Comparing the Hilton American Express Cards

[Presley Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Presley]

I am looking at the AMEX Hilton cards, primarily for the gold honors. It looks like they are pretty similar, but if I want to pay $75./annual I would get a little more benefits. Just curious who uses which card and for what.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

I have the Hilton Amex free card.
I got a nice sign up bonus and if you use it for gas, groceries & drug stores they give you like 6 points per dollar.
I haven't redeemed anything with the points yet but I'm working on my little Hilton piggy bank.

[mav Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

My experience

I am Gold on Hilton. You get free internet and a "sort of free breakfast" with Gold status. With some of their brands internet and breakfast are included anyway, so that is a wash. I have found with Doubletree and some of the others it varies. They have a choice of either 750 extra points, or a $10 credit towards breakfast for you and 1 other sharing the room, and some are " continental" breakfast and a surcharge for the buffet if there is a breakfast buffet where you are staying. The continental is actually very nice and all I need. My room is always very nice so I assume I am getting an upgrade? Hope this helps a little.

[mav Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

P.S I will say I love the Doubletree and the chocolate chip cookie at check in. Plus they always give me a cookie at check out! The last one I checked out of the lady at the desk said to me "you are the only nice customer I have talked to all morning. Do you like our cookies?" I said I LOVE them and she gave me 2 !! Yep, I sure do love Doubletree!

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

You also get 6 points for paying your phone bills so I have my home and cell on automatic payment with the free Amex too.
The points do really start to add up quickly.
Now I just have to learn how to best redeem these points.

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

With the Surpass card, if you spend $40K in a year you get Diamond HHonors status. If you are planning on putting that type of volume through the card, the Diamond status, along with the extra card perks, can be worth the $75 annual fee.

Kurt

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

I use the Amex rewards plus card. I like it cause I can put my points for FF miles or get Hotel points or gifts