Joe1690

About a month ago the American Express Hilton HHonors card had a change of terms and conditions. These changes were highlighted in the Hilton HHonors forum and were mainly the American Express change of terms and conditions as with their other credit cards. However, the points accrual on this card changed for the better effective today. Now you can earn 5 Hilton HHonors points at gas stations, grocery stores, drugstore, dining establishments, wireless phone bill and US Postal Service. Also, if you spend $20,000 in a calender year you get Hilton HHonors Gold Status. In addition, while on the Hilton HHonors Website today I noticed the card itself is now different as well and I like it much better. It can be seen at http://hhonors.hilton.com/en/hhonors...editcard.jhtml . Also, here is a link to the thread with specific details on the terms and conditions changes http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...7&page=1&pp=15 .

Sincerely,

JC

MaisonUnitas

The card looks great. A much better design. ^

CMDR_BOND

So how does that last thing about spending 20k a year work? Does that mean the second you spend 20k, you become gold level and you retain the status for the rest of the year, or do you continue keeping it for a full year?

Joe1690

The terms and conditions state that "If in any calender year of Cardmembership your Eligible Purchases total $20,000 or more, you will be upgraded to Hilton Gold VIP status for a one year period begiining no later than April of the following calender year." Therefore it is for a 1 year period but depending on when you reach the $20,000 threshold will determine when you receive your gold status.

Sincerely,

JC

ILUVCITIBANK

Anyone have experience if they will reward HH DIAMOND for higher level of spending, whethher documented or UNdocumented ?

IMO, the single great flaw of HHONORS is that capacity controls severely dilute the perceived value due to room non-availability (capacity controls are the BANE of any affinity program, for no matter how generous the point or mile accrual is...if you have 'em, you gotta be able to spend 'em). I essentially abandoned AAdvantage after last year's roll-out of milesasver...so American's affinity now servers to be something to be AVOIDED, ie their affinity program now is something I avoid.

Similarly, everytime I examined HHONORS, I liked the breadth of properties...but felt their capacity control scheme would be onerous. BUT - with Diamond, apparently this is not an issue.

So...curious if a higher-level of charging activity might be rewarded w/ Diamond ?

singlemalt

There was some discussion here about that same issue:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=367190

I brought this idea up on another thread on the Hilton forum. Why not reward big credit card spenders with top-end status - for hotels and airlines? Why should they care if the revenue comes from stays/flights or points/miles they sell to the credit card companies - it's all revenue to them, no?

I just picked up the Hilton Amex, which I will now use instead of my MR card (no more MR->HA->HH). If Hilton awarded diamond status for $100-150K/year of CC spending, I would gladly shift some of my charges to be sure I hit that number.

And if one hotel chain started awarding top-end status for CC spending, don't you think others might follow, just to compete for the revenue for the points they sell to the credit card companies?

I know that last year Starwood made more money from my credit card points than they did from at least a few who made plat on one-nighters.

ILUVCITIBANK

singlemalt, after you shift a month or two or few months' spending to AMEX/HHONORS, do you plan to proactively call them to see if they'll ante up a Hilton Diamond status ? This almost sounds like an AMEX-generated upgrade, not necessarily an HHONORS one.

If so, given your volume (and mine), seems we could almost call AMEX and ask for a discretionary elite level designation to a given affinity program.

I had read that thread you referenced a couple of weeks ago and it started me thinking about this possibility.

Seems logical to me that HHONORS, spg, hyatt, and maybe other chains...ie any of the chains that co-brand w/ AMEX....would let AMEX designate some/a few/a couple of their "own AMEX VIPs" for high-chargers. Yours and my version of "butt in seat" elite rewards except we earn it in a more modern-era manner, so our elite status would be bestowed by the credit card company, not the hotel or airline affinity program. Just a different type of "loyalty", per se.

Wonder why no credit card company has figured out they could pick up some nice incremental business doing this sort of thing ?

singlemalt

Actually, I just sent a suggestion to Hilton via planetfeedback.com. I've gotten good results in the past going this route (3 for 3). One letter I sent to Amex through planetfeedback got me a contact in Barry Arnold's office - she's helped me twice in situations where going through the normal customer service route didn't work.

I think this has to be a Hilton-generated upgrade - I don't think Amex can give out status levels in an airline or hotel program if the airline or hotel doesn't cooperate. I don't know about trying to get anywhere by calling - you're always starting at the bottom of the food chain, and you're never sure if your message gets passed to the right people.

I may send the same type of letter to Starwood, but right now I'm more interested in top-level status from Hilton - it would be worth more to me for the reason you indicated.

TTT103

It would now be nice if AmEx changed the look of their Starwood card.