mnredfox

Got my Aspire today. Already staying at a HH resort and will be doing my DL purchase ala GC tomorrow.

jamesteroh

I'm hoping the rumors of the SPG premium credit card are true and will be similar to the Aspire where you can get Platinum. Since SPG is partnering with Am Ex as well I'm keeping my fingers crossed this product will be similar to the Aspire.

Good way for business travelers to have top tier benefits with all the chains and be able to stay at hotel they want based on location/price and not have to worry about benefits.

elCheapoDeluxe

I'm trying to figure out how to best make use of my airline fee reimbursement. Most change fees are paid for by my company on the company CC - so I'm not going to bother with that. I'm a 1K - I don't pay bag fees, and my inflight snacks & first drink are free, so I am not going to use it there. Wifi is the one extra I pay for on a regular basis. I know they say that inflight WiFi doesn't count for the fee reimbursement because they are generally billed through a third party, but curious if anyone has any experience specifically with United. Some flights are billed GoGo (such as my United Express MSP-SFO flight last night) and I would definitely expect those don't show up as a UA charge. Other flights seem to be United billing all the way - even using my saved payment methods from United.com or letting me pay with miles. The latter I would expect would show up as billed by United and would work.

I also heard some folks with the AmEx Platinum had success purchasing gift cards for things like Amazon through the MileagePlus X app, and AmEx treated it like a United purchase. Still work? Anybody have experience with that?

maxp0wers

I assume that the Aspire credits work exactly like the Amex Plat / PRG credit. Best thing to do is go over the AMEX forum and find the UA specific reimbursement thread. Any clever idea you can think of most likely has been discussed in that thread.

jamesteroh

Sounds like the airline credit on this card works the same as the regular Am Ex platinum. I've never heard of Amazon purchases working but I know it works for Delta gift cards, so probably would work with United.

The other thing you could use it for is a United Club membership or if you don't want to pay anything out of pocket for a unit club membership use it for day entrance fees to the United Club on occasions when you have a long layover or bad delay.

nk15

One possible benefit for keeping the converted Citi cards to ascend is more cards to use the Amex offers on, so it may be worth it keeping them for a while. They also seem backdated to the date your first Amex was open, so that's also good.

Eujeanie

If the card numbers are exactly the same you can't use the Amex offers on more than one - you link the offer to a particular card number, and once you use it, it's used.

nk15

I meant the cards with different numbers on them, some people had a bunch of different Citi Hilton cards...

elCheapoDeluxe

Again - company already pays for a UC membership so I have no need there. It isn't purchasing Amazon gift cards from Amazon, it is purchasing Amazon gift cards through MileageplusX - the system that generates one-time-use codes to pay for everyday purchases and get miles. Amazon gets you next to nothing now (0.5mi per $) but wondering if anyone has any specific experience about whether this loophole still works. My info is about 2 years out of date.

I've never been in their forum but I might take a look there - thanks.

diesteldorf

I did some research before getting the Aspire, since I wanted to make sure I could definitely extract more than $450 in value to make up for the annual fee. I looked into United quite a bit to see if the airline credit would work with purchases made through the MileagePlusX app and I am 99.99% sure that loophole has been closed, as has the one that would allow you to purchase United Gift Cards.

Otherwise, I would've probably selected United, instead of Delta or American.

This seemed to be a pretty good, relatively current, article:

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/amex-...ine-gift-card/

On the plus side, I had some UA miles that were expiring in a month, and I was able to use the United MileagePlus X app to purchase a $25 Amazon gift card. I paid for it, but it earned me 12 or 13 United miles that counted as earning activity and extended my expiration date for another 18 months.

If you wanted to, you could always purchase a very small Amazon (or any other) gift card through the app. If it isn't reimbursed, you won't lose anything. assuming you purchase from Amazon once in awhile

sethb

Well, you do lose 5% compared with using an Amazon card.

StangGT909

Did we ever determine if the 10 free priority passes with the Ascend are limited to just the card holder, or if you can redeem 2 (1 for you, 1 for a guest) for a single visit?

notquiteaff

jphripjah

Got my Aspire card and even though I'm pretty sure I gave them my Honors number in the application, they assigned me a new or different Honors number. I saw that in my AMEX online account and was able to get it changed through AMEX secure chat.

I recommend confirming after you get the card that they have it tied to your correct Hilton Honors number.

ckiggins

They still have this problem? Why is this so difficult for them to get right?