It’s dead, Jim. The waived fee offer is gone.
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A reader in our Frequent Miler Insiders group has shared with us an offer for the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire card that has the standard welcome bonus but waives the annual fee for the first year. That’s huge since the benefits on this card already outweigh the annual fee. Saving $450 in year 1 is icing on the cake. Note the caution section below for a couple of key things to consider.
The Offer
Click the card information below to go to our dedicated Frequent Miler page for the card, where you can find more information and an application link for the most current offer.
| Card Offer |
|---|
160K Points + free night certificate ⓘ Non-Affiliate 160K after $6K spend in first 6 months. Free night certificate every year - first certificate is awarded 8-12 weeks after approval. Terms apply. $550 Annual Fee After clicking through, be sure to select the card you want on the next page. Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. |
Key Card Details
| Card Name w Details & Review (no offer) |
|---|
FM Mini Review: This card is loaded with valuable perks that are more than worth the card's annual fee if you stay in Hilton resorts at least twice per year. $550 Annual Fee Earning rate: ✦ 14X Hilton spend ✦ 7X US restaurants, flights booked directly with airlines or amextravel.com, select car rental companies ✦ 3X on all other eligible purchases ✦ Terms & Limitations Apply. Card Info: Amex Credit Card issued by Amex. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: Additional free night awards after $30K and $60K spend in calendar year Noteworthy perks: ✦Annual Free Night Reward every year upon renewal ✦ Free Diamond Status ✦ Up to $400 Hilton Resort Credit per membership year ($200 semi-annually) ✦ $200 Flight Credit ($50 per quarter for purchases directly with airlines or via Amex Travel) ✦ $100 on-property credit w/ Aspire Card package ✦ Terms Apply. See Rates & Fees See also: Amex Hilton Aspire In-Depth Review |
Quick Thoughts
Update: As noted at the top of the post, the offer with the fee waived in the first year is no longer available.
In last week’s Frequent Miler on the Air broadcast/podcast, Greg and I discussed the recent major devaluation to the CNB Crystal Visa Infinite that changed it from having benefits that far outweigh the annual fee to a card that isn’t worth keeping. In that discussion, Greg asked whether there are any other ultra-premium cards with benefits that far outweigh the annual fee. The clear answer was the American Express Hilton Aspire card. With its annual $250 airline incidental credit, $250 Hilton resort credit, free weekend night at almost any Hilton property in the world, and automatic Hilton Diamond status, one can easily get far more than $450 in value out of the card, making it well worth keeping in my opinion.
Picking up all of those benefits with no annual fee in year one looks like an amazing offer to me. Add the welcome offer on top of all that and I think this offer becomes such a good deal as to even be worth a 5/24 slot. As I said in our broadcast last week, I think this card is worth $450. I think it would still be worth it if Amex charged another hundred bucks. I’d be thrilled to test drive it for a year with no fee.
Cautions
However, to temper your excitement a bit, I’ll note a couple of things: First, on the application landing page, the card shows an annual fee of $450 — the waived fee is not noted in the marketing lingo on the landing page. However, if you click the “rates & fees” link under “More information”, you’ll see that the rates and fees page clearly lists a fee of $0 for the first year, then $450.
If you decide to apply, I recommend taking a screen shot / printing those rates and fees to a PDF so you have them saved to show down the road that the offer clearly said $0 for the first year. I think it’s reasonable to expect that the first year fee will indeed be $0, though I’d rather have copies to make my argument later in case Amex tries to say that the fee is not waived.
Second, the reader who shared this with us found it on reddit, where many people are reporting getting the Amex no-bonus-for-you popup for the first time and quite a few folks have had applications go pending. However, there are also people reporting approval. YMMV.
Bottom line
This is a terrific offer. I wouldn’t expect it to last long. If you’ve had this card on your radar, I think this is hard to pass up. See our dedicated card page for this card by clicking the card information under “The Deal” to find more information about this card and a direct link to the application. Note that you will be prompted to log in to your Amex account to apply, but you can hit “continue without logging in” to apply without logging in if you prefer and/or don’t have an Amex account.
H/T: Reader Mauro
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[…] follow-up with Amex if you were somehow charged more than you should be. Given that they did offer the Aspire card with no annual fee briefly (long since expired) almost exactly a year ago and they did honor that offer without any push back, […]
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[…] in recent years off the top of my head. I was able to jump on the Hilton Aspire card offer when Amex temporarily waived the annual fee the first year, but I’d take this Chase Sapphire Reserve offer over that Aspire offer any day […]
Did anyone actually get their points deposited from this yet? I have not… strange delay…
[…] as we’d have access to the Executive Lounge now that I’m a newly minted Diamond member thanks to this deal. For it being an airport hotel, it was a decent stay and it was closer to downtown than many other […]
Just an FYI, statement got cut to December 6. So you can triple dip travel credits as well, assuming they don’t change it to card member year before next year.
By when would we have to use the airline fee credits for this year? By the November statement that gets published let’s say Dec 6th? What happens to airline fees between Dec 6th and Dec 31st? Are they applied for next year’s benefits?
Just have to make the charge by December 31st with Amex. Counts against your credits for the calendar year in which you make the charge with Amex, doesn’t matter when your statement cuts or if the credit posts after Jan 1.
Just got my card ups overnight, a little surprised, paperwork with card shows af 0 first year, 450 second year.. now to get to the spend requirement, which will be done in a week.
Since I missed the boat on this one, I’m wondering how I can be “targeted” for an upgrade on my Amex Hilton Surpass Card. I’m at the end of year 2 and my AF just posted a week ago. I have until 11/24 (30 days after) to cancel/downgrade and get a refund of that AF. I’d love to upgrade to the Aspire card, but don’t want to pay the $450 AF. When I login my AMEX account, I don’t see any offers for an upgrade with an AF waiver. Just an upgrade but it still shows the AF of $450. I’m thinking of downgrading to the regular Hilton Card (no AF), but then I’d also miss out on the 80k SUB with that card (I had it once, back in 2005 and closed it 2 ya when I opened my Surpass card).
If I can’t get any targeted upgrades to the Aspire card with no AF, can I just downgrade my Surpass card to the No fee version AND open up a no fee AMEX (on the same day) to get the 80k SUB? I have about 7k in Hilton points on this last statement of my Surpass card, so don’t want to just close it completely or I’ll lose those points (to my understanding). If I downgrade, I believe I won’t lose those points.
Unless you use a NLL application, there’s a good chance Amex will reject you for the SUB on the $0 AF Hilton card due to lifetime rules, since it’s only been 2 years since you cancelled the card.
what’s an NLL application? When I login my AMex account, I do see the 80k SUB offered for the $0AF card. not sure if that just shows up for everyone or if that means I am eligible for the SUB. Not sure what happens if I apply through that. it’s not like I can get that and “downgrade”. So I presume it would be a brand new card, independent and unrelated to my current surpass Card
Just because you see the offer, doesn’t necessarily mean you are eligible for the SUB. NLL=no lifetime language.
By the way, you will not automatically lose your HH points if you do not hold a Hilton card. Typically HH points expire after 12 months of inactivity.
Re: NLL thanks for clarifying. re: losing my