May be he gave his Rewards Platinum card which doesn't come with complimentary use of PPL ?

The Citibank Rewards card originally came in Platinum version only which doesn't have any PPL benefit.

All standalone Citi Platinum VISA and MasterCard were changed to Citi Rewards VISA Signature and World MasterCard respectively last year. These two cards doncome with complimentary PPL access but not the Citi Rewards Platinum VISA/MasterCard.

None of the HSBC card is listed. But supposedly there are 4 HSBC credit cards that come with complimentary airport lounge access.
- HSBC Premier Travel World MasterCard (12 times a year at all participating lounge under LoungeKey)
- HSBC Premier World MasterCard (6 times a year at KLIA, Changi and HKIA PPL)
- HSBC Amanah Premier World MasterCard (6 times a year at KLIA, Changi and HKIA PPL)
- HSBC VISA Signature (6 times a year at KLIA, Changi and HKIA PPL)

Without any condition

I can vouch for this as I have done this many times at HKIA too.

It’s the complete opposite in fact. Many banks in US issue priority pass which is way better than what we’re getting here. In the case of Hong Kong, quite a few banks issue priority pass too except the primary banks such as HSBC, Hang Seng Bank, Bank of China (HK) etc. HKIA PPL is quite crowded. It would have been more crowded if it’s not because many of these people who hold a priority pass also get to use the airline lounge, which is way better than PPL.