There are tradeoffs. Points don't expire and can be used on M-Thurs so they're more flexible in that respect.

But certs are much more stable value. Points repetitively devalue, whereas the cert does not (unless they start excepting many more properties).

Regardless, you asked what you were missing in the comparison. For your upgrade offer to aspire you get points AND a weekend night certificate ~immediately. It has a value. Is it equivalent to 95k points? (The current "Max" standard room charge, unless they've raised it again....) Probably not. If you have a family member with a card too or a couple other possibilities, you might have two or three allowing a weekend used at once which gives you a few more options.

For the annual fee you get $250 airline, $250 Hilton Resort, AND a free night certificate with no spend requirement. YMMV assigning values to these. I assign around $200, $150, and $200. That comes out to net annual fee of negative $100 with the current rules for each. And I also get Diamond which I otherwise would not.
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All of the "credits" on these premium cards are purposefully somewhat painful to manage. But the aspire is one of the few with a net negative annual fee after credits. I've got six certs to figure out where to use next year, along with $500 at Hilton "resorts". It's my test year for seeing how painful this is to manage. Also piling up Southwest gift cards that I don't know what to do with (around $1500 of those as of next January).

[gon]

I upgraded to Ascend from the no fee card about 3 months ago The deal was 3k spending and 150k points. (est. value $750)
After the upgrade Amex offered 4k spending and 150k points for upgrading to Aspire. It was there for a long time until I applied and got approved an AMEX Platinum under the same online account.
The actual offer should be based on what you see on the sign-up page. (whether 3k or 4k required) It should be very clear in the T&C.

I do not think you can even get to the upgrade sign up page if not offered.
If I try to access certain AMEX promo pages (e.g. points for adding authorized users) using my wife's login, it always gives an error.
Now that the Aspire offer has expired I can no longer access the sign up page using the same URL. I'm still working on the 5k for Platinum so really can't spend another 4k for Aspire.
I'm surprised though they offered me a second upgrade even while I was still working on the bonus from Ascend!

[[[[[

good question -- I used two my passes last week, and got charged.

I was under the impression its from when we signed up with PP

i did it from chat

I already have Priority Pass through a couple of other cards. Can I give the ten PP visits to someone else or sign that person up instead of me? The Ascend's PP benefit is useless to me, so I'd like to let a relative use it.

Yes, it is driven by the Priority Pass membership date, not calendar year. I was told this by a PP representative and have observed it to be true by experience.

I don't think my ID has been checked, but they have often checked my boarding pass to make sure I'm actually flying that day. I assume if the boarding pass showed someone else's name, it would be an issue.