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Staying connected on the road is a requirement, whether your travels keep you domestic or you head international. MasterCard has teamed up with Boingo Wireless to offer card members free access to over one million hotspots worldwide.
The new offer comes after MasterCard research found that free Wi-Fi access is one of the most sought after perks—MasterCard Group Head of Global Products and Platforms for Loyalty Solutions Marti Beller stated that, “To have unlimited access to over one million Wi-Fi hotspots is a good engagement- and loyalty-inspiring benefit. There will be more to come in the next few months.”
The Promotion
The MasterCard-Boingo promotion initially rolls out to cardholders from seven countries; Argentina, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. The offer is currently available to select HSBC cardholders, although the company is currently in discussions with other MasterCard issuers and plans to extend the service soon.
You can check on the Boingo website if your card is eligible for free Wi-Fi access by entering your card number. For a full breakdown of the offer from Boingo and MasterCard, you can visit the free Wi-Fi offer page.
Once you have verified that you are eligible for the offer, you can visit the Boingo hotspot search page, to find the nearest hotspot to you, or to do some pre-travel planning to find hotspots in the vicinity of places you will be visiting.
Other Boingo Partners
Boingo currently has partnerships with other card issuers; you can also benefit from the same free access to Boingo’s hotspots if you are a cardholder of The Platinum Card® from American Express. To find out if your Amex card is valid for the promotion just head over to the Amex Boingo page and enter your card number to check your eligibility.
Overall
Amex was first into this field, but seeing an expansion to MasterCard is excellent. Sure, access isn't extended to U.S. cardholders at this time, but maybe we'll see it in the future.
Card issuers are vying for our business, and additional features/functionality only improve their chances of grabbing our attention.
Source: The Points Guy/Joe Cortez
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I mostly travel to Asia and seldom find Boingo useful.
Any easy way to get one of these international cards? Do all require a local address?
I hope MC adds US cards.
Yes, an extension of this offer to other cards will be very valuable.
Personally, I think that having some free Wi-Fi, even though limited, is much better than some expensive data roaming.
Wow, I didn’t know my SPG card gave me boingo access, thanks! (Not knowing is probably a symptom of having too many travel perks cards…some of the more obscure benefits are forgotten.)
So no US MasterCard holders yet? Anyone know when?
Correct, no idea at this point.
I’d like to see what happens with this!
Sweet! Glad Boingo is getting more attention!
Great news, hopefully they will add more countries later.
Awesome – I don’t have a Mastercard yet, but honestly if this were a longer-term thing I would consider getting one!
I’m not eligible for this yet, but I’ll keep checking. Data roaming charges are a serious annoyance. Thanks for the heads-up.
Works with MasterCard Black
Good offer, I’ll have to share this with a friend.
Perfect! I do have the HSBC intl card
So this is great news
Limit of 4 devices, not too bad!
Thanks Awardwallet!
What is an “international” card? We are international for people who live in other countries!
While we definitely focus on global travel and loyalty programs, when talking about credit cards it’ll usually be U.S.-based, which is known to have some of the most lucrative offers in the world.
Boingo is available in Guangzhou airport but you can also have free w-fi for free with your passport
So to be clear, this provides wifi access at any Boingo hot spot in the world, not just in the covered countries?
correct.
Why not expanding into the rest of the world with theses offers?
We are waiting here in europe
Great news! However, the supported Mastercards are very limited. I tried two Mastercards issued by Chinese banks, but none of them works. Hope this offer will spread to other banks as well.
Both my cards were not eligible. Sweet!
Sorry, but I have to disagree with “Staying connected on the road is a requirement”. as we travel to be where we are, not where we left. We’re not accidental tourists.
When I used Boingo before, I found it extremely slow or non existent.
I wonder how many Mastercards will be eligible. I suspect it will probably just be the higher end cards with hefty annual fees.
Can you guys provide a list of cards that offer free Boingo? I would really consider signing up. Boingo always seems JUST too expensive to justify. It’s great when I decide to splurge though.
In the US, check out Amex: https://amex.boingo.com
I’ve wondered why more cards don’t include some sort of wifi bundling with Gogo or Boingo et al
It is very usefull in worldwide travel, so to avoid to buy an ad-hoc national data card per travel
It worked with my MasterCard Black from Costa Rica. Sweeet!