allbrosca

Just read that HSBC is offering a star alliance card in Australia where you can spend your way to the equivalent of Star Alliance Gold (AE50K?) at Aeroplan or 6 other Star Alliance members. Only A$4,000 (about $3600 Cdn dollars) to start and then A$60,000 to maintain. https://blog.wandr.me/2022/11/star-a...lia-hsbc-visa/

Not sure how many in Australia will pick Aeroplan.

Adam Smith

Moderator note: the main thread on this card is on the Star Alliance forum. Please keep the discussion here focused on AC specifics, and head over to the *A forum for more general discussion of the card.

c224488

Star Alliance Gold is not equivalent to Aeroplan 50K Elite.

dr_torch

Well $4000AUS is not bad to get *G for one year.

The transfer value into AE is not very good though. I wonder if HSBC will introduce anything similar in Canada.

canadiancow

They give you *G via one of the member programs. Such as Aeroplan.

D582

It's either *S or *G depending on threshold hit (A$30k or A$60k), which for AC is currently 25K or 50K status. I guess nothing would preclude them from creating special tiers that just confer *S and *G with normal entitlements but without any AC extras (e.g. eUpgrades).

*A wants to make some revenue from this card so they need 'keep' something before buying points from the programmes.

Ignoring the fact that HSBC is considering selling its Canadian business, I don't see *A launching the card in markets with dominant *A presence and a local *A carrier credit card product. If anything were to launch in Canada, I would bet at most it would allow conversion to some other *A programmes, but not Aeroplan. AC wants Canadians to engage with Aeroplan via its own credit cards.
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Adam Smith

Are you suggesting AC would do this or *A would do this? I doubt any airline wants the extra complexity of administering separate tiers like that.

They may also be getting a cut of fees and interest revenue - it's not like making margin on the sale of points is *A's only source of revenue from the card. To some extent, this is also an FX issue. 1 AUD = 0.90 CAD or 0.67 USD at current exchange rates, roughly. If AC or UA usually sells points for, say, 1 cent in their local currency, selling them to *A/HSBC for 1 cent in AUD is a huge discount.

The *A spokesman quoted in the OP specifically said that wasn't in the plans ("emphasized that the group would not seek to launch the product in a market where an existing alliance member is based"). And since *A is not an entity unto itself, but merely an alliance of its member airlines, it's likely any airline would have a veto on the alliance encroaching on its territory. So I wouldn't expect to see a *A branded card in Canada as long as AC is in the alliance.

Flynn58

I understand why credit card rewards are weaker in Canada than they are in the United States or Australia, but I still find it amusing that the latter two countries can get Aeroplan status as a direct card benefit (with this HSBC card or the Chase card) while Canadian cardholders have to reach 100,000 EQD or have an invitation-only AMEX card that requires so much in spend you may as well just buy paid J.

allbrosca

Maybe not, but Star Alliance says it is and that's what you get if you meet the spend threshold and pick Aeroplan https://www.staralliance.com/en/web/...subCategory=87

D582

AC and/or other airlines offering this could do this, if they didn't want to provide all their home airline benefits. I agree it's complex, but I don't see why they couldn't do this if they really wanted to. They could also just not provide certain things like base eUpgrade credits for status given this way.

I still think *A wants to realise revenue from 'points'. AU market interchange rates are also much lower so that could explain a bit as well. I also do wonder the correlation of people who pay for 'high' annual fee cards that end up carrying a balance and paying interest, though.

canadiancow

I just don't see the point. *A could launch their own base *S and *G status, and then you wouldn't need every airline to do it themselves.