Buying tix off CX's China website
 

Which credit cards still offer a higher mileage rate on CNY denominated purchases? Wondering if I should just use my new HSBC Union Pay card or another card to buy some tix. Thanks

Deleted, see post #48

I might need to double check my statement above:

Bankcomm: yes, above
BoC: yes http://www.boci.com.hk/eng/spec/prom...&C_english.pdf
Wing Lung: No http://www.winglungbank.com/wlb_corp...d487280197.htm (confirmed with WLB customer service)
HSBC: No http://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/hk/cards/...wscmd=cmd_init (confirmed with HSBC customer service)

Recommend you use the Wing Lung Dual Currency card and HSBC Dual Currency then. Make sure your dual currency card is linked to a RMB savings account tho or else you'll be paying some pretty nasty exchange rates to buy RMB (esp HSBC http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=6240&p=11).

Lacklustre Feb-Mar offers
 

Not much miles earning offers this month:

HSBC has a 2X targeted spending offer (my +1 got it) for spending over designated threshhold http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...ow.php?id=6587 . I pointed out even with the 2X, that's still only $8.33/mile - unless combined with the 5X, it's even worse than Citibank Premiermiles.

BoC has a 5X offer ($3/mile), but again targeted (I got it), and on specific categories only: http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...ow.php?id=6460. I rather use my HSBC 5X $2.78/mile dining offer. BoC's also running a Mannings promotion but unlike HSBC, BoC's is cash rebate http://cms.boci.com.hk/chi/email/mail5686/mail5686.html

The upcoming Feb-Mar 12 Bankcomm offer does not appear to involve miles http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...ow.php?id=6596

I'm still playing the CCB 2012 promotion http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...l#post17560055 . Contrary to expectations I managed to bill $6,579 in dining and/or overseas on weekends/PH for the last two months (+ $5,421 others to make the required $12,000) (still got about $1,500 dining this month but there're two weekends left).

After that I'm going to work on my welcome offers but even that's going soon (CX Amex Elite post-churn welcome offer should be topped off with a couple of pairs of Lady Gaga 2 May tix going on sale on 23 Feb). Hope BEA comes up with something for dining in March!

Conditional annual fee waiver - SCB, HSBC
 

There's been a couple of scary threads on hongkongcard.com about conditional annual fee waiver by HSBC (5X Red Hot Rewards of Your Choice promo) and SCB ($2.5/mile SCB AE for those who still have it).

(For those who are new to HK, almost all credit cards companies exempt annual fee as a matter of course. The only reak exception is Amex).

HSBC seems to be asking for $100 spending in the month following renewal which isn't too hard - either you're plunking down a lot for 5X or you can call their bluff http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...ow.php?id=6533 . Hongkongcard.com suggests avoiding renewal condition either by sending "email" via internet banking (worked for me today, but I've plunked two bills fo $500 for today alone) or speaking to the operator directly rather than get diverted to the annual fee department when prompted to by IVR.

SCB has a history of "trying" for a fee http://www.discuss.com.hk/viewthread...2#pid256728591 but depending on how good your info is you can get them to back down. And try to get it early too - I just got mine (two months in advance) unconditionally http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...hp?id=6091&p=3 although others have received demands to spend 10K for full annual fee waiver. I did six-figure business with them but earned 6X ($2.5/mile) throughout so it's a real question of whether they need me more or I need them.

Just got targeted for 8x Extra Rewards from HSBC. I hardly use the card and hardly have any reward points.

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$2.08/mile not bad at all! But what's your spending target?

I suppose you meant "unless combined with the 5X"?

If yes, sure you can combine it with the 5X Red Hot Rewards of Your Choice promo = 10X in total if combined with 2X targeted promo? I received the 2X targeted promo yesterday as well, but didn't have much time to take a closer look at T&C yet (Valentine's day... :rolleyes:). I only use the HSBC for some dining if only 5X Red Hot and no other promo applies with an average monthly spending of HKD 7.5K, which is my target as well.

I assume that fallinasleep's target is pretty low since he/she hardly uses it. Looks like they take the average monthly spending as target (at least in my case it is around that) and the lower it is (or the less frequent you use the card), the higher the multiplier to boost spending? Can't read Chinese, but the HKG Card thread you've posted has another example with only HKD 2K+ spending to get 5X multiplier in that targeted promo.

HK$1k target for 8x reward cash. Capped at first HK$10k.

Problem is that I have zilch reward cash at the moment (I rarely use my HSBC card), and I hate idea of paying HK$300 annual fee to redeem 14k miles.

re connecta:

Yes, 5X not 2X, corrected.

