it now carries the usual 3.5% markup abroad; treat it as a card for domestic UPI spending and quick-commerce rather than travel.

HSBC's Visa Signature carried a ₹1,499 annual fee and rewarded dining, travel and online shopping at 5 points per ₹100 spent, roughly a 1.25% return. Cardholders also got two free domestic lounge visits each quarter, access to golf courses, and a full waiver on the fee once yearly spend crossed ₹4 lakh. HSBC India has since discontinued it as a separate product: the Times Prime membership and other Visa Signature-tier perks now live on the LIFETIME-FREE HSBC Visa Platinum, which runs on the Visa Signature network for qualifying customers. This page stays up mainly for people who already hold the card. Anyone applying fresh should look at the no-cost Platinum for equivalent Visa Signature benefits, or the HSBC TravelOne if premium travel rewards with transferable miles matter more.

It would be easy to write off the HSBC Platinum (Visa Platinum) as a filler product — permanently free, no lounge access, a middling 2 reward points per ₹150 base (about 1.33% via a 2:1 Accor transfer, or just 0.33% taken as cash) — but that reading misses what actually makes the card worth having. The real draw is what comes bundled alongside it: a full 12-month Times Prime subscription (issued through the Visa Signature platform and, on its own, worth more than the entire benefit sheet of plenty of paid cards), a 3-month Swiggy One membership, a welcome voucher of up to ₹500, and 2,000 bonus reward points. On the rewards side, travel booked via HSBC's Travel with Points portal can earn as much as 6X, and points transfer to roughly 20 airline and hotel loyalty partners. A few smaller perks round things out: ₹250 in cashback on contactless fuel purchases each quarter you spend ₹10,000, plus MakeMyTrip benefits — two free domestic flight seat selections annually and 15% back as MMT My Cash on hotel bookings in India. With a steep 3.5% forex markup, this isn't a card built for spending overseas. Evaluate it purely on earn rate and it falls flat; evaluate it as "what do I get for nothing," and it turns out to be quietly worth carrying.

Sitting at the free end of HSBC's card range, the RuPay Platinum pairs UPI linkage with a lifetime-free fee structure, functioning as the RuPay counterpart to the bank's Visa Platinum. Earning is unremarkable on its own — 2 reward points per ₹150, or roughly 0.33% back, redeemable through airline and hotel loyalty transfers — and the card connects to any UPI app so spends made via PhonePe, GPay or Paytm still generate rewards, while JCB network acceptance covers 160-plus countries. What actually makes the card worthwhile sits outside the base rate: a fuel surcharge waiver worth up to ₹3,000 annually, alongside a shifting set of partner perks that includes 10% dining and buy-one-get-one cinema tickets through District by Zomato, plus tie-ins with Swiggy Instamart, Cleartrip, Paytm and EazyDiner. Lounge access is absent, and the 3.5% forex markup makes it a poor choice for heavy overseas use, but as a permanently free UPI card it's a reasonable one to keep in the wallet. While the Visa Platinum banks on Times Prime and Swiggy One memberships for its appeal, this variant instead builds its case around UPI compatibility and the fuel/partner benefits.