Premier

Joining ₹12,000 · Annual ₹20,000 · Annual/renewal fee is waived outright for HSBC Qualified Premier customers holding a Premier relationship in India. Which every holder must be, so in practice the card is free to renew and the ₹20,000 only bites if you fall out of Premier qualification. Premier qualification (any one): quarterly Total Relationship Balance of ₹50,00,000 (₹40,00,000 if the Premier account was opened before 1 Jan 2026). OR a salary account with net monthly salary credit of ₹3,00,000. OR (effective 1 Jan 2026) a mortgage of ₹1,15,00,000 plus TRB of ₹50,00,000 within 12 months of first disbursement (₹40,00,000 for mortgages held before 1 Jan 2026). The ₹12,000 joining fee is charged after activation and is NOT waived.

Fee break-even: ≈₹6,66,667/yr through this card at its base rate. Below that, the fee eats the rewards.

Earns Reward Points · assumed 1 ₹/point. 1 RP = ₹1 on Apple products in the HSBC Rewards Marketplace. HSBC's own published ratio, confirmed in its 14 May 2025 news release as a Premier/Privé-only privilege (CardExpert notes a ~50,000-point minimum for Apple items, so it suits large balances). The equal-value alternative is 1:1 transfer to most of the 20 airline/hotel partners, instant to one working day in the app with no transfer fee. Points are EVERGREEN. They never expire, which is unusual in India. Generic gift vouchers are worth materially less. HSBC's published range across its portfolio is ₹0.25 to ₹1.00 and CardExpert has seen Amazon/Flipkart e-vouchers at 1:0.5 (₹0.50/RP), so a voucher-only redeemer should assume ~1.5%, not 3%.

Verified 10 Aug 2026

Forex markup0.99%

GolfNo golf benefit attaches to the credit card itself. Complimentary golf sessions are a benefit of the HSBC Premier BANKING relationship (hsbc.co.in/premier/golf-privileges), which every cardholder holds. So holders do get golf, just not via the card.

Concierge24x7 HSBC Premier emergency hotline operated with Mastercard (HSBC India Premier Global Services): instant card blocking, next-day replacement worldwide, and emergency cash advance at 245,000+ outlets across 200 countries. Plus the home&Away programme for shopping/dining privileges in 40+ countries. No dedicated lifestyle/booking concierge is published for the card.

EMI₹99 plus GST per transaction at a merchant, 2.5% of the balance with a ₹250 minimum otherwise processing fee · A converted purchase stops earning rewards · A flat ₹99 plus GST per conversion at a shop, the cheapest published fee of the lot. Converting a bill afterwards costs 2.5% with a ₹250 floor instead. Minimum transaction is above ₹2,000, and gold and card fees cannot be converted at all. · Instant EMI (IEMI) transactions are loan facilities and earn no reward points

Fuel surcharge1% fuel surcharge waived on transactions between ₹400 and ₹4,000 inclusive, any pump, any city in India. Note the waiver and the reward are mutually exclusive. HSBC states that for transactions eligible for the surcharge waiver, no reward points are awarded (and fuel is a reward exclusion anyway).

Domestic loungeUNLIMITED in practice. Domestic lounge access via the Mastercard domestic lounge programme at listed domestic and international terminals in India. HSBC publishes no numeric annual cap, so a visit count cannot be given. The operative limits are Mastercard's own programme rules, not HSBC's.

International loungeUNLIMITED complimentary access to 1,400+ international lounges via LoungeKey (not Priority Pass), for BOTH primary and add-on cardholders. Separately 8 complimentary international GUEST visits per anniversary year, on the primary card only. Add-on cards get no guest visits. Best-in-class among Indian cards. No numeric cap on the cardholder's own visits,

