How Long Do HSBC Rewards Points Transfers Take?

HSBC Canada has an in-house rewards currency known as HSBC Rewards. As with American Express Membership Rewards or RBC Avion points, HSBC Rewards is another useful transferable points currency to have at your disposal.

As a reminder, transferable points are highly valued, since they’re flexible and can be redeemed in a variety of ways. In Canada, HSBC Rewards can be transferred to three airline loyalty programs, including British Airways Executive Club, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.

When planning out a redemption, it’s important to be mindful of the transfer times to various loyalty programs. In this guide, we’ll take a look at how long it takes for your HSBC Rewards points to transfer into airline partner programs.

Transferring Points from HSBC Rewards

In Canada, there are three credit cards offered by HSBC that earn HSBC Rewards points: the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard, the HSBC World Elite Mastercard, and the HSBC Metal World Elite Mastercard.

The three cards range from a base-level card with no annual fee, to a top-tier card that’s only available to HSBC Private Banking Clients. By and large, the most popular card for earning HSBC Rewards points is the HSBC World Elite Mastercard, a mid-tier product.

As with other transferable points currencies, it’s best to only transfer points out of your account once you have a specific redemption in mind. This is because transfers from HSBC Rewards are one-way only, which means that you’re unable to get them back once they’ve left your account.

In Canada, HSBC Rewards points can be transferred into British Airways Executive Club, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.

To initiate a transfer, sign in to your HSBC Rewards account. Once there, select the “Travel” dropdown menu, click on “Rewards for Miles”, and then select the partner program to which you’d like to transfer points.

Keep in mind that for all three partners, HSBC requires a minimum of 25,000 HSBC Rewards points to initiate a transfer, and then increments of 10,000 points thereafter.

The below chart summarizes the estimated transfer time as listed by HSBC, the realistic transfer time, the minimum transfer amount, and the transfer ratio for each partner program. Further down, we’ll go into a bit more detail about the nuances of each loyalty program.