American Express has officially launched the new Hilton cards. Given the amount of hype these cards are/will be getting I thought this would be a good chance to take a proper look at the cards and sign up bonuses to see if signing up for them now makes sense or if you should wait.
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Hilton Honors American Express Card (no annual fee card)
This card isn’t new and there are basically no major changes. The public sign up bonus if 50,000 points but newly generated referral links are showing 65,000 points. Old referral links are showing 75,000 points but they also have an expiry date listed of 01/17/18 so no guarantee you’ll get that bonus. I don’t see any reason to sign up for this card now, the 75,000 bonus will come back at some stage.
Hilton Honors American Express Ascend Card
Card has the following sign up bonus:
- 75,000 points after $2,000 in spend within the first three months
- An additional 25,000 points after you spend an additional $1,000 within the first six months
We saw a 125,000 point bonus in November last year on the Surpass card (and Ascend is really just a refreshed Surpass card). The annual fee has also been increased from $75 to $95, along with 10 free priority lounge passes and no foreign transaction fees. I think we will see another 125,000 point bonus in the future, so I don’t think there is any need to rush and get this card.
Hilton Honors American Express Business Card
Card has the following sign up bonus:
- 75,000 points after $3,000 in spend within the first three months
- An additional 25,000 points after you spend an additional $1,000 within the first six months
Basically the same as the Ascend card but with some extra benefits (second weekend night free with $60,000 spend and different category bonuses). Again I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a 125,000 point bonus on this card in the future. If you have a short term need of points/benefits of this card then signing up might make sense.
Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card
Card has the following sign up bonus:
- 100,000 points after $4,000 in spend within the first three months. This also comes with a free weekend night certificate your first year and on card anniversary.
I consider the free weekend night certificate one of the cards benefits, rather than a true sign up bonus. This bonus is actually lower than I thought it was going to be. That being said I think the benefits of this card are a little bit too good. Card issuers have a habit of launching a card with really great benefits and then scaling them back over time (just look at the Prestige or Sapphire Reserve). I do think we will see a higher bonus on this card in the future, but probably only an extra 25,000 points or so. Personally I think the chances of a card devaluation are greater than a bonus increase, so applying for this card now rather than waiting IF you highly value the card benefits is a good idea. Please make sure you sit down and spend some time critically thinking about the annual fee vs benefits. I talk more about this in our review.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to get caught up in the new card hype. Take a deep breathe, wait a day or two and think about if applying actually makes sense. These bonuses are going nowhere in the short term so please don’t feel like you need to apply immediately. When you compare these offers to what American Express has offered in the past they are really nothing special. Although it’s worth remembering they no longer have to compete with Citi so maybe we won’t see as aggressive bonuses in the future. As always read these things everybody should know before applying for American Express cards.
I normally buy $200 southwest gift cards with my platinum credit. Think if i buy a $250 gift card it will still trigger the credit or do i need to do two separate $200 and $50 gift card purchases
I’ve had the Surpass for several years; now the Ascend. On the Amex website, they are offering me an upgrade opportunity, from Ascend to Aspire. Problem is, there is no mention of a sign-up / upgrade bonus. The upgrade link went live on Saturday. Last week, before the upgrade link went live, I spoke to an Amex rep and it was her understanding that the 100,000 Honors points would be provided to those upgrading from Ascend. However, the Amex site says nothing about the bonus points for an upgrade. Interestingly, the Amex site does not give me the opportunity to apply for the card; only to upgrade from Ascend, where no mention is made of the 100,000 point bonus. Are others experiencing the same thing? I’m just checking around before calling and asking if the bonus is offered if I do consent to the upgrade. Thanks, all. P.S. I find reaching Amex in incognito mode to be increasingly difficult, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to a clean Ascend application page as a way of getting the bonus if they don’t offer it for upgrades from Ascend. Quite the dilemma!
I have the no-fee amex now. I understand that they will send me the new version of the no-fee card. Does that mean I am not eligible for the signup bonus at a later date?
I’d love to see you do an update to your analysis from last year regarding the Aspire card, now that you know the number of sign on points. Seems like the points plus $250 credit + free weekend night should get (an average) 4 nights. The Diamond gets you breakfast (another $50-$100), and then you have the 2 calendar year credits.
That’s got to be worth it for a one-year hold, no?
Yes, I agree with your calculation and you can even use the $100 resort credit to maximize the bonus. Plus, you will have pps, which maybe useful for someone. Do you agree?
William Charles
Yeah, I’ll update the post. Not sure I think it makes sense holding long term for all people, but could make sense for some.
I think we are all (maybe) saying the same thing: hold it for one year to get maximum benefits but then cancel before the 2nd annual fee comes due. …..Reminds me of so many of my cards these days… 🙂
Lets not forget hilton points are worth about $0.02 really nothing at all to write home about….
Haha more like $0.005 (half cent per point). I wish they were worth $0.02!
Yup i meant 0.002. They do points inflations: “Hey look i have a 100,000 points wow” “It only get you 2.5 nights at a nice hilton” “Wait what?!” fu hilton.
That sounds like a stellar valuation. Typical baseline valuation I’ve seen is $0.004, though you can do better on some properties of course.
Subtracting out the foregone points I would have earned but adding in the taxes I didn’t have to pay, I averaged 0.52 cents per Hilton point over the last year.
The year before I was at 1.51cpp but that was because of an insanely cheap points stay for a month in Egypt (120k for the entire month which would have been over $100 a night!)
I think the 0.52 is much more realistic. People always forget about the 10-30% in taxes and fees.
Yeah, I got great value from Hilton points in Egypt and in China.
So, is there still a 5 credit card limit with Amex? Yesterday a poster in DOC other article said he has 8 credit cards and in an online chat with Amex rep yesterday she told me to apply even though I have 5. She didn’t specifically comment on a limit, but implied I am “eligible.” This has made me search around for more dp’s and I came across a MMS article from middle of 2017 where they claim Amex no longer has a limit on credit cards. What is DOC’s take on the issue of whether 5 is still the limit?
Are any of your AMEX bank cards Charge cards? Those don’t count to the limit.
I’m only counting credit cards.
I have six AMEX credit cards and one charge card. I may close one of the two Hilton cards that I have.
Hey Doc, new to Hilton so sorry for a noob question. For the Aspire card, is it possible to double dip on the free anniversary weekend night certificate on year 1 annual fee assuming you apply the second certificate before you cancel the card prior to the 30 day grace period. Cheers.
Not sure, I think they will prevent it but not 100% sure.
doc. i am very surprised ur conclusion didnt include deval of aspire after yea 1 or even earlier. im almost 100% certain this will happen. shit like this never lives too long. we see it in citi prestige, CSR, etc etc. the aspire is just too good. reddit is already all over how to abuse it. my rec is to get it now while u still can.
what you talking about? This post talks about that specific issue…
yea. thats what i mean. u do in fact talk about it specifically in the aspire section. but i was talking about your conclusion since you say “These bonuses are going nowhere in the short term so please don’t feel like you need to apply immediately.”
but really, my point was that for the aspire card, you should actually consider applying asap because of the potential deval.
I don’t think a potential devalue is likely to come in the short term, probably six months onwards. Maybe even after they run profitability models after first year retention rates and benefit use as calculated.
What’s the CSR deval you’re referring to? AFAIK the only change has been switching travel credit to cardmember year vs calendar year. But this only effects NEW cardmembers (old ones are grandfathered, at least for now) and is only an issue if you want to churn and burn the card. Keeping card long-term it has no impact.
Signup bonus dropped, too.
Link to Reddit?
FYI, I signed up for the AMEX Aspire card around 9:30 AM, was instantly approved, and around 3PM, I received an email saying “you’ve upgraded to Diamond status!”
Coverted card from citi arrived By Mail today. But instead of activating that I have signed up for a new one and got it approved !
uh so? thats useless info. tell us how many amex CC you have and whether you get the bonus on the new app since now you have 2 of the same CC.
I won’t be activating the other card . I should probably be getting sign up bonus on the new one, (will update here)😊 . I have 4 Amex CC already.
The business card is $3k spend for 75k and then another $1k for 25k more, total $4k/100k.
Fixed thanks