Thank you for pointing
#1 out. For some reason I thought Platinum card did that for me, but I just checked and learned that it doesn't. I do value that perk with Hilton very much.
The airline credit change is a HUGE let down. I was putting away a nice chunk of gift cards on the Aspire & Platinum while using points to cover flights. Now, the plan is to combine Delta gift cards I bought & continue to buy with my CSR with the airline credit to cover the additional cost of tickets. Apparently, that's good up to the $250 credit available on the aspire. How are you spending yours, if you don't mind sharing?
I'm going to lose the resort credit entirely, this year. I've read about people buying prepaid rates with international resorts and cashing them in during subsequent years when they can combine the new year's resort credit with previous prepaid credits. That's the only idea I've had, but I don't know if it's feasible, or which resort I'm eventually going to be interested in experiencing. As far as I'd heard, prepaid stuff can still be done, but not on domestic resorts.