Last year, American Express revamped the Hilton Surpass card and the Hilton Aspire card. Earlier, with the Hilton Aspire card, one used to get an airline ‘fee’ credit. This credit is similar to the credit you’d get on the personal or the business Platinum card. You can refer to this post to see how it works. However, wit the airline credit on the Hilton Aspire card, it’s a simple airline credit instead of the airline fee credit. So how does it work? Let’s have a look.
NEW AIRLINE CREDIT
Earlier, with the Airline fee credit, one had to select an airline. However, one could only choose from a list of US based airlines. While we always knew that there were some workarounds, I always found the benefit very cumbersome to use given that most of my travel is international in nature.
The new credit is no longer an airline ‘fee’ credit but a simple airline credit for buying flights. Amex has now divided this airline credit into four chunks of $50 each quarter. You don’t need to activate this benefit as it’s automatically activated on your Hilton Aspire card.
QUALIFYING CHARGES
Get up to $50 in statement credits each quarter, for a total of up to $200 back each year, on flight purchases made directly with an airline or through amextravel.com using your Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card.‡
Eligible purchases do not include: charter flights, private jet flights, flights that are part of tours, cruises, or travel packages or ticketing or similar service fees, ticket cancellation or change fees, interest charges, or purchases of cash equivalents.
You DO NOT need to activate the benefit. I decided to test the benefit out for myself. I needed to make an award booking on the Air Canada website and charged the taxes and fees to my Hilton Aspire card.
The charge posted to my card on October 20.
NEW WELCOME BONUSES
In addition to the new benefits, American Express is also offering elevated limited time offers on all of their Hilton consumer credit cards:
| Credit Card | Welcome Bonus Link | Minimum Points you will earn after meeting minimum spend | Free night Certificate you’ll earn | A few Example Properties for stay that you can book with in conjunction with the 5th night free benefit |
| Hilton Honors Card | 70,000 points and 1 free night certificate | 76,000 | 1 | DoubleTree Baga, Goa, India, DoubleTree Frankfurt Niderrad, Hampton Gdansk Airport, Hampton Warsaw Airport, Hilton DaNang Vietnam, Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi |
| Hilton Surpass Card | 130,000 points and 1 free night certificate | 139,000 | 1 | Hampton Inn York, Hilton Garden Inn Palm Springs, Hampton Inn Miami Midtown, Doubletree Chicago – Oak Brook, Hampton Berlin City Centre, Hampton Krakow, Hilton Garden Inn Vienna, Double Tree Kuala Lumpur, Hampton Bogota, Hilton Bangalore, Conrad Pune |
| Hilton Aspire Card | 175,000 points and 1 free night certificate | 193,000 | 1 | Embassy Suites by Hilton San Diego Bay Downtown, Hilton Garden Inn New Orleans French Quarter, Homewood suites Austin Downtown, Hampton Amsterdam Schipol Airport, DoubleTree Edinburgh, Conrad Bangkok, Hilton Buenos Aires, Hilton Garden Inn Dubai Mall of the Emirates, Hilton Cape Town City Centre |
THE PUNDIT’S MANTRA
Overall, I’m really glad that Amex has made this change. While it would’ve been better if the credit was annual as opposed to quarterly, but this is still better than the previous workaround one had to deal with. Going forward, I plan to simply purchase flights or pay for award flight taxes and fees each quarter.
Now I’d love to see American Express make the same change to the airline fee credit on the Amex Platinum Card. However, I’m not quite sure that will happen.
As someone who has carried the Hilton Aspire card in his wallet ever since it was launched, I see this benefit to be really handy for frequent travelers. Moreover, you also earn 7x Hilton points per dollar since the purchase codes as an airfare purchase. Since one doesn’t need to activate the benefit, I found it pretty easy to use. The only thing you need to keep in mind is to use the benefit every quarter.
Do you prefer this airline credit better to the previous airline fee credit? Tell us in the comments section.
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