I think the targeted rate is applied as an addition to the 5X rate (i.e. 7X), not multiplied i.e. not 5X x 2X = 10X

I didn't get a targeted offer as I've already replaced my Shacom Plat with my HSCB while the Red Hot 5X is applicable. My +1 also has but she spends considerably less on food.

Yes definitely past usage is used to set the threshhold rate - the offer is done to boost spending, not reward spending you would have charged to HSBC anyway.

Agreed offer this month was rather poor. If anything the 15% off at regular sushi-restauurant was as attractive as it got. (for 2k dinner that's 300 bucks, enough to pay for my milage program fee)

However HSBC should learn to offer more promotion. During the 5x and 15x amd all that reward cash promotions I've put all spending on my HSBC card and my AMEX bill was 4 digit for first time in a long time. Goes to show if HSBC tries they will earn my business...

Just checked teh T&C after getting home: "8. Only the difference between RewardCash earned under the basic RewardCash conversion rate ($1 RewardCash for every HK$250 Eligible Spending) and the special RewardCash multiplier referred in clause 4 will be credited to the credit card account [...]" - I hate that legal wording stuff... but if I interpret that correctly, it can't be combined with other promotions when reading that, even if there's no specific statement excluding it.

Further to that, I read that: "Monthly incremental spending is the amount of your monthly eligible spending above the individual monthly spending target and is calculated up to a maximum of HK$10,000 incremental spending per month" - yeah, it's in short the same cap as mentioned earlier by fallinasleep. I'm just a bit shocked, that in my case with HKD 7,300 target, only HKD 2,700 would be eligible to the 2x promo - a miserable extra 11 RewardCash or 165 AM (when rounding up) if no combo with 5x Red Hot, while I could earn more with other cards?

So yes, I can't agree more with fakecd that HSBC has to do much better than that. I'm writing this in the hope to help others, but won't even bother to spend the time registering for such useless promo...

G Sushi http://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/special/c..._M_DINING_01_E ? How do you manage to eat 2K there?

i thought they all disappeared... looking at the shop addresses, i think i know why

Simple ways to maximise AM earning potential from credit cards?
 

The knowledge level on this particular thread is really very good, and it's great that we have a thread with all the latest offers rather than one that's been going for a number of years, making it hard to see what's currently the most useful offer.

That said, I don't have the same level of enthusiasm about earning Asia Miles as many contributors here and that may be true of others as well. My aim has always been to earn them whenever I can but also to keep the process and number of credit cards as simple as possible. But I don't want to miss a simple trick to maximise my AM earning power so here are the cards that I have and if there are any suggestions for a simple way to improve the number of AM I earn, I'd love to hear about it (as I imagine may others, who are puzzled by the sheer number of variations on how to earn them).

A few years ago I had an Amex CX Elite card but the credit limit was so low that I rarely used it and ended up throwing it away. Then I used a Citi Premier Miles card but their customer service sucked so I cut it up and returned it to them. Now I have the following cards:
DBS Amex Black (local spend $8=1AM, overseas spend $4=1 AM)
Amex CX Elite card (same deal as DBS card except for the first 3 months when it's $3=1AM for local and overseas spending, but only up to I think 40,000 AM). They finally gave me a card with a reasonable credit limit so it's in effect a new card.
Fubon Bank card (no idea what the earning power of this is but a Visa card is occasionally useful, doesn't get used a lot)
Amex Platinum (Priority Pass, travel insurance, free cinema tickets on a Friday!)
HSBC Mastercard (occasional discounts on things but $15=1AM)

I'd use these in the following order:

1 Amex CX Elite exclusively for the first three months of its life - starting now - or 40,000 AM, whichever comes first (it then reverts to the standard earning rate of $8 local and $4 overseas). Then back in the desk drawer.
2 Amex Platinum for the first $160,000 to get double miles on the Turbo programme. Then back in the desk drawer.
3 DBS Amex for everything else at $8 local and $4 overseas spending.
4 Fubon Bank in case a place doesn't take Amex
5 HSBC Mastercard
That's 5 cards and I wouldn't always carry them all with me at the same time as I like to keep things simple. I spend around HK$200,000 a month on credit cards so it's worth getting it broadly (and I do mean broadly) right, but without having to worry about which place gives the best short-term deal for dining, alcohol, tickets as I'll never remember that!
For the experts here: is this broadly the right order and, secondly, anything simple that I've missed which would markedly improve my earning potential from these cards. Simple solutions are the best for most of us generalists I suspect.
Any advice definitely appreciated and I'm sure others on the CX forum would find the feedback useful.
Many thanks.