HSBC current cardholder limit

What it does

The Summary of Terms for both HSBC credit cards we track carries one line in its Important Information list: "If you already have an HSBC Credit Card Account issued by HSBC Bank USA, N.A., you may not qualify for this offer." That is the whole of it. It is written in the present tense, it is hedged, and it is about the credit offer rather than about a welcome bonus. Neither document uses the word bonus at all, neither says anything about previous or former cardholders, and neither publishes a waiting period.

How it works

• It reaches people who hold an HSBC card right now. "If you already have" is present tense, and nothing in either document extends it to accounts you used to have.
• It is hedged, not categorical. HSBC writes that you may not qualify, never that you will not, so it reads as discretion rather than as a rule with an outcome.
• It gates the offer, not the bonus. The word bonus does not appear in either Summary of Terms, and the only other use of the word offer is the line introducing the rates and fees, so there is no separate welcome-bonus clause to attach it to.
• No waiting period is published. Nothing in either document says how long an existing account matters for, so we have no clock to give you.
• It is scoped to HSBC Bank USA, N.A. The documents say so in the sentence itself. The one place they mention HSBC affiliates more broadly is a separate balance-transfer restriction.
• We encode nothing from it, and that is a limitation on our side rather than a reading of HSBC. Our engine has one way to bar a bonus on a card you have held, and it matches closed accounts as well as open ones, so using it here would bar people HSBC's sentence spares. We would rather tell you the clause exists than enforce a version of it HSBC did not write.
• So no rule of ours reaches either HSBC card. If you see us say an HSBC bonus is available and you already hold the other HSBC card, this page is the caveat.

What to do

• If you already hold an HSBC credit card, ask HSBC where you stand before you apply for the other one. They publish the limit and they are the ones applying it.
• If you held one in the past and closed it, nothing HSBC publishes says that counts against you. Do not assume it does, and do not assume it does not.
• Read the Summary of Terms on the page you apply from. HSBC puts this line in the Important Information list rather than in the offer copy, which is why it is easy to miss.
• Treat our verdict on these two cards as covering the published rates and terms and not this limit. We say so here rather than quietly ranking around it.