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American Express today has launched awesome temporary perks for most of their hotel and airline co-branded cards. In this post I’ll highlight the perks available to Hilton cardholders. In separate posts I covered perks for Delta and Marriott cardholders:
- Delta cards: Enhancements for 2021 (dining, wireless, status boost, and Delta spend bonuses)
- Marriott Amex cards: Enhancements for 2021 (dining, wireless, and spend bonuses)
Each of the perks listed below should be found when you log into your Amex account, select your Hilton card and scroll down to view “Amex Offers & Benefits” (or, on mobile, click the tab labelled “Offers”).
Note that these offers are only for those who’s accounts were active as of January 1, 2021. Those with newer accounts are not eligible.
The Amex Press Release regarding these offers can be found here.
Restaurant Rebates
Each of the Hilton consumer cards is offering a monthly rebate for spend at U.S. Restaurants, as follows:
- Hilton Aspire: $20 per month
- Hilton Surpass: $10 per month
- Hilton Honors (fee free card): $5 per month
Simply use your card for restaurant spend each month in the U.S. and you should receive the rebate automatically. These offers will work for dine-in, take out, or delivery.
Eligibility for this offer is limited. Enrollment is required in the Amex Offers section of your account before redeeming.
Cell Phone Services
The Hilton Business card is offering a monthly rebate for U.S. wireless telephone services (e.g. cell phone service):
- Hilton Business Card: $10 per month
Use your card to pay $10 or more towards your cell phone service each month in order to earn $10 back.
Eligibility for this offer is limited. Enrollment is required in the Amex Offers section of your account before redeeming.
Spend Bonuses
Through the end of June 2021, each Hilton card is offering a bonus for big spend
- Spend $5,000, Earn 10,000 Bonus Points
If you spend exactly in $5,000 intervals, this is like getting an extra 2 points per dollar on all spend. Since Hilton cards always earn a minimum of 3X on all spend, this is an opportunity to earn 5X on spend through the end of June. Our current Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) for Hilton points is 0.45 cents per point. With this offer, you’ll be earning the RRV equivalent of 5 x 0.45 = 2.25% back for all spend.
If you have multiple Hilton cards, you can only enroll one card with this spend offer. So, make sure to enroll the card that you most want to put spend on.
Eligibility for this offer is limited. Enrollment is required in the Amex Offers section of your account before redeeming.
My Take
The restaurant and wireless rebates are like free money for most of us. Yes, it requires a tiny bit of work to make sure to use them each month but still… it’s easy money. One possible exception is for Verizon customers who get a $10 monthly discount by auto-paying via debit card or bank account. Some readers have said that it’s possible to pre-pay part of your bill with a credit card and still get the autopay discount, but others have said that doesn’t work for them. Please see the comments in this post where this debate will probably show up soon.
Regarding the spend bonuses, personally I don’t think that an extra 2X is enough to motivate spend just for the points. However, both the Surpass and business cards offer a free night certificate with $15K spend. This is a really nice kicker on top of that! With $15K spend through June 30th, you’ll earn 30,000 bonus points with the new spend offer.
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Do these benefits work in 2022 ?
No
For people who just want to accrue credits so you can spend the aggregate at a later time, the way to do this is the “add funds” which I see working for Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. That is the only two I see this working on currently. I just accrued $30 across my wifes and my card to use in 1 transaction anytime I want instead of within the month and by piecemail. If anyone else knows of more I’d love to know!
did you do this in the starbucks app, like reloading your gift card?
Yes exactly. Just add funds.
A warning. I just added the $10 first to my hilton surpass. I then checked my hilton no fee card and had $5, which I was also able to add. But when I went back to check the $10 it was no longer added, even though I did that one first. So, don’t make the same mistake. Just do I hilton card. I ended up with just $5.
