Credit Card Offers HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card: Fast-Track to Star Alliance Gold Status

Fast track to Star Alliance Gold status with the HSBC Star Alliance credit card!​

Learn more and apply for this card:

HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card Guide

The HSBC Star Alliance credit card is the first of its kind, allowing Australian cardholders to earn Star Alliance Points and Gold status.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

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What are the main benefits of this card?

1. Signup bonus: Fast Track to Star Alliance Gold Status, when you spend $4,000 or more on eligible purchases in the first 90 days from account opening
2. Keep your Star Alliance Gold status each subsequent year that you spend at least $60,000 on your card
3. Earn 1 Star Alliance Point per $1 on eligible purchases, up to $3,000 per statement period and 0.5 Star Alliance Points per $1 spent on eligible purchases thereafter, uncapped
4. No annual fee in the first year and $450 p.a. thereafter

Why we like the HSBC Star Alliance credit card

Launched in 2022, the HSBC Star Alliance credit card is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. You'll earn Star Alliance Points which are transferable to a choice of seven Star Alliance member airlines at a time of your choosing. You can also earn Star Alliance Silver or Gold status just by spending on the card, with no flying required!

Once you qualify for the welcome offer and are fast tracked to Star Alliance Gold status with any of the seven participating carriers, you’ll soon be enjoying perks like airport priority lanes and lounge access when flying across the whole Star Alliance network. It is the largest airline alliance in the world with 25 member airlines, including Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, United and Turkish Airlines.

Please note that the welcome offer is not available to existing HSBC customers transferring from another HSBC credit card, or if you have previously held a HSBC Star Alliance credit card within the last 18 months. Refer to the full T&C’s for more information:

HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card Guide

The HSBC Star Alliance credit card is the first of its kind, allowing Australian cardholders to earn Star Alliance Points and Gold status.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

AFF members are welcome to discuss this card in this thread.

 

[nthd_nthd]

Congratulations! Air Canada - Aeroplan® confirmed your new Star Alliance Gold Status​

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[td]
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[td] Congratulations! Air Canada - Aeroplan® confirmed your new Star Alliance Gold Status ​

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Hello SOPOOR,

We are pleased to confirm that your request for Star Alliance Gold Status with Air Canada - Aeroplan® has been successful. The tier status in your Frequent Flyer account will be updated according to the terms of Star Alliance Rewards and the terms of Air Canada - Aeroplan®. Soon you will be able to enjoy special Star Alliance premium benefits and privileges across the entire network that will make your journey smoother and more comfortable.
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Just received this email
Completely confused by the whole process/system
Annual fee due 25/10 ish

Cancelled HSBC card about 20/10
got closure email 23-27/10

according to the email I made a request for Star Alliance gold

Enjoy then

 

[knagelli]

I have selected Krisflyer as my preferred star alliance partner. If am meeting the spend criteria today , how soon will I be able to get notified of my account being updated to star alliance gold.

Have upcoming bookings to be made , hence will be handy to have the status applied prior.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have selected Krisflyer as my preferred star alliance partner. If am meeting the spend criteria today , how soon will I be able to get notified of my account being updated to star alliance gold.

Have upcoming bookings to be made , hence will be handy to have the status applied prior.

once you meet the spend, you nominate and then there’s a two week waiting period. So minimum 14 days. I think aeroplan was pretty quick after that, like the next day!

 

[nerdinary]

So say I book a flight using velocity rewards - my booking now automatically has a velocity FF number attached to the booking.

If I have Star Alliance Gold with this card, with say Air Canada Aeroplan - can I still access the lounge even though the Aeroplan FF is not attached to my boarding pass?

 

[aspro2]

So say I book a flight using velocity rewards - my booking now automatically has a velocity FF number attached to the booking.

If I have Star Alliance Gold with this card, with say Air Canada Aeroplan - can I still access the lounge even though the Aeroplan FF is not attached to my boarding pass?

Yes, you can. You just need to present the card. I added my AC number to my flights last week and the entry kiosk still told me to go to the counter, so under either scenario, it seems manual checking is currently necessary in order to enter with Aeroplan Gold status.

