The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card is out with a new offer today that I find pretty intriguing as it includes the chance to spend toward a free night certificate — while potentially also spending toward an additional free night certificate. For those who maximize Hilton certificates, this is an interesting offer.
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The Offer & Key Card Details
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
130K Points 130K after $3K spend in 3 months. Terms apply. $95 Annual Fee FM Mini Review: Easy way to secure Hilton Gold status (which offers free breakfast among other perks). Amex business cards do not count towards 5/24 status so will not hurt chances of applying for Chase cards. Earning rate: ⚬ 12X Hilton spend ⚬ 6X on Select Business & Travel Purchases (flights booked directly with airlines or Amex Travel; car rentals booked directly from select car rental companies; US restaurants; US gas stations; wireless telephone services purchased directly from US service provider; US shipping purchases) ⚬ 3X on all other eligible purchases Base: 3X (1.44%) Travel: 6X (2.88%) Dine: 6X (2.88%) Gas: 6X (2.88%) Phone: 6X (2.88%) Biz: 6X (2.88%) Brand: 12X (5.76%) Other: 6X (2.88%) Card Type: Amex Credit Card Big spend bonus: Free night award after $15K spend in calendar year and another after $60K spend Diamond elite status with $40K calendar year spend Noteworthy perks: ⚬ Free Gold status. Diamond status w/ $40K spend. ⚬ 10 free Priority Pass lounge visits per calendar year ⚬ Terms Apply. (Rates & Fees) |
Quick Thoughts
This isn’t quite the best offer we’ve ever seen on this card — in addition to the points earned at $3K spend in the first 3 months, this offer includes a free night award if you spend $10K in the first six months. We have previously seen a similar offer that came with the same number of points and the free night award after just the $3K spend (long ago expired). This new offer requires a lot more spend for the free night certificate.
However, since this card offers a free night annually with $15K in calendar-year spend, I imagine that most who get this card will likely want to spend $15K in a calendar year. If you’re able to meet $10K in the first 6 months and en route to $15K within a single calendar year, you would end up with the full welcome bonus points, the welcome bonus free night certificate, and the annual free night certificate from spend. That’s a pretty solid deal.
This is made all the more appealing by the fact that Hilton has permanently changed free night certificates to make them valid any night of the week. That makes the certificates significantly more valuable since they can now be used any night of the week and at nearly any Hilton property in the world.
Overall, I think this offer is pretty interesting if you value the Hilton free night certificates. On the other hand, if you’d rather have more points to spread out over more nights rather than maximizing free night certificates at a top-tier property, this deal may be less appealing.
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can we self refer? ie P2 refer to P1 via Amex referral program?
Hey Nick, can you remind me how much value the Hilton Free Night Certificate is worth in terms of calculating the first year value? Is the Hilton Free Night Certificate worth like 50k-70k Hilton points x the RRV of a Hilton point?
If you hover over the first year value section and then click on it, it brings you to a post that explains the value in detail:
https://frequentmiler.com/credit-card-signup-bonus-estimation-details/
For hotel free night certificates, we take the maximum point value of the certificate (120K for Hilton) times the Reasonable Redemption Value of the points times a fudge factor (in the case of Hilton, that’s 0.85 because Hilton has the least restrictive free night certificates since they are uncapped and can be used any night of the week). That formula results in a free night certificate value of $408 on Hilton free night certificates. Given current hotel rates, that seems like a reasonable estimation with any effort to use them at a near-top tier hotel.
Good to know, I never knew about hovering over the “1st Yr Value Estimate” text to see the breakdown. I learned something new today 🙂
I didn’t know about that 1st year value “hover feature” either. Cool!
Another coefficient would be how much you want to stay at a near-top tier hotel in the next year. I maximized my last ~6 certs at $1000/night hotels, the wow factor is fading, and I haven’t found a use for the cert next year, so my coefficient would probably be something like 0.5 x $408 = $204.