Try logging out and back in. You might find it is there after all (also make sure to click to view more if you’ve loaded a lot of offers)
Data point: The dining seems to only be good for one card type per person. I have two Hilton Surpass cards. When I added this offer to one of the cards, it disappeared from the other one. However, it was also available on my Marriott AMEX Bonvoy card and the offer stuck. So, I ended up with $10 dining credit on one of two Amex Hilton Surpass cards and on my only Marriott Bonvoy card.
Out of curiosity, do you have all of the cards in a single login? I’ve heard DPs suggesting that maybe having two Surpass cards under different logins works for getting dining credits on both (I doubt that separating now will do any good, just asking so I can shoot down that theory if you already had yours under separate logins).
No, sadly, they are under the same log on.
Looks like restaurant is cumulative for the month so if you spend $5 each, 4 times on Aspire during the month, you get total $20. Can anyone confirm ?
Yes, as long as your total restaurant spend across 1 or more purchases is $20 or more, you’ll get the $20. But you won’t get paid back along the way. e.g. a $5 charge won’t get rebated $5.
I have wireless offer on both Bonvoy ($15) and Hilton ($10).I assume I can split the bill and use both?
Same here, that’s my plan.
dp with Fee Free Hilton card. Had separate $5 & $20 credits for dining. This card was initially opened as the fee-free Aspire in Nov 2019.
My Aspire that was a free version with the Surpass upgrade is only showing $10/dining credit/month. Not sure if it matters but this came after I added the $20 Aspire dining credit on my original Aspire card.
People are getting the offer corresponding with what their card was on Jan 1. I assume you upgraded after that?
No. I upgraded Dec 12, 2020. I wonder if you can’t have 2 different $20/month offers.
Greg,
the hilton $5k spend for a 10k bonus pts can be cumulative, not a single trxn, correct? i have a Surpass, will def put $15k spend for a FNC & 120k pts; when its AF comes due in june, hope will get a retention offer
edit: nvm Greg, i overlooked the word ‘combined purchases’; so cumulative total of $5k sb good
I’m not seeing the spend bonus on my Surpass account. I do see it on my Aspire. Both were opened before 1/1/21. Pretty disappointing. I guess I’ll give it a few days and maybe it will show up.
Meanwhile Chase is messing around with offers like “get 10 percent off up to $9” and do 50 swipes this month for 5,000 points. I know they have different approaches for marketing but Amex is making a much stronger top of the wallet push.
I know the title is just about Hilton, but here are some other data points: For restaurants, I received the $20 per month on Aspire and $10 per month on Surpass, but also received $20 per month on Bonvoy and $15 per month on Delta Platinum. All added successfully. Also, unfortunately, I only received the Hilton extra points offer on Aspire and not on Surpass, which matters a lot since I was putting spend on Surpass to get the free night and have more than $5,000 to go. Finally, in addition to the Hilton spend offer, I got a spend offer on Bonvoy (spend $7500, get $7500), which I’m not sure moves the needle.
DofC had terms–noticed this one: “If you have more than one Hilton Honors American Express Cards, you will only be able to enroll the Card which you received this offer for.” So it looks like if someone has two Hilton cards, the offer is only on one and you can’t choose. Two others wrote in with my same situation–only on Aspire and not on Surpass.
$20 dinning credit is showing on both Aspire & Bonvoy, they are considered difference offers?
Yes, they’re considered separate offers. I successfully added offers for both $15/month restaurant credit on my Delta Platinum and $20/month restaurant on my Aspire.
I think there may be a grandfather date on some of these because we get neither the cell nor spend offer on Hilton business, but it is a new card.
Yep, I’ve updated this post: These offers are only for those who had their card by Jan 1
Must have had the card by 1/1/21 to get the offers.
On my Aspire, I have both 10 off 10 and 20 off 20 showing
I had 5 off 5 and 20 off 20 no the Aspire. I think it is because I upgraded my no AF Hilton to the Aspire in December. The T&C state that you must’ve been a card member before January 1, 2021 so I think this is a glitch in the system that they have a certain cut-off date and in a select few cases it will show you both offers. I am not expecting it to work, but one can be hopeful that I will get a combined 25 off 25…