 

[knagelli]

Hi Experts , is it possible to have the Star Alliance Status updated with Singapore Airlines immediately after receiving confirmation of spend criteria or do you have to wait for the mandatory two week period. Thanks

 

[djkelly69]

Hi Experts , is it possible to have the Star Alliance Status updated with Singapore Airlines immediately after receiving confirmation of spend criteria or do you have to wait for the mandatory two week period. Thanks

From memory, you get an email from Star Alliance pretty quickly asking you to choose your preferred status airline, and then you have to wait for them to confirm you have received the status.

General consensus seems to be that this always takes the full 2 weeks, but YMMV.

 

[knagelli]

From memory, you get an email from Star Alliance pretty quickly asking you to choose your preferred status airline, and then you have to wait for them to confirm you have received the status.

General consensus seems to be that this always takes the full 2 weeks, but YMMV.

I received the email this morning , hence checking if there is a way for us to contact them. I got some bookings to make with Singapore Airlines and unsure if having the status updated will make any difference.

 

[RooFlyer]

Finally getting around to applying for this card, as a retiree. Without a regular income stream, but rather investment capital growth which I cash in as required, I have a letter from my accountant showing that my drawdowns (he called it a pension) was greater than the min income required, with the capital value remaining much the same over 4 years. Various tables etc.

I've called HSBC enquiring how this unusual situation might be manually considered - ie must be submitted on-line as a usual application, or otherwise? I've read the relevant posts that I can find on this thread, but can anyone advise if they have done it except via the standard on-line application? What happens when you are asked to provide proof of income, so as not to be auto rejected? Do you get the chance to talk to someone to pitch your case?

I've called them but naturally can't seem to do more than recite the web site:



Any advice welcome.

 

[VPS]

Finally getting around to applying for this card, as a retiree. Without a regular income stream, but rather investment capital growth which I cash in as required, I have a letter from my accountant showing that my drawdowns (he called it a pension) was greater than the min income required, with the capital value remaining much the same over 4 years. Various tables etc.

I've called HSBC enquiring how this unusual situation might be manually considered - ie must be submitted on-line as a usual application, or otherwise? I've read the relevant posts that I can find on this thread, but can anyone advise if they have done it except via the standard on-line application? What happens when you are asked to provide proof of income, so as not to be auto rejected? Do you get the chance to talk to someone to pitch your case?

I've called them but naturally can't seem to do more than recite the web site:

View attachment 414868

Any advice welcome.

I don't know the answer but I'm going to apply next week so any hints gratefully accepted

 

[N860CR]

For what it’s worth, this was the first card I can ever remember being asked to provide payslips and bank statements. Get the impression they’re a little more cough… I did however speak to someone in Australia during the application process who was surprisingly switched on and seemed to tidy a few things up which helped.

 

[BJReplay]

Any advice welcome.

I successfully applied for this card just over 14 months ago, and just closed it a week ago, a few days before the one year anniversary.

I am in a similar situation.

I think that my report on the application experience was moved to the pensioners credit card thread, but quick summary (all from memory - forgive trivial errors when you apply, but crucial facts as they occur):

• Application allowed me to indicate that I was unemployed / retired and I did
• Application allowed me to indicate that my income was from investments rather than superannuation / salary and I did
• I supplied a couple of years of notices of assessment for proof of total net income
• I supplied a year of bank statements showing funds hitting my bank account from my investments every month

Where I had a problem:

• They wanted a letter from the accountant of my family trust certifying that the accounts were valid. I do my own accounting for my family trust, so couldn't supply them with a letter. You won't face this problem. When I first spoke to someone they didn't understand that I didn't have an accountant. I had to explain that just like you can do your own tax return, you can do your own business tax return and accounts if you have in that business. I ended up having to supply them with the corresponding bank statements showing the funds leaving the trust bank account to hit my personal account.
• The application took a few weeks of back and forth over this issue.

However, once I got it, the 50,000 points on offer from Aeroplan at the time was too good an an opportunity to pass up, so Mrs BJReplay also applied, went through the same process, and was also approved.

 

[djkelly69]

Any advice welcome.