Return by category

Category	Return	Notes
Online spend	3%	Base rate
Amazon	3%	Base rate
Flipkart	3%	Base rate
Subscriptions & OTT	3%	Base rate
Offline spend	3%	Base rate
UPI spending	0%	No RuPay variant. Premier is issued only on Mastercard (World, metal), so it cannot be linked to a UPI app at all. HSBC India's UPI page lists only the RuPay Platinum and RuPay Cashback cards as UPI-linkable.
Dining	3%	Base rate
Swiggy	3%	Base rate
Zomato	3%	Base rate
Groceries	3%	Base rate
Quick commerce	3%	Base rate
Swiggy Instamart	3%	Base rate
Blinkit	3%	Base rate
BigBasket	3%	Base rate
Movies & shows	3%	Base rate
BookMyShow	3%	Base rate
PVR INOX	3%	Base rate
Fuel	0%	The only outright reward exclusion on this card. Zero points on MCC 5172, 5541, 5542, 5552, 5983. Separately, any fuel transaction that receives the surcharge waiver earns no points either.
Travel (general)	3%	Base rate
Flights	3%	Base rate
Hotels	3%	Base rate
MakeMyTrip	3%	Base rate
IRCTC rail	3%	Base rate
International	2.01%	3% reward − 0.99% forex markup
Utilities & bills	3%	Counts against a single CUMULATIVE ₹1,00,000 per month allowance shared with the other capped categories. Spend above it earns nothing · MCC 4900.
Rent	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · Real estate agents and managers, MCC 6513. A 1% processing fee plus GST also applies to rental payments, which cancels out most of the 3% return.
Education fees	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · MCC 8211, 8220, 8241, 8244, 8249
Insurance premiums	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · MCC 5960, 6300
Government & tax	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · MCC 8299, 9211, 9222, 9399, 9402, 9405, plus tax payments 9311 and bail/bond 9223
Wallet loads	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · E-wallets MCC 6540, plus financial institutions 6010/6011/6012, non-financial institutions 6051 and money transfers 4829
Anything else	3%	Base rate
Jewellery	3%	Shares the cumulative ₹1,00,000/month capped-category allowance · MCC 5094, 5944

Rates are the card's own published rates, before any spend profile. Add this card inMy cards to rank it against the rest of your wallet.

Also worth knowing

Welcome: 20,000 reward points on starting to use the card (≈₹20,000 at the Apple 1:1 rate, which alone more than covers the ₹12,000 joining fee)
Welcome: CardExpert reports the joining fee has been paired with a ₹12,000 Taj Hotels gift card, effectively making it fee-neutral
Complimentary Taj Epicure membership
CardInsider and the many sites that copied it state ten categories were fully EXCLUDED from earning. HSBC's own current service guide settles it: cardholders 'will earn rewards points across the below categories for spends up to a cumulative limit of ₹1,00,000 per month'. So on Premier only FUEL is a hard exclusion. Everything else earns 3 RP inside a shared ₹1 lakh/month allowance.
Personal travel insurance by ICICI Lombard. Up to ₹1 crore for loss of life in an air accident, plus missed international flight, lost/delayed checked baggage, delayed flight and lost passport/travel document cover. Lost-card liability cover up to ₹3,00,000 for misuse from 24 hours before reporting.
'Travel with Points' portal (Hopper-powered): up to 12X RP on hotels, 4X on flights and 2X on car rentals, with monthly caps of ₹50,000 hotels / ₹1,00,000 flights
EazyDiner: 30% off the bill up to ₹1,500. District by Zomato 10% savings. BookMyShow buy-one-get-one. Agoda hotel discounts up to 20%. Mastercard one-night-free hotel offer
Preferential pricing on the card's own credit: finance charge 2.99% per month (35.88% p.a.) versus 3.75% per month (45% p.a.) on every other HSBC India card, and an interest-free period of up to 48 days versus 45
Add-on cards carry no annual fee and share the primary's LoungeKey access
1% processing fee plus GST on all rental and related payments (bank-wide), so rent earns 3% but costs 1% + GST. Roughly cancelling out
Metal card on the Mastercard World platform
EFFECTIVELY INVITE-ONLY. There is no open application route. The card is issued only to existing Qualified Premier customers, at HSBC's sole discretion, and HSBC reserves the right to reclassify the card if the Premier relationship lapses
The ₹40 lakh → ₹50 lakh TRB increase applies ONLY to accounts opened from 1 Jan 2026. Grandfathering is explicit in HSBC's text. Secondary sources telling existing holders to 'verify you now meet ₹50 lakh' get this wrong.

Other exclusions

Instant EMI (IEMI) transactions are loan facilities and earn no reward points
Cash advances accrue no points and attract a 2.5% fee, min ₹500, plus finance charges from the withdrawal date

Sources

Every figure above comes from the issuer's own pages and documents. Last verified 10 Aug 2026.

Premier

Return by category

Also worth knowing

Other exclusions

Sources

Other HSBC cards