Why I Love The Amex Hilton Aspire Credit Card

Why I Love The Amex Hilton Aspire Credit Card

Several people lately have been asking me for recommendations on a good hotel credit card. Without a doubt, one of my favorites is the Amex Hilton Aspire card. In fact, it is the first hotel card I recommend to friends and family.

When evaluating whether a credit card is worth signing up for, I look at a few things:

• Is there a lucrative signup bonus welcome offer?
• Does the card have a good earning rate when used for purchases?
• Are there valuable perks and benefits associated with the card that make it a long term keeper?

The Amex Hilton Aspire credit card has all the above in spades!

 

Amex Hilton Aspire Card Overview

American Express offers several Hilton co-branded credit cards. These include the Amex Hilton Honors card, Amex Hilton Honors Surpass card, and the Amex Hilton Honors Business card.

The Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card is the granddaddy of them all. It is Amex’s premium Hilton co-branded card.

Sure, it comes with an annual fee of $450, but the card is has a lucrative sign up bonus and it is loaded with perks that more than make up for this fee.

Here are some of the key highlights:

Signup Bonus – 150k Points

You can earn 150,000 bonus Hilton Honors points after spending $4,000 in purchases using the Amex Hilton Aspire card within the first 3 months of card membership.

Hilton Honors points are generally worth about a half a cent per point. Using this valuation, the sign up bonus can be worth $750 or more in Hilton hotel stays. That’s pretty awesome!

Earning Rate – 14x, 7x, 3x Bonus Categories

Making purchases with your Amex Hilton Aspire card can be rewarding because you can earn a ton of Hilton Honors points.

The earning rate for this card is as follows:

• 14x points per dollar of eligible purchases made directly with participating Hilton hotels and resorts. (It’s even better: you would actually earn 34x points at Hilton hotels, but more on that later.)
• 7x points for eligible purchases on flights booked directly with airlines or amextravel.com, on car rentals booked directly from select car rental companies, and at U.S. restaurants
• 3x points on all other purchases

Based on the above earning rate, it is definitely worth it to use the Amex Hilton Aspire for purchases at Hilton hotels. You can earn 34x points per dollar, which is the equivalent of earning a 17% return. That’s fantastic!

At an earning rate of 7x points per dollar, it may also make sense to use the card for flights, rental cars, and U.S. restaurants. However, if you have other cards (like the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Citi Prestige, or Amex Gold card), it would be better to use those cards instead because they earn flexible points which can be redeemed for cash or transferred to travel partners.

I wouldn’t bother with using the card for all other purchases because you can do much better with a straight 2% cash back card. This is because earning 3x points on all other purchases using the Amex Hilton Aspire card would only net you a value of a 1.5% return. Keep in mind that those Hilton Honors points you earn aren’t flexible; the only useful way to redeem these points are for Hilton stays.

Perks And Benefits

The Amex Hilton Aspire Card is chock full of perks and benefits.

In my opinion, the most valuable perks are:

• Earning an annual Weekend Night Reward from Hilton Honors every year upon card renewal
• Complimentary Diamond Status
• $250 annual airline fee credit per calendar year
• $250 annual resort fee credit per card anniversary year
• Priority Pass Select membership which gives you unlimited visits at participating Priority Pass airline lounges for you and up to two guests

There are several other benefits that make this card worth it too, including:

• No foreign transaction fees. (This is pretty standard for most premium cards.)
• ShopRunner membership. (I don’t use this because I don’t really go shopping.)
• $100 credit for qualifying charges at participating Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts when you book a 2 night minimum stay with your Card at HiltonHonors.com/aspirecard. (I never used this because I have read that booking stays at hiltonhonors.com/aspirecard often leads to more expensive pricing, which negates this benefit.)
• Amex Concierge – Receive around-the-clock assistance with travel planning and booking, shopping advice, and other personal requests. (Again, I never used this perk. But it may come in handy one day.)
• It also comes with decent insurance with coverage for: car rental loss and damage insurance, baggage insurance, return protection, and car rental accident insurance.

 

Know This Before You Apply

Before applying for an American Express card, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Application Rules

You are limited to one approved credit card every 5 day rolling period and two approved credit cards every 90 day rolling period. This only applies to credit cards and not their charge cards.

Signup Bonuses are “Once In A Lifetime”

So if you have had the Amex Hilton Aspire card before and have already received a signup bonus for it, don’t bother applying. Chances are you won’t earn another signup bonus.

There’s a Maximum

You can only have a maximum number of five American Express cards at a time.