Can't advise on the retiree side, but just providing an anecdote on dealing with HSBC generally for something not really out of the box.

Before my wife was approved for this card about 2 months ago, she previously applied ~4 months ago. Was conditionally approved pending provision of payslips. Provided payslips the next day (confirming stated income, probably a touch more), and then attended HSBC branch to do KYC. Sometime a day or two later got a text saying declined. Went around in circles for a couple of weeks trying to get an answer out of HSBC as to what had changed or happened, but just got 'system says no'.

FWIW, she waited a couple of months, 'tidied up' a few things on the application, and no issues the second time.

 

[BJReplay]

just providing an anecdote on dealing with HSBC generally

I should add an anecode to yours: after we were approved, I figured that we probably wouldn't keep these cards after the first free year was up and started looking at qualifying for HSBC Premier. We applied for a joint account, provided all the info, got the request to verify our identity, and one of the options was to go to a local branch.

As it happens there's one right next door to our usual supermarket. So, we wondered in with our passports, filled in the paperwork, next day got notification that the identification process had completed, and our accounts were up and running.

A few days later we get an email asking us to identify ourselves, or we'll lose access to our accounts, and asking us why we'd just made several large transfers totally $150k.

I get on the phone and (politely) crack the coughs (it's never the person you're on the phone with who has f'd up). We've gone into a branch, seen your guy photocopy our passports, signed the paperwork, you've processed it, opened our accounts, and now and you've lost it. We've opened a savings account to qualify for Premier and you're asking us a) for identity, and b) why we've opened a savings account. WTAF?

How about your anti-fraud identity people run a little internal investigation first and find your copies of our identity documents before I launch an AFCA complaint about you losing my identity documents and a Privacy Commissioner complaint about you not making a self-report as required under the Australian Privacy Act? You could not have opened the account without identification - so you must have lost it if you're asking for it.

To their credit the person on the phone did say that they would look into it, that I should assume that a) they would sort it out, b) they would let me know the outcome either way, and c) that I was right, I could not have opened the accounts without identifying myself, so there must be a failure within the back.

They did offer me the farcical alternative of paying to get certified copies of my ID to mail them if I didn't trust the branch.

The operate with amazing levels of internal incompetence.

 

[Mark3000]

Interesting. I’ll tick over this in about 2 weeks. Will report back on how long it takes

Finally I received the email. It took almost 3 months after reaching the 60K annual spend. They've given me 2 weeks now to choose which star alliance partner / change and whichever partner is in my account on the date in around 2 weeks will be the Gold status

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Finally I received the email. It took almost 3 months after reaching the 60K annual spend. They've given me 2 weeks now to choose which star alliance partner / change and whichever partner is in my account on the date in around 2 weeks will be the Gold status

Is this close to your anniversary date then?

I guess it makes sense if it was, as you might wish to change your *A gold airline, and it would be difficult to have two at the same time!

 

[aspro2]

I get on the phone and (politely) crack the coughs (it's never the person you're on the phone with who has f'd up). We've gone into a branch, seen your guy photocopy our passports, signed the paperwork, you've processed it, opened our accounts, and now and you've lost it. We've opened a savings account to qualify for Premier and you're asking us a) for identity, and b) why we've opened a savings account. WTAF?
...

The operate with amazing levels of internal incompetence.

Yep. This is that bank that told me I was in breach of its terms for operating my bank account for business purposes and it would be closed. ... A bank account that I had opened 15 years earlier, in my business name (as a sole trader), and had had to pay their fees to verify my business name at the time!

 

[flyingmachine]

There's a lot of scams involving HSBC recently (a family member got scammed) and they have coughpy internal processes to stop fraudulent activity.... Maybe they've tried to ramp it all up and it's all gone wrong.

When I applied for this card it went around in many many circles too. Asking for proof of income and more proof of income and it got so ridiculous. Literally went back and forth 5-6 times each time asking for one additional document.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Just as a DP I closed my HSBC card in July and still have 50k status.

 

[N860CR]

My annual reset day was today (21/11). Hit the $60K about a month ago. Received the email today stating I’d requalified for gold and to select my program in the next 2 weeks.