HSBC Advance Credit Card - up to 3.5% Cashback on all purchases!

As we bid farewell to Singapore's best credit card for miles earlier this month, the brand new HSBC Advance Credit Card while nowhere near as impressive as its predecessor, offers up to 3.5% cashback on all eligible purchases. With the proliferation of unlimited cashback cards in the market, this could be a strong contender in the cashback card market if you typically charge a fairly consistent range of expenses to your credit card each month.  

Photo Credit: HSBC

Unlike bonus category cashback credit cards like the Standard Chartered SingPost Platinum Visa Credit Card which offers up to 7% cashback on eligible transactions made online, the HSBC Advance Credit Card offers up to 3.5% cashback on all eligible transaction made online or offline (regardless of spending category) so long as minimum spend of S$2,000 is met each month (otherwise, you will benefit from a lower rate of cashback). Looking at the competition in the market like the Unlimited Cashback Credit Card and the True Cashback Card which offer only 1.5% cashback (albeit unlimited) on eligible transactions, the HSBC Advance Credit Card appears to be a relatively superior card - of course this depends on how much you spend at the end of the day. 

Spend Amount	Customer Type	Cashback Percentage	Cashback Cap	Spend Cap
S$2,000 & Below	Regular Customer	1.50%	$70
	HSBC Advance	2.50%	$125
More than S$2,000	Regular Customer	2.50%	$70	$2,800
	HSBC Advance	3.50%	$125	$3,571

The HSBC Advance Credit Card offers a flat 3.5% cashback (2.5% for non HSBC Advance customers) if a minimum of S$2,000 in eligible transactions is charged to the card and the monthly cashback is capped at S$125. This means that any dollar above S$3,571 (or S$2,800 for regular customers) will not earn any additional cashback - you should think about charging these transactions to the Unlimited Cashback Credit Card for instance. While the competition does offer unlimited cashback at 1.5%, you will have to spend at least S$8,333 (or S$4,666 for regular HSBC customers) in order to breakeven with the HSBC Advance Credit Card - this is definitely a card worth considering but do remember that you will have to satisfy the requirements of being a HSBC Advance customer in order to fully maximise the benefits on this card.