Amex / HSBC Everymile vs HSBC Red..

[Giraffy]

Amex, Everymile and Octopus for me.

Rest are all dormant and kept aside. Don't use them and the banks don't care.

The bigger question is what life stage are you at .. my levels of minimalism when it comes to clothing, daily rituals, items I spend money on might be extreme for some .. but I also have a few 'happy' luxuries on my minimal list.

I keep telling people ... If you have kids in HK forget about having control it will get pretty max.

What benefits do you get with Amex and Everymile?

I'm using HSBC Red at the moment

[shri]

Better lounge access (Amex) and also milage rates (Everymile).

Fair few benefits from Amex.. but might not be worth the same for everyone and depends on which Amex u have. Explorer gives you some lounge access and Platinum gives you some more access ...

Everymile also has a few free plaza premium...

Everymile conversion rate at the moment ..

I am no benefits hacker ... So do your own research..

[tparker]

At the base level, AMEX Explorer and HSBC EveryMile are equivalent for standard cash back (1% of regular spending), and Asia Miles redemption ($5 spending per Asia Mile / or $0.05 RewardCash per mile depending how you prefer to calculate).

Each will have occasional redemption promotions: such as the 1 RC = 22 Miles above, but that is not the norm.

However earning the RC (or AMEX points) do vary. EveryMile is great if you buy petrol a lot or throw huge parties at coffee shops (effective 2.5% cash back instead of 1%) - but with the AMEX Explorer you'll get effectively 1.25% cash back for foreign currency spending, or 1.67% for spending on a range of airlines & online booking site (hotels.com, trip.com, Agoda etc...). Not as good as HSBC's 2.5%, but different categories: you'll never spend the same amount in Starbucks!

If you're not fixated on Asia Miles redemption, AMEX have frequent bonus redemption offers: e.g. 25% bonus value if redeeming from Apple, CX, Hotels.com etc... sometimes even higher. Last Christmas they had a doubled redemption value promo: I used $2,000 worth of points to knock off $4,000 from a MacBook purchase!

On the other hand, HSBC often have earning bonuses: keep an eye out for promotions in Reward+ App. At the moment there's a $600 RC bonus for $10,000 accumulated spending for example... applies to a range of HSBC cards, but makes sense to earn using Every Mile if you plan to convert to Asia Miles afterwards.