American Express offers three personal Hilton Honors co-branded credit cards. There’s a base-level Hilton Honors AMEX card with no annual fee and the luxury Hilton Honors Aspire AMEX. That card comes with a hefty $550 annual fee but provides automatic Hilton Diamond status along with other perks.
Between those two cards, there’s the mass-marketed co-brand card—the one with a moderate annual fee and benefits semi-regular travelers find appealing. That card is the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card.
Annual Fee
$150 Annual Fee
Sign Up Bonus
The current sign-up bonus for the Hilton Surpass AMEX card is 130,000 Hilton Honors points plus a free night reward when you spend $3,000 in the first 6 months of having the card. If you’re interested in this card, or any of the other Hilton AMEX cards, here is our referral link. (We receive Hilton points for approved applications.)
Spending Categories
When spending on the card, you earn points in the Hilton Honors program as follows:
- 12 points per $1 spent at participating hotels or resorts within the Hilton Portfolio
- 6 points per $1 spent on:
- U.S. restaurants (including take-out and delivery)
- U.S. gas stations
- U.S. supermarkets
- 4 points per $1 spent on U.S. Online Purchases
- 3 points per $1 spent on all other purchases
That’s not bad if you’re interested in earning Hilton points. This card earns almost as many points at Hilton hotels as the $550 card. I value Hilton points at a minimum of 0.5 cents each. For all your spending, you’ll earn at least 1.5 cents per dollar. Now you could be earning up to 2 cents per dollar with a cashback card, so you have to decide if you want to earn Hilton points or cash.
Card Benefits
The Hilton Honors Surpass AMEX includes these benefits:
- Cardholders get Hilton Honors Gold status, which includes 80% bonus points on stays, space-available room upgrades, some form of food/beverage benefit and milestone bonuses.
- $50 in statement credits each quarter for purchases made directly with a property in the Hilton portfolio.
- When redeeming points, Gold members get the fifth night free on award stays.
- Earn a free night reward after spending $15,000 on eligible purchases in a calendar year.
- If you spend $40,000 on your card in a calendar year, you can earn Hilton Honors Diamond status through the end of the next calendar year. If you want Diamond status, you should just sign up for the Aspire.
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- The Hilton Honors Surpass card provides secondary coverage for rental cars.
- Cardholders receive Purchase Protection coverage, which I’ve found can come in handy.
What makes things interesting is that Hilton members earn 10 points per dollar for spending at Hilton properties. Hilton Gold members, a status level all AMEX Surpass cardholders are automatically granted, earn an 80% bonus on base points. Add to that the 12 points per dollar earned for using the Surpass card, and you’re earning 30 Honors points per dollar spent at Hilton Hotels. That’s crazy good. Even if points are worth 0.5 cents each, that’s a 15% return.
Ways to use Hilton Honors points
The points you earn with the sign-up bonus and card spending are deposited into your Hilton Honors account. You can then use the points to book hotel rooms. The number of points needed for a room varies based on the cash price required to book the room on any given day.
For example, I needed a room for the night in Tampa after seeing a concert. Cash prices for hotels cost over $250 a night, but I was able to find a Hampton Inn for 40,000 Hilton points. In that example, I was able to get 0.625 cents per point value for an Honors point.
Of course, there was a time when we looked to use Hilton points in Key West, and the price for a room at the Hampton Inn was over 300,000 points a night.
There are other uses for Honors points, such as booking “experiences” like concerts or tours. These may be a good value and may not be available to book on your own, so make sure to check out what you’re getting to see if it’s a good value. Another option that’s not a good value is using your points to pay for things on Amazon.com.
Final Thoughts
We currently have the Hilton Surpass co-brand card. It makes sense for our travel style, and since Hilton is not our primary brand, the luxury card provides benefits that we’re not going to use.
The Hilton Honors Surpass AMEX checks all of the boxes for a co-brand credit card. It provides worthwhile status to travelers who wouldn’t usually qualify. I’d hoped it would offer some additional travel benefits, but those are limited to the $550 Aspire card. Having the card also makes it easy to keep your Hilton miles from expiring.
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