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[ARCHIVE to 2018] American Express Announces Two New Hilton Credit Cards

[ARCHIVE to 2018] American Express Announces Two New Hilton Credit Cards

Old Jun 14, 2018, 11:12 am
  #1351  
 
Join Date: May 2008
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Posts: 199
Originally Posted by pinniped
Question on the timing of the Aspire Free Weekend night. I am taking advantage of the 100,000 point upgrade offer on my Ascend card. I already have my $15k Ascend free night in my account, received it in April. Will my Aspire free night drop immediately? (Say, within the first billing cycle of my upgraded card?) Looking to book a full weekend using both certs...

Doubt I will keep the Aspire card for my than 1 year, but for $450 I'll take 100k HH plus a free weekend night. The place I plan to use the free nights is also one of the listed Hilton Resorts, so I suppose if we run some incidentals there I'd get some credit for that too? (up to $250?).

Also - anyone know if Main Cabin Extra upgrades on AA count as a qualifying airline fee? I don't ever pay airline fees now, but if MCE at booking time counts, I suppose I'd get some value there. Can't count on MCE as an AA Gold - at least not good non-middle seats.
If you buy the MCE seats after booking the ticket, then yes they count as it is not a ticket upgrade, but counts as a qualifying purchase.

Even the cost of e500 stickers were qualifying purchases for me, although the terms and conditions exclude upgrade purchases.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 11:15 am
  #1352  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: NAS
Posts: 61
Just an FYI for existing Hilton Amex cardholders that want to upgrade to the Aspire without applying for a new card. Last week, I called and inquired about getting the bonus if I upgraded. I was told there was no bonus at this time. I declined to upgrade at that time. After pondering the benefits, I was resigned to not getting the bonus and called today to upgrade anyways. Then the rep told me I was eligible for the bonus through upgrade. It was a nice surprise.

Re the $100 Hilton on-property credit for a two night paid stay, does anyone know if this will work with points? Also, if you were to stay 4 nights, would you book two separate reservations to get this benefit twice?
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 11:40 am
  #1353  
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 92
Originally Posted by CHUD
Re the $100 Hilton on-property credit for a two night paid stay, does anyone know if this will work with points? Also, if you were to stay 4 nights, would you book two separate reservations to get this benefit twice?
This could be interpreted a couple of ways, but the terms say: "Back-to-back stays within a 24-hour period at the same property are considered one stay." So, if you booked two two-night stays at one property, it might be considered a single stay.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 11:45 am
  #1354  
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 92
Originally Posted by pinniped
Question on the timing of the Aspire Free Weekend night. I am taking advantage of the 100,000 point upgrade offer on my Ascend card. I already have my $15k Ascend free night in my account, received it in April. Will my Aspire free night drop immediately? (Say, within the first billing cycle of my upgraded card?) Looking to book a full weekend using both certs...
I am unsure if it works differently for upgrades to Aspire, but I opened a new (non-upgraded) Aspire on May 7 and have yet to receive my free night. I believe it comes about 30 days after the statement in which your annual fee posts (so that you cannot cancel and keep the free night). This may be different for upgraded accounts.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 1:22 pm
  #1355  
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Originally Posted by cristo
If you buy the MCE seats after booking the ticket, then yes they count as it is not a ticket upgrade, but counts as a qualifying purchase.

Even the cost of e500 stickers were qualifying purchases for me, although the terms and conditions exclude upgrade purchases.
Awesome. I do buy a few e500's every now and then, so that's nice too.

Originally Posted by CHUD
Just an FYI for existing Hilton Amex cardholders that want to upgrade to the Aspire without applying for a new card. Last week, I called and inquired about getting the bonus if I upgraded. I was told there was no bonus at this time. I declined to upgrade at that time. After pondering the benefits, I was resigned to not getting the bonus and called today to upgrade anyways. Then the rep told me I was eligible for the bonus through upgrade. It was a nice surprise.
I found the upgrade offer in the list of promotional offers below all of my account information. I sometimes scroll through that looking for a Hilton promotion I can use...there was a minor rebate for a Doubletree stay a couple months ago. This time I noticed the Aspire upgrade offer - 100,000 point bonus after you spend $4k in 3 months. (Which will be easy enough as I have two 1-week Hilton stays coming up, both that will net out to around $1.5k-2k each.)

So if you are interested, I'd look there - even if the phone agents don't know about it. It was simple, 1 click and a notice that I'd get my new card in about a week.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 2:02 pm
  #1356  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Question on the timing of the Aspire Free Weekend night. I am taking advantage of the 100,000 point upgrade offer on my Ascend card. I already have my $15k Ascend free night in my account, received it in April. Will my Aspire free night drop immediately? (Say, within the first billing cycle of my upgraded card?) Looking to book a full weekend using both certs...
The free weekend night definitely does not drop right away. I applied for the Aspire around March 20 and my weekend night just hit my account on June 4.

