HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card

How do we calculate the rewards?

To work out the "Rewards value minus fees" in our Rewards Revealer we:

• calculate how many points you'd get each year,

• figure out how many flights or gift cards or cashback credits you could get for those points,

• work out what that's actually worth to you,

• take off the annual fee you'd pay.

More details:

• Our calculations are designed to help you compare the value of different rewards schemes. To do this, we've looked at earning a one-way Sydney-Melbourne flight excluding taxes and charges, a return Sydney-London flight excluding taxes and charges, a $100 shopping Gift Card and $100 cashback. Most cards will also offer other rewards, which may be worth more or less than the ones we've shown.

• We have made no allowance for bonus points for using your card at specific merchants, introductory offers or special offers. We have not assigned any value to instant discounts, insurances, ticketing and concierge services or other such benefits.

• Rewards value calculations do not take credit card interest into account. If you do not pay off your card each month you may be better off looking for a card based on interest rates than on the value of rewards.

• In products that have more than one card, a different mix of spend between American Express / Visa / Mastercard will give different results. Mozo's Rewards Revealer lets you choose the mix based on the way you would use such a product, and gives you tailored results.

• We assume flights purchased with airline points are 'classic' or 'reward' economy seats with restricted seat availability. 'Any seat' rewards will probably cost more.

• To compare the value of flight rewards, we sample online retail flight prices once a quarter based on the average price on a Wednesday 3 months in advance but outside NSW school holidays. For domestic flights we take the lowest available fare from each flight on that day from Qantas Red e-deal, Virgin Australia Saver including baggage and Jetstar Starter including baggage. We calculate the average price excluding taxes and surcharges for each airline, and also the average across all airlines (which we use when rewards are travel agent vouchers). For international flights, we take the lowest available fares on that same Wednesday from each of Qantas, Emirates, Malaysian, Etihad, Singapore, Cathay Pacific and Thai, assuming a return flight 2 weeks later, calculate the average price before taxes and surcharges and use this as our assumed cost of a flight on any airline.

• Shopping rewards are based on $100 gift cards from a major national department store.

• We make every effort to ensure our calculations are correct and up to date but make no guarantees.