25% Transfer Bonus from HSBC Rewards to British Airways Avios

HSBC Rewards is offering a 25% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios to close out 2023, from November 15 to December 15.

This is lower than previous transfer bonuses of 30%, 35%, and 40% that we’ve seen since 2020, but still a worthwhile opportunity if you were planning to use HSBC Rewards points for Avios in the coming months.

HSBC to Avios 25% Transfer Bonus

From November 15, 2023 to December 15, 2023, you’ll receive a 25% bonus when you convert HSBC Rewards points to British Airways Avios.

The standard conversion ratio is 25,000 HSBC Rewards points = 10,000 Avios, so the ratio will effectively be bumped up to 25,000 HSBC Rewards points = 12,500 Avios for the duration of this promotion – effectively, a ratio of 2:1.

Cardholders of any of HSBC’s premium travel rewards cards are eligible, including the HSBC World Elite Mastercard and its metal and Premier banking variants.

Be sure to transfer your points between November 15 at 12:01am Eastern time and December 15 at 11:59pm Eastern time to be eligible for the bonus.

Keep in mind that HSBC Rewards follows a rather peculiar redemption structure when it comes to its trio of frequent flyer partners:

• A minimum of 25,000 HSBC Rewards points must be redeemed at once
• On top of the minimum amount, HSBC Rewards points may be redeemed in increments of 10,000 points

Therefore, you have the option of converting your HSBC Rewards points in chunks of 25,000, 35,000, 45,000, etc., earning you 12,500, 17,500 Avios, 22,500 Avios, and so on.

If you wanted to convert, say, exactly 50,000 HSBC Rewards points into 25,000 Avios, you’d need to do so in two transactions of 25,000 points each.

Should You Transfer HSBC Rewards to British Airways Avios?

If you have a large stash of HSBC Rewards points from previous signup offers or from regular spending on the card, then it’s worth thinking about whether the 25% transfer bonus represents the best use-case for you.

The baseline redemption method for HSBC Rewards is to offset against travel purchases at a rate of 200 points = $1, or effectively 0.5 cents per point. You simply charge any travel purchase to your card and then retroactively apply your points to the purchase to cover the cost.

Meanwhile, if you were to transfer HSBC Rewards points to Avios with a 25% transfer bonus in place, then we can think about how much value you’d need to redeem your resulting Avios for in order to…