For the airline credit, the AA charge for MCE should trigger it if done after your initial ticket is purchased, as mentioned above. Keep in mind too that you can generally buy AA gift cards and it will trigger the credit as well. There is lots of info about this over in the Amex forum, recommend a read.

Originally Posted by CHUD
Re the $100 Hilton on-property credit for a two night paid stay, does anyone know if this will work with points? Also, if you were to stay 4 nights, would you book two separate reservations to get this benefit twice?
IIRC in order to get the $100 credit you need to book under a specific paid rate code, so obviously a points stay will not count.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 2:11 pm
  #1357  
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I have the no-fee amex hilton and amex ascend (converted from the previous surpass). Should I downgrade the ascend to no-fee amex or cancel it? I want to get the 100k upgrade bonus.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 3:07 pm
  #1358  
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Originally Posted by 9Benua
I have the no-fee amex hilton and amex ascend (converted from the previous surpass). Should I downgrade the ascend to no-fee amex or cancel it? I want to get the 100k upgrade bonus.
The 100k offer that I used was within the promotional offers section of my Ascend card. If you have it there, you'd presumably upgrade that card and dump the no-fee card.

Alternatively, you could look in the offers section of the no-fee card and see if there's an upgrade offer to move that one to Ascend. When you say you want the 100k upgrade, I can't tell if you want to end the process with the Aspire or Ascend.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 5:06 pm
  #1359  
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Posts: 133
Had not realized that they were making targeted offers to upgrade to Aspire. I didn't find an offer-- on offers page or on the main card promotions page. What's the likelihood they will offer an upgrade incentive if I call?
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Old Jun 15, 2018, 8:08 am
  #1360  
 
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Don't think there has been any Ascend > Aspire upgrade offer, right?
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Old Jun 18, 2018, 12:52 pm
  #1361  
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Originally Posted by Abidjan
Don't think there has been any Ascend > Aspire upgrade offer, right?
Perhaps mine was targeted? It was in the long list of 70+ promotional offers for my card. Where you find all of the useless stuff about restaurants, flowers, etc. and occasionally a useful promotion for a Hilton stay.

My history with Amex:
- Longtime SPG Amex holder. My primary spend card in most years.
- HH Amex holder for past few years. Have made two separate $40k runs in two separate years (two years apart) to achieve Diamond status.
- In 2018, made a quick $15k run on the Ascend card to get the free night, and then went back to SPG Amex as my regular-spend card.
- I don't use Amexes for leverage or to finance things. I just pay them off each month. They don't send me teaser offers like Citi, Chase, etc. do.

To Amex, I'm probably a "medium volume" user. Mid-five-figures annual user. No business cards. No history with their other financial or insurance products.

The upgrade to Aspire didn't affect my account number or credit limit. Didn't require a credit pull.
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Old Jun 23, 2018, 4:25 pm
  #1362  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Hilton, Hyatt House, Del Taco
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American Express is awesome!

This is my first-ever American Express card. I've been very impressed, compared to my VISA from Chase and BofA. The customer service answers RIGHT AWAY, and the phone rep is always courteous and the first rep I talk to usually seems to be able to cover a wider breadth of questions as opposed to Chase where I seem to get transferred from one dept to another. I supposedly don't have to do travel notice (AMEx says they have security technology that obviates such need). My VISA occasionally gets declined abroad for unclear reasons but, even when that happens, my AMEx Aspire card is always approved.

Are these positives attributable to American Express, or are they specific to the Aspire card?
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Old Jun 25, 2018, 6:54 pm
  #1363  
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Amex is generally good like that. There are exceptions (such as the fact that I reached a spending threshold in February, Delta still hasn't noted that, Delta said Amex needs to send them the information, and Amex just took 3 weeks to send me a letter saying that I passed the threshold and it will take 8-12 weeks for Delta to update).
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Old Jun 25, 2018, 9:00 pm
  #1364  
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: RNO, NV, USA.
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Originally Posted by evergrn
This is my first-ever American Express card. I've been very impressed, compared to my VISA from Chase and BofA. The customer service answers RIGHT AWAY, and the phone rep is always courteous and the first rep I talk to usually seems to be able to cover a wider breadth of questions as opposed to Chase where I seem to get transferred from one dept to another. I supposedly don't have to do travel notice (AMEx says they have security technology that obviates such need). My VISA occasionally gets declined abroad for unclear reasons but, even when that happens, my AMEx Aspire card is always approved.

Are these positives attributable to American Express, or are they specific to the Aspire card?
My experience too. I phoned a week and a half ago regarding my Priority Pass benefits with the Aspire Card. The telephone agent was knowledgeable and today my Priority Pass card and documentation arrived in the mail.
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Old Jun 26, 2018, 7:16 pm
  #1365  
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: NYC
Programs: Marriott Plat, Hilton Gold, UA Silver
Posts: 2,272
The AF which is due in July just hit on my Amex Ascend card, I got an email a few weeks ago re: the code for my free night after the first year. Do I need to pay the AF to keep this free night? Any reason to keep this card if I get gold status through my plat?
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