Well HSBC has obviously been cutting back its promotion expenses - in the last two years it cut its loyalty program to shreds, all but amputated its Miles program, made its bonus program meaningless and put out a lot less merchant discounts (alternatively, substituting them for set menus that I rarely eat).

Putting out gimmicky promotions that doesn't cost them much is more of the same.

But the Christmas IFC, NTP and Sogo (I forgot about Sogo) promotion is not as gimmicky as it could be. It didn't require registration for Sogo; you can argue registration is required for IFC and NTP cos it'll be hard to capture all Merchant IDs in the malls.

Citi's recent Sogo promotion does.