Originally Posted by
Churnman
Has anyone with a Hilton Surpass Amex tried applying for this new citi one? I could not see anything in the terms to discourage that so I assume citi wants me too. But, if I'm planning a trip with Hilton 2 or 3 years away then the 2 free nights from the citi won't help me, is that correct? Are those nights from certificates which expire in 6 months or a year, or no expiration. With points there's nmo expiration, but what about free nights? Isn't the Hyatt 2 free night cc promotion the same way; expires in 1 year? If that's so I will wait until within 1 year from the time I need the free nights.
First of all, there's no relationship between the Hlton Surpass Amex and the Citi cards. So one does not rule out the other.
The next thing you need to understand about Citi is that they don't mind you having more than one of the same kind of card or very similar kind of card, and (with the exception of AA) they don't mind you applying for the same card over and over agian.
But yes, the free night certs do expire, plus can only be use for weekend nights (not other days of the week). Points don't expire (as long as you periodically have activity in your HH account), and they're good any day of the week (that the hotel has availability).
So while you're waiting the couple years to apply for this Reserve card, why don't you apply for two of
these cards:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nors-visa.html
at the same time (using the two browser type trick), and then as long as you can do $1500 spend within 6 months on both of them, you'll end up the 100k HHonors points total for both of them. And then once you've achieved that, you can cancel, wait a while, and then do it all again for another 50k to 100k! And then again... That's a lot of points you could earn in 2 years, even if only doing 2 cards every 6 months, while waiting for the right time to apply for a Reserve card...