American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass Card Bonus Increased To 80,000 Points

The Offer

Direct link to offer

• American Express has upped the sign up bonus on their Hilton HHonors surpass card to 80,000 points if you spend $3,000 or more within three months of account opening

The Fine Print

• Annual fee of $75 is not waived
• American Express personal cards are not churnable. Welcome bonus is not available to those who have or who have had this card in the past.
• Card earns at the following rates:
  • 12x points per dollar on purchases with a participating hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio
  • 6x points per dollar U.S restaurants [read: best credit cards for restaurant purchases]
  • 6x points per dollar at U.S supermarkets [read: best credit cards for grocery store spend]
  • 6x points per dollar at U.S gas stations [read: best credit cards for gas station purchases]
  • 3x points per dollar on all other purchases [read: best credit cards for every day spend]
• Card comes with complimentary gold status, if you spend $40,000 or more in a calendar year you will receive HHonors Diamond status through the end of next year
• Free priority pass membership
• Offer expires 28th of February, 2015

Our Verdict

I’m personally not a fan of Hilton’s rewards program, that’s because it’s been devalued so many times in recent history and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was devalued again. The other downside of this card is that the annual fee of $75 is not waived for the first year, if you value Hilton points at 0.5¢ a piece then this is actually a 65,000 point bonus.

The public sign up bonus on this card is usually 60,000 points, although it has been possible to get 75,000 points for awhile by using a different link.

[Read: Best Hotel Credit Cards]

There are only two reasons this card makes sense to me:

• You want status, this card comes with gold status which is upgraded to Diamond if you spend $40,000+ in a calendar year. If you’re after this, then I’d recommend getting the Citi Hilton Hhonors Reserve card instead as the sign up bonus of two free nights at any Hilton property
• You regularly have paid stays at Hilton properties. Out of all the Hilton co-branded credit cards, this card earns at the highest rate on Hilton stays.

Personally I wouldn’t recommend this card to 99% of people. This sign up bonus is slightly higher than usual (by 5,000 points) but the annual fee is still not waived. If you value Hilton points highly, value status with them and have paid stays with them then this card makes sense, otherwise I don’t think it does.

Useful pages:

• Increase The Limit On Your American Express Card By Up To 3 Times It’s Starting Amount (no hard pull)
• How To Reallocate Your Credit Limits With American Express
• American Express Testing Free FICO Scores As A Benefit

Direct link to offer | Screenshot of offer

Hat tip to BYUofU from slickdeals