Citi offers two Hilton HHonors co-branded cards, the basic Visa signature & the reserve card. If you have the basic Visa signature card you should have received an e-mail about two new benefits that they are adding:
- Annual Loyalty Bonus of 10,000 points at the end of each calendar year in which you spend $1,000 or more on stays within the Hilton Portfolio.
- Gold Status Upgrade after making $20,000 or more in purchases each calendar year.
This card earns 6 HHonors points per $1 spent at properties within the Hilton portfolio, but the Surpass card earns 12 points per $1 spent and the Citi Hilton HHonors reserve earns 10 points per $1 spent. Let’s have a look at how many points you’d earn depending on which card you used, assuming you make exactly $1,000 in purchases:
- Citi Hilton HHonors Visa signature: 16,000 points (6,000 points + 10,000 bonus)
- Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve: 10,000 points
- American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass: 12,000 points
As you can see the actual 10,000 bonus points isn’t that much when compared to using the other cards. The gold status upgrade is a completely useless benefit, both of the cards I mentioned before come with free gold status and earn at a much higher rate on regular purchases.
Although, it looks like my credit card predictions for 2015 are starting to come true. I said that annual point bonuses will become more common and relationship bonuses will change, this update shows that both of these are on point predictions. Let’s hope next time a card issuer makes it a bit more relevant though.