Therefore, if you already have five Amex cards and you try to apply for the Hilton Aspire card, you will likely be denied. In this case, if you really wanted this card, you would have to cancel one of your five existing cards, then apply for the Hilton Aspire card. The five card maximum only applies to Amex credit cards, and not charge cards. Apparently you can have as many Amex charge cards as you want.

 

Amex Hilton Aspire Card Benefits and How To Maximize Them

Because the Aspire card has so many awesome benefits, it’s important to discuss the most valuable ones in greater detail.

Why are these benefits so valuable? And how do they offset the high annual fee of the Amex Hilton Aspire Card? Let’s take a closer look.

1) Annual Weekend Night Reward Certificate

To me, this benefit alone makes this card a keeper. Once you’re approved for the Amex Hilton Aspire card, you will receive a Weekend Night Reward certificate. And every subsequent year upon card renewal you will a receive an additional Weekend Night Reward Certificate.

These certificates can be redeemed at virtually any Hilton Honors property in the world where there is a standard room available on a weekend night (here’s the small list of excluded properties).

You can easily get a more than $450 value out of this benefit if you use the certificate for a stay at a high end luxury Hilton property, such as a Conrad or Waldorf Astoria resort.

For example, my wife and I recently used Weekend Night Reward certificates for three free nights at the Waldorf Astoria Grand Wailea. We have also used these certificates at other aspirational stays such as the Conrad Koh Samui in Thailand. Both of these properties regularly retail for more than $800 a night.

2) Diamond Status

Diamond status is Hilton’s top tier status and it is complimentary when you have the Amex Hilton Aspire card.

Some of the valuable perks to having Diamond Status include:

• 100% bonus points on paid stays
• Upgrades to a suite when available
• Executive hotel lounge access
• Complimentary breakfast at all Hilton hotels
• Fifth award night free when you book with points

Bonus points on paid stays = 20 additional points!

Regular Hilton Honors members will earn 10 points for every dollar spent on stays.

Members with Diamond Status earn a 100% bonus. This means that with the Amex Hilton Aspire card, you would earn 20 points for every dollar spent on Hilton stays.

It gets even better. This doesn’t include the additional 14 points you would earn just by using your Amex Hilton Aspire card to pay for the stay.

So in total, you could potentially earn 34 Hilton Honors points per dollar spent on Hilton stays if you use your Aspire card. For instance, if a Hilton stay costed $100, you would earn 3400 Hilton Honors points, which would be worth about $17. Not a bad return!

Of course, it’s not mandatory to use your Amex Hilton Aspire card. You can also use another rewarding card to earn a different points currency.

For example, instead of using the Amex Hilton Aspire card, you can use the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which earns 3x points per dollar spent on travel (hotels included). In this case, if a Hilton stay costed $100, you would earn 2000 Hilton Honors points (just for having Diamond status) and 300 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Assuming Ultimate Rewards points can have a value of about 2 cents per point, this would be worth about $16.

The points earnings can be even better if you take advantage of Hilton’s points promotions. These promotions have helped me earn a ton of Hilton Honors points.

The stay at the Washington Hilton in September was for FinCon19. Just in case folks were wondering :).

Suite Upgrades

With Diamond status, you can be upgraded to a suite on check-in. You will only be upgraded if a suite is available. It’s not a guarantee.

Overall, I’ve been upgraded to a suite about 50% of the time. But it never hurts to ask!

Executive Hotel Lounge Access

Some Hilton properties have Executive Lounges. This is where you could typically find free food and drinks.

During my stay at the Washington Hilton, I loaded up on Perrier sparkling water. Staying hydrated is a must when traveling. (Saving money when you can is a must when traveling, too.)

Complimentary Breakfast

This perk could easily be worth about $50 or more. When staying at a high end property, such as Conrad or Waldorf Astoria, the breakfast spread is usually top notch. You would typically find high quality pastries, meats, fruits, cereals, and hot foods.

Having complimentary breakfast not only saves money, it is also convenient because you don’t have to leave the property to enjoy your first meal of the day.

Fifth Award Night Free

And finally, another potentially valuable Diamond status perk is getting the fifth award night free when you book with points.

I haven’t had the chance to use this benefit since I haven’t stayed in any one property for more than four nights. But I can see how it can be very valuable!

3) $250 Airline Fee Credit

The Amex Hilton Aspire card offers an annual $250 airline fee credit that is valid every calendar year from January 1 through December 31. It doesn’t roll over to the next year, so it’s a “use it or lose it” credit.

This credit isn’t easy or straight forward. Since this benefit is only restricted to airline fees, it is not as easy to use as other credits such as the generous $300 travel credit with the Chase Sapphire Reserve or the $250 travel credit with the Citi Prestige card.

