Im with Standard Chartered and I got a Visa Infinite Credit card from them last night. From my understanding, its their higher end offering that is comparable to the HSBC Premier Card.
I notice it has some nice features and just wanted to do a quick comparison between the Visa Infinite and HSBC Premier. From what I can tell, the Visa Infinite is way way better. But perhaps someone with more knowledge of the HSBC premier can correct me and swing my bias towards the other side. I generally dont like HSBC and am biased against them, but Im not an SCB salesperson either. In fact, Visa Infinite is offered by many banks in HK and not only SCB, whereas HSBC seems to 'go it alone' with their offerings and they so often do (such as not being part of the JETCO network that every other bank in HK is part of).
This is the main features of the Infinite that the Premier seems to not offer:
- 2x points compared to the Platinum on ALL spending (local or overseas). Its hard to tell from HSBC site if they have this, I think not otherwise they would probably state it clearly.
- You earn points not only on credit card purchases, but also money you have in savings, fixed deposits, insurance products etc. For example, for every $10k in your savings account, you will get 500 bonus points per month (max 10,000 points per month). For every HK$1m in outstanding mortgage balance, you will get 10,000 points per month. etc. Interesting. I never knew banks offered this type of thing.
- Free airport lounge access (primary cardholder only) in 600 airports worldwide. Spouse is HK$200 extra per visit.
- Free upgrade at Starbucks (tall to Grande, grande to venti, etc)
- Private airport limo $250 per trip to Kowloon, $280 to HK (greet with messageboard at airport etc)
- Free travel insurance for you and family members every time you travel overseas. (Up to US$1,000,000)
- A bunch of other crap I am not interested in (waive golf green fees at 9 courses around the world, blah blah blah).
On top of this, to qualify for Infinite, you dont need HK$1m in the bank (total relationship balance) like you do with HSBC. If you autopay your salary, its only $500k balance requirement and you get all the other "Priority Banking" crap that is basically the same as HSBC Premier crap.
With this in mind, I can not for the life of me understand why someone would hold a HSBC Premier Credit Card over a Visa Infinite.