The changes to the Hilton Amex are indeed intruiging. Not mentioned above is the fact that $25k in annual spend on the Amex gets you Gold status with Hilton. Hilton's Gold is a bit richer than Starwood's, IMHO. Of course, just about everyone on Flyertalk has Hilton Gold anyway, even if they don't stay at Hiltons, but it's still an interesting benefit. I'd love to see Diamond offered for $100k in spend, I'd put that on the card in a second. ^ (I actually think SPG ought to offer Platinum for $100k in spend as well.)

As 777 Global Mile Hound points out, the SPG Amex is still a better card for earning frequent flyer points than the Hilton Amex, even if a majority of your spending is on things like groceries and dinner out.

If you're simply comparing earning for hotel night awards, and you leave aside ease of redemption and quality of properties (we all have different tastes!) then the Hilton Amex wins on those spending items where they're offering 5 points per dollar.

But that strikes me as a pretty limited case, and certainly doesn't describe my situation -- I value the ease of redemption and the specific properties that Starwood offers. Frankly I don't want too many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points, as you can only go to Hawaii so many times.

I do have both cards, and I have changed my spending patterns slightly. I put my cell phone bill on the Hilton Amex (I used to put it on Diners Club) and I put grocery bills on the Hilton card as well. But it hasn't come close to supplanting my SPG Amex as my "favorite card in the wallet." *

(* As a purely technical matter I put more spend on the traditional Amex than on the SPG Amex, but that's just a credit limit issue as Amex seems willing to let me put very large items on the charge card but not the credit card.)