Originally Posted by
Eujeanie
I thought I was going to apply (new) when I first heard about the Aspire card, but I realized a couple of things...We are Diamond with Hilton until 3/2019, plus we are Gold with our Airline of choice until 2019, so those 2 benefits are irrelevant. (no change/cancel fees on our airline).
Plus, I came to the realization that if everything is a wash (you pay $450 and get that much in benefits) you are not gaining anything. I will easily hit $15,000 with the Ascend (formerly Surpass) so I'll get a free night (and there is NO WAY I'd hit $60,000). If our ONE resort stay gets cancelled, I will lose the resort benefit, and if we don't book a W-A (at a questionable advantage) no benefit there, either.
Maybe next year when we're no longer Diamond with Hilton, and no longer have Gold no-fee with our airline, the Aspire will make sense.
I might regret not capitalizing on the 100,000 bonus points now, but if everyone thinks a better offer will be in the future, what would be great...
Gift cards trigger the airline credit on a couple airlines (not sure about Alaska). I'm planning on doing that for the credit with Delta since they are the only airline I use and I would have no use for the credit since GoGo purchases don't apply.
I doubt we'll see a bonus better than the 100K and quite honestly I hope they don't give a better bonus seeing how devalued HH points are, I'd rather they make the points worth something than to keep handing them out. If they do lower the sign up bonus I'm sure there'll be some kind of notice so people will still have time to take advantage of it like when Chase realized how much they were losing on the lucrative sign up bonus on the CSR, I doubt they'll just make the change overnight with no announcement.
If someone has a stay at a resort property coming up then it would make sense to apply for the card now.