This morning I wrote about how the Hilton HHonors Surpass card from American Express surpassed my expectations for its point-earning ability.  A few helpful readers pointed out that American Express has another Hilton HHonors card without the “Surpass” title and without the Surpass card’s $75 annual fee.  I took a look at this card and indeed it appears to be almost as good as the Surpass for point-earnings.  The main differences appear to be that for spending at Hilton hotels, the Surpass earns 9 points per dollar whereas the regular card earns 6; and while both cards will get you Gold status with $20K spend per year, only the Surpass will get you Diamond status for $40K spend per year.  Check out the comments of the previous post to see one way (if you are a big spender) that you could actually cycle back and forth between these cards to keep Diamond status without paying $75 every year for the annual fee.

In order to estimate the point earning power of credit cards, I’ve setup a simple spreadsheet to automate the calculations.  When I plugged the Hilton HHonors specs into the spreadsheet, it came out with a 4.43 points per dollar average.  Compared to the 4.5 points per dollar average of the Surpass, this card is a close contender!

With the non-Surpass card, you will receive 6 Hilton HHonors bonus points at Hilton hotels, supermarkets; drug stores; stand-alone gas stations; and home telephone, wireless, cable, satellite TV and internet service providers. You will receive 3 Hilton HHonors bonus points per dollar for all other eligible spending.

The Hilton HHonors Surpass Card from American Express might just be worth a second look.

I had all but given up on Hilton.  I signed up for the Amex SPG card (Starwood) over the summer and since then have been quite impressed at how valuable SPG points can be.  In addition to the SPG card’s great ability to transfer to airline miles, I found that some of my favorite Starwood hotels (Westin, W, etc.) were available for award nights for only 10K or 12K per night!  Not only that, but SPG often has “points and cash” options where you can get those same hotels for far fewer points and a modest cash copay.  When I compared that to my Hilton experience (usually 30K to 50K per night for awards I was interested in), I was blown away.  Even better, with SPG points you have the option to transfer your points to airline miles and get a 25% bonus in miles for every 20K point transfer!  And, as if that wasn’t enough, SPG also has a “Nights and Flights” option in which you can use your points for hotel awards and mile transfers at the same time.

Recently Hilton changed their program a bit to allow points and cash options (great!) and to make upgraded rooms such as suites available for award redemptions as well.  Unfortunately, these changes were also accompanied by a new award chart and redemption rules which mean that even more points are now needed for many hotel redemptions.  See, for example, this post.

All of the above led me to believe that the idea of using a credit card for earning Hilton points was ridiculous.  Why would I want to earn Hilton points from my credit card spend when I could earn much more valuable SPG points?  [I can’t help but also mention the option of earning valuable Ultimate Rewards points with Chase cards, but let’s not get too much off topic…]

In the course of building the Fair Trading Prices table for points and miles, I learned about the Hilton HHonors Surpass card from American Express.  I knew about the card before, of course, but I had never given it a hard look.  Why pick a Hilton card with a $75 annual fee when there are other Hilton cards available for free?  And, why go with Hilton when SPG is so valuable?  Well, it turns out that there are very good reasons:

• According to my calculations, the card earns, on average, 4.5 Hilton HHonors points per dollar spent!  So even if you think that SPG points are 3 or 4 times more valuable than HHonors points, this card beats out the SPG card which averages only 1.025 points per dollar spent (but don’t forget that, unlike SPG, you won’t have any decent options for transferring to airline miles).

  The Hilton card earns 9 points per dollar at Hilton properties, 6 points per dollar in bonus categories (supermarkets, drug stores and stand- alone gas stations; and for service payments for home and wireless phone, cable, satellite TV and Internet service providers), and 3 points per dollar everywhere else.

  Note these assumptions I made: 2.5% of spend is with a particular hotel chain (e.g. Hilton or SPG), 15% is for gas, 25% is for groceries, and 5% is spent in other bonus categories such as drug stores, phone, etc.

• The Hilton Surpass card fasts tracks you to Hilton elite status:  In the first year, you will automatically get Gold status.  After that you need to reach $20K in spend per year to maintain Gold status or if you spend $40K you will get Diamond status.  With just Gold status, I have many times been upgraded to suites, received free breakfast, and received free internet, so this benefit can be quite valuable!
• There are several other valuable benefits as well.  If you’re interested, go to the Amex web site to read more.

Lately I’ve been concentrating my spend on earning Ultimate Rewards points using my Chase Sapphire Preferred and my Chase Ink Bold cards.  I also continue to put a lot of spend on my Delta Reserve in order to help bump up my elite status with Delta.  So, there isn’t really much room for a hotel card in my wallet, but this Hilton Surpass discovery has me really rethinking things!  Hilton hotels are everywhere and, in general, I really like them.  I probably spend more time in Hilton properties than in the air with Delta.  Should I switch my allegiance from the air to the ground?  Readers, what do you think?

NOTE: I do not receive a referral commission for this card.

NOTE: Since this post was originally written, US Airways no longer offers miles for shopping at Amazon.  Also, Hawaiian airline miles have droppe to 1 mile per dollar.

Others have previously posted this, but I think this is worth a reminder.  Both US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines have shopping portals that award miles for Amazon.com purchases that are initiated through their portal.  US Airways gives 1 mile per dollar spent at Amazon, whereas Hawaiian Airlines offers 2 miles per dollar.  These bonuses are over and above any miles earned from using a reward credit card for the purchases.

The Hawaiian Airlines deal has a few benefits worth noting beyond the double miles:

1. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be used for booking award flights on other airlines: Delta, Continental, Virgin Atlantic, and Korean Air
2. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be transferred from person to person for free if you have a Hawaiian Airlines credit card.  This can be a huge benefit if you have multiple family members or friends with small account balances.  Combine them together for an award flight!
3. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be transferred to Hilton points: two Hilton points per mile! So, since you get two miles per dollar from shopping at Amazon.com, you will essentially get 4 Hilton points per dollar if you choose to use your miles this way.

So, before shopping at Amazon, remember to go through one of these portals to earn extra points!

Hawaiian Airlines portal link: http://emarket.hawaiianair.com/mall/info/hawaiian/Amazon?afsrc=1&search_query=amazon

US Airways link: http://usairways.skymall.com/mall/info/usairways/Amazon?afsrc=1