The New Benefit
American Express have added a new benefit to their Platinum credit card, you can now get Gold status with the Hilton hotel chain for free. This benefit is available to all cardholders (including additional cardholders, but they need to call the number on the back of their card to enroll while primary cardholders can enroll online).
This is something American Express have been testing as a benefit for awhile now, from November 1st till December 31st, 2013 cardholders were able to call in and get it added. Some cardholders were even able to get their status extended by calling in when it ran out.
You need to enroll for this new benefit, but doing so is easy. Simply click here and login and follow the prompts. Your status will be valid (after enrolling) for as long as your a valid American Express Platinum cardholder, in some cases these benefits continue for one year after cancellation but obviously this benefit is to new to know if this will be the case. Given American Express’ & Hilton’s close working relationship (American Express also issue co-branded Hilton credit cards alongside Citibank), I suspect the status will be revoked as soon as the card is cancelled.
What Does Gold Status Give You?
Hilton has four different status tiers:
- Blue (no requirements)
- Silver (four stays or 10 nights)
- Gold (20 stays or 40 nights or 75,000 base points)
- Diamond (30 stays or 60 nights or 125,000 base points)
Obviously this new benefit gives you Gold status, which comes with the following benefits:
- 25% elite status bonus
- 5th night free on standard room reward stays (Silver also gets this benefit)
- You also get to choose one of the following My Way Gold Benefits:
Our Verdict
It’s always nice to see benefits being added to a card, Hilton gold obviously isn’t the best status going around but I think many people would enjoy the free breakfast benefit (incidentally use the search function on this Flyertalk thread to find out what type of breakfast you can expect).
That being said those who already have Hilton Gold (or Platinum) status would be quite disappointed by this benefit, the more people with status in the system the less likely they are to receive complimentary upgrades and there is no added benefit for them at all. I would’ve preferred that American Express/Hilton gave them a few stay credits towards status instead, but at the end of the day you can’t be too picky when it comes to things like that.
Given that the American Express Platinum card has an annual fee of $450, I can’t see anybody keeping the card based on this benefit but every little bit of extra value does help to justify the annual fee somewhat. What are your thoughts on this new benefit being offered? Are you a fan or would you have preferred they offer something else?