First of all, you have to go online and designate a specific airline for this benefit

Airlines that you can chose from include:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Frontier Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• JetBlue Airways
• Spirit Airlines
• Southwest Airlines
• United Airlines

Then, you would have to incur incidental fees with your designated airline. These include:

• Checked baggage fees
• Overweight/oversize baggage fees
• Change fees
• Phone reservation fees
• Pet flight fees
• Airport lounge day passes and annual memberships
• Seat assignment fees
• Inflight amenity fees (beverages, food, pillows/blankets, etc.)
• Inflight entertainment fees (excluding wireless internet)

This benefit is relatively restrictive

For people who don’t typically incur a lot of incidental fees, this can be hard to use. It can definitely be hard to maximize the full $250 credit.

In the past, there were a few work arounds that made it easier to use the Amex airline fee credit. For example, last year I bought a few American Airlines gift cards totaling $250 and it triggered the airline fee credit. It’s interesting because the terms specifically excluded gift cards as well as other purchases including: airline tickets, upgrades, mileage points purchases, mileage points transfer fees, gift cards, duty free purchases, and award tickets not deemed to be incidental fees.

Unfortunately, this little trick doesn’t work anymore. Based on multiple reports on FlyerTalk, gift cards no longer trigger the airline fee credit.

Here’s what I do

Like many people, I would have a hard time incurring $250 worth of incidental airline fees to maximize this credit.

Fortunately, there are still a few work arounds that trigger the airline fee credit. A few weeks ago, I checked the Frequentmiler blog to see what still works. I learned that for some airlines, purchasing airfare under $100 actually triggers the airline fee credit. Southwest airlines is one of these airlines.

This is perfect, since I fly Southwest airlines fairly frequently, I will earn the companion pass for 2020 though 2021, and I have a planned flight to Las Vegas to attend the Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference.

So I proceeded to go on the American Express website and designated Southwest Airlines as my preferred airline for this benefit. Then I purchased a one way ticket to Las Vegas that happened to be under $100. (It was $88.)

Lo and behold, it worked

I received the credit exactly three days after I made the purchase.

The above screenshot of transactions and credits is actually from my American Express Gold card. That’s why you can see that I am earning 4x points on grocery stores and 3x points on airfare, plus I received an airline fee credit AND a dining credit. Those are some of the perks and benefits of having the Amex Gold card.

I was just using this as an example because it demonstrates that Southwest airfare purchases under $100 actually trigger the airline fee credit with American Express. This will work in a similar manner if you use the Amex Hilton Aspire card.

4) $250 Resort Fee Credit

Every cardmember year you receive up to $250 in statement credits for eligible purchases made directly with participating Hilton resorts using your card. See this link to find all participating resorts. At the time of writing, 242 resorts worldwide participate. Many of them are in North America, which makes it convenient to use and easy to maximize.

To use the credit, any spending at these resorts should qualify. During your stay, any spending such as the room rate, parking fees, incidentals, dining, room service, and any other purchases all count for the credit. So as long as you spend just $250 per year on the card at Hilton resorts, it is easy to make full use of this benefit.

For example, during my free stay at the Waldorf Astoria Grand Wailea, I used the $250 resort fee credit by ordering room service dining and parking fees.

5) Priority Pass Select

The Amex Hilton Aspire card also gives you Priority Pass Select membership.

This gives you unlimited visits at participating Priority Pass airline lounges for you and up to two guests.

I value this benefit because it is nice to access airline lounges for free food and drinks before a flight.

While it’s definitely a great perk, it is not specific to the Amex Hilton Aspire card. Many other premium cards also offer this benefit.

Final Thoughts

If there was one hotel credit card that I would recommend to friends and family, it would be the Amex Hilton Aspire card.

Yes, the annual fee of $450 is pretty steep. But the welcome offer of 150,000 Hilton Honors points (valued at roughly $750) plus a free weekend night award certificate on approval make it totally worth signing up for.

Not only that, the excellent earning rate of 14x points per dollar at Hilton properties, complimentary Hilton Honors Diamond status, the airline fee and resort credits, and earning an additional free weekend night award certificate every subsequent year on card membership renewal make this card a long term keeper, especially if you like staying in Hilton hotels.

Over the past couple years, the Amex Hilton Aspire card has returned more than a few thousand dollars in value for me. It’s no wonder that it is one of my favorite credit cards!

If you’re interested in trying to maximize the Amex Hilton Aspire card, let me know. I’d be happy to help.