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Right now, there’s a great opportunity to earn over 150,000 Hilton HHonors points for just spending $3,000 in 3 months after being approved for two credit cards. And what is even better is that both of these cards do not have any annual fees! This article will look at the two cards and how much value they can offer you.
The Hilton HHonorsTM Credit Card from American Express
- No Annual Fee
- Earn 70,000 Hilton HHonors™Bonus Points after you spend $1,000 on purchases on your card in your first 3 months.
- Silver HHonors status and get HHonors Gold status when you spend $20,000 on eligible purchases on your card in a calendar year.
This card also offers bonus category earning in the following ways:
- Earn 7X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with a participating hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio.
- Earn 5X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases on your Card: at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations
- Earn 3X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card
This offer for the Hilton HHonorsTM Credit Card from American Express is to my knowledge the highest bonus ever offered by American Express for this card. If you’re interested in the card, make sure you go through the link above because the standard public offer is only 40K. What is really great about this offer is that it only requires a minimum spend of $1,000 so that really gives you a break in terms of energy and time required for meeting the minimum spend requirement.
The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card
- No annual fee
- Earn 75,000 HHonors bonus points after you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months.
- Silver HHonors status and fast track to HHonors Gold status after four stays within your first 90 days of account opening or when you make $20,000 or more in purchases each calendar year
- Earn an annual loyalty bonus of 10,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points at the end of each calendar year in which you spend $1,000 or more on stays within the Hilton Portfolio
This card also offers bonus category earning in the following ways:
- Earn 6 HHonors bonus points for every dollar spent within the Hilton Portfolio
- Earn 3 HHonors bonus points for every $1 spent at supermarkets, drugstores andgas stations
- Earn 2 HHonors bonus points for every $1 spent on all other purchases.
The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card is a solid option for building up an HHonors balance and only requires a minimum spend of $2,000, so if you got both cards you’d be done with the minimum spend at $3,000. Like the Amex version, the 75K bonus is the best that this card offers.
If you get both of these cards then you will end up with 152,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points after you meet the minimum spends on both cards!
Silver Status
Both of these cards offer you Hilton HHonor silver status. Personally, this didn’t factor too much into my decision to get these cards as I already had Gold Status through the American Express Platinum. However, silver status is still nice and offers you the following benefits:
- Automatically receive a 15% bonus on all the HHonors Base Points you earn.
- Guaranteed Discount: A discounted, changeable & refundable rate is exclusively available for Hilton HHonors members
- Silver, Gold and Diamond elite members will receive every 5th night free on Standard Room Reward stays of 5 nights or more.
- Complimentary internet
- Quick reservations and check-ins
- Late Check-out
- Complimentary access to fitness centers and health clubs
- Two complimentary bottles of water per stay at certain Hilton properties.
How much value can you get from these points?
Hilton HHonors bonus points are a bit inflated so unfortunately you’re not likely to get the same value per point as you would with pretty much any other hotel currency. However, 152,000 points is still a lot of points and they can be stretched for some serious value if you redeem them the right way.
The chart taken from the Hilton website shows that 152,000 could get you 30 nights at a category 1 hotel (not factoring in any 5th night free benefits). Of course you could also splurge all your points on a couple of nights at a high-end luxury hotel. Personally, I’d probably stay around the 20,000 to 40,000/night range to get the most value out of these cards and snag at least 5 to 6 free nights in a decent hotel.
Check out the following article from Travel is Free to get a sense of the locations of different Hilton hotels around the world and their corresponding categories. (Click the box on the left of the map to toggle which categories you’d like to view.)
After checking out that map also check out another Travel is Free article that gives the low-down on the best use of Hilton HHonors bonus points. That article lists a number of different Hilton hotels in different categories all around the world. It shows you that you can get great great value out of the lower categories and easily be able to spend a couple of weeks in Hilton hotels with the amount of points earned from these cards.
Getting more Hilton HHonors bonus points
One of the great things about Hilton HHonors is that you can rack up the points for this program from a bunch of different cards. There is the Hilton HHonorsTM Surpass® Card
from American Express currently offering 60K bonus points and the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card, which you can earn two free nights to use at almost any Hilton property (here are the exclusions). And don’t forget about the Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard® Credit Card, which can transfer miles at a 2:3 ratio to Hilton HHonors and bump your points up quickly (you can earn 37,500 HHonors Bonus Points just by making a single purchase). And lastly, Hilton HHonors is a transfer partner of both Citi Thankyou Points and American Express Membership Rewards.
These two sign-up offers from Citi and Amex are definitely worth considering. While Hilton HHonors Bonus Points aren’t as valuable per point as other hotels, there are numerous ways to quickly accumulate them and some great redemptions out there for you to find. If you want a jump start on your HHonors points, then you might want to apply for these two cards before the promotions end.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
