I am interested in starting a frequent flier program and need advice. The Hilton Honors visa and the CitiBank American Advantage visa appeal to me. I don't travel often, but my family and I are going to Hawaii in January on American Airlines and aer staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. My boss paid for the trip, but i can get miles either way. I also intend to use my visa to pay living expenses to add to my miles.

Given this information, do you experts out there recomend one card over the other?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

reks,

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Personally I am a fan of the AMEX Starwood card.

I would recommend carrying the Hilton HHonors Visa @ no annual fee for stays at Hilton branded properties and for merchants that don't take AMEX.

I would use the SPG AMEX everywhere else because you can transfer points earned on the card to practically any airline program ($30/yr. & first year free).

You might try posting and searching in the appropriate forum such to get a wealth of additional information here on Flyertalk.

Again, welcome.

You can grab the HH Amex at no risk (i.e., no annual fee) and use it to pay for your HHV stay. I would get that card now if for no other reason than to use it for the stay and collect the bonus HH points.

You can probably also get the AA Mastercard with 5,000 or 10,000 bonus AA miles - more than enough to compensate for the annual fee of $50. Whether or not you choose to keep it for more than a year depends on your CC spending habits and your long-term interest in AA miles. If you can really drive a lot of living expenses to an MC/Visa, the AA card is probably a better option than an HH Visa. For most people, 1 FF mile is worth more than 1 HH point. Again, consider the annual fee and whether you are a good candidate for a "home-grown points" card before you decide to carry the AA card long-term (beyond 1 annual fee).

OOPS!
The HHonors Visa earns 2 points per dollar spent & 3 on HHonors Hotel purchases, while the AAdvantage Visa or MC earns 1 mile per US$.
Personally, I gave up my AAdvantage card in favor of HHonors Visa & Starwood Amex for the lack of/low annual fee & because I need free hotel rooms to get good use out of the AAdvantage miles I already have.

Bottom line Which do YOU like better? Free Hilton rooms or free flights?

------------------
Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

[This message has been edited by Brendan (edited 11-03-2002).]

Yes, but that's an apples-and-oranges comparison. You might find that HH points equate to a lower $/point value than AA miles. In my experience thay're certainly easier to earn...

I figure they're about 3:1. A round-trip economy air ticket in the US takes 25,000 AA miles or 85,000 HH points. Granted, that's not quite a fair comparison either, because AA points are only good on AA and partner flights, you might(?) be able to get an award from Hilton under conditions where you'd have to use a higher-mileage "AAnytime" AA award, and the numbers vary for different award types, but it's indicative of the ratio.

Personally, I find airline miles more useful because they can be used for high-leverage awards like international upgrades and no-Saturday-night-stay flights, and friends and relatives seem to appreciate free flights more than free hotel rooms, but it really depends on your own priorities.

I have to agree with pinniped. There's no harm in applying and keeping a no fee card such as the HHonors Signature Visa. I would go ahead and apply for it, regardless of what you decide to do on other cards.

yorock

I think you have to weigh how much you will be charging in a year. You have to factor in the annual fee of a credit card towards what a ticket cost you. If it takes you 5 years to get enough miles for a ticket then a $50/per year card is costing you $250 for that "free" ticket. I think the starwood AMEX is the best deal around, and the Hilton Visa is a good choice since not every place takes AMEX. Unless you know that you will patronize places that don't take AMEX a lot, and you really want AA miles...If my citibank MC/Visa didn't have the fee waived because of my citigold account, I'd have to rethink how I use it. Both the Citibank AAdvantage and the Citibank Hilton Visa can be used at c2it and it will be treated as a purchase and not a cash advance.

------------------
Ms.DtG

You're analysis is correct. Most Hilton Airline Rewards are not subject to FF capacity control, only to fare class availability. Some are subject to black out dates. And, of course, you have a slew of airlines to choose from.

But in general, booking an air reward flight on a given date is much easier as far as availability goes than my understanding and experience of finding an available FF seat.

Also, check out FF1B -- free companion fare for 40,000 with purchase of any published fare (yes, that's what they mean by "full-fare ticket" -- any published fare, not any Y fare).

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/airline.jhtml

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/par...rs_terms.jhtml

Finally, the best value in Hilton rewards are the VIP Vacation rewards: http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/vip.jhtml

To me the situation is quite simple. Definetely AA Citi Card.
I don't get it why people use the HHonors card and points reward system cause they suck. I look over their redemption, their hotels stays are incredible steep. THe arilines suck totally, more points/mile than direct in AAdvantage. I looked for redemptions in africa, southeast asia, indian ocean and south america and is not possible, they don't have awards for those cool places.therefore the HH reward system is useless

Yes, Colombo, the HH system is totally useless. In fact, you've figured us out: it doesn't really exist. It's just a black hole where your points go, and nobody ever gets any rewards. We're just trying to convince Reks to make a bad decision because we are mean people.

Hey. Hold it will ya

I have redeemed 450K + points for over 30+ nights with just one ALON. AND these were redeemed when I had a Gold status.

If you think HH does not let you redeem points for rooms, AA is not going to let you redeem miles either. Because they both are capacity controlled.