Card king

The HSBC x Accor rumour has spread like wildfire across the platform, and point conversions are happening at a rapid pace. But here are my thoughts on the matter. We all know how whimsical Axis can be. Partner removals and devaluations have happened without notice, even when everyone expected them much earlier. If Axis took its own sweet time to close Atlas opportunities and remove Accor, why do we think HSBC is suddenly going to pull Accor in less than a year? A few key differences between Axis and HSBC: 1️⃣ Card distribution Axis distributed Magnus, Atlas, Reserve and other cards like langar food, with very limited filtering and income checks. HSBC only has two realistically accessible cards for miles accumulation and redemption : TravelOne and Premier. I’m not counting Prive because it’s extremely difficult to get. And it’s not easy to get either of the cards. 2️⃣ Customer base profile Premier isn’t easy to access, with the ₹40–50L TRV requirement. Axis, on top of that, didn’t strictly enforce AMB checks in many cases, while HSBC is significantly stricter. HSBC is less likely to upset its Premier client base by disrupting transfer programs within such a short period. 3️⃣ Reach and ecosystem HSBC still isn’t serviceable across many cities. Their portal isn’t exactly best-in-class, pricing is often prohibitive, and unlike Axis, there’s no gift card ecosystem people aggressively optimise every month. 4️⃣ Points accumulation controls Axis historically had no cap on accumulation, which allowed people to build multi-million point balances over years. Even today, Axis caps are linked to credit limits. HSBC already operates with monthly caps, similar to EPM and Infinia, naturally limiting accumulation velocity. The bigger point is this: With Axis, people were sitting on multi-million point balances accumulated over 2–3 years through multiple loopholes and stacking opportunities. HSBC users, on the other hand, likely hold less than one-tenth of that volume, possibly even lower. More importantly, when HSBC introduced the program, Accor points were already valued north of ₹2 per point. The economics aren’t steep enough to suddenly remove a partner or trigger a major change. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. Could I be right? Maybe. For now, I’ll sleep over it before pulling the plug and decide over the weekends

HSBC 👉 Accor transfer is erroring out! Hoping it's just a small technical glitch. 🤞