Hilton HHonors Amex Bonus Offers October 2016
During the past year American Express moved towards a fairly restrictive policy on product bonuses of “once per lifetime”. You can only get a bonus on a product the first time you open that type of card, so it is a good idea to make sure you are getting the best. Currently the “best ever” bonuses on their two co-branded Amex cards are available.
Amex Surpass 100K
The Offer
Earn 100,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases on your Card in your first 3 months of Card Membership. Offer ends 11/30/2016.
Card Benefits
- Hilton HHonors Gold status.
- Diamond status after $40K in spend a year.
- 12X points at Hilton Hotels, 6X at U.S. restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations and 3X everywhere else.
Thoughts
Hilton remains a good value on the low end for redemptions and while these points aren’t the most valuable, 100K is quite a lot. Add in Amex Offers and Gold status which guarantees free breakfast in most properties and this is a good deal if you have never had the card before.
Hilton HHonors Amex 75K
The Offer
Earn 75,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points after you spend $1,000 on purchases on your Card in your first 3 months of Card Membership. Offer ends 11/30/2016.
Card Benefits
- Silver status.
- Earn gold status with $20K in spend.
- Earn 7X at Hilton properties, 5X at U.S. restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations and 3X everywhere else.
Thoughts
You will probably want to get this card purely for the points, but getting Amex Offers is a nice side perk as well. Then, there are targeted offers that come along like the recent very generous free weekend night deal.
Surpass or No Annual Fee?
The clear choice now becomes which of the offers is better for the Hilton Amex cards. You can get 75K with no annual fee or 100K with a $75 annual fee. That means you would be purchasing the additional 25K points for about 3/10 cent each which is alright. Personally, I think it comes down to your needs. If you have a good use for the bonus categories on the Surpass and if you want or need Gold status then I would get that card. If not, you can’t go wrong with 75,000 points on a no annual fee card. Both bonuses are great.
Conclusion
It is nice to see the bonuses on these cards remain at a high level. Over the course of time I suspect many of you will get the bonus on both of these cards and I hope you are able to do so when it is at its highest level. While it probably isn’t worth messing up your app strategy to get one of these bonuses, in my opinion they are worth considering if you have the want/need for the points and status.
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Hilton Honors points SUCK!!!
I did the Surpass earlier this year, and it was for a 90K point bonus.
Then when I go to redeem them, hotels that cost $150/nigh, are like 30,000 points, MINIMUM.
Some were even 40-50k.
So at the most, the HH points are worth 1/2 cent each. Disappointing…..
Average is .5 cents and almost everyone knows that going in but you can get more then that. I have a $135 room booked for 10k per night. The 20k and under hotels provide good value.
Yeah they aren’t worth all that much, but there are occasional good deals on the low end. I do like keeping a stash around for those occasions.
Citi also has a Hilton Card,
, with some nice points, my last 4 night stay gave my 25,000!points,,
IHG gave me Diamond for a match,.
At least I get a bottle of water at check in..
Why do ALL the Hilton cards charge FX fees? It’s put me off ever applying for one.
I don’t think the Citi Reserve Hilton card does.
Citi’s Hilton Reserve (with annual fee) has no fx fee, at least from their site.
You do have a point though on it being weird for AMEX to do it, despite their cards offering the better rewards points of the two.
Might want to wait until October 5th to see if there’s any big announcements that might sway you to apply for any new cards. IIRC amex allows 2 cards per 90 days. It’s all speculation at this point but waiting 2 days would probably be wise since these offers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
This was offered earlier in the year as I recall . To this that didn’t take advantage do so now
What if I just received the 80k bonus? Any chance of a bump?
I will be applying for the Surpass solely for the Diamond status / $40K spend. I rarely pay cash for a hotel stay so I don’t have many options to get top tier status in any program. Having Hilton Diamond ensures that if a status match opportunity arises, most other programs accept Hilton Diamond. Additionally, it looks like S&S will be accepting CC’s for purchase of VGC’s sometime in Oct.. 6 pts. per $ is nice. My Hilton and Hyatt status run out in Feb. 2017 and I don’t see any other way to maintain status. 40K is very doable in a short time for Diamond.
I’m a newbie – what is s&s and vgc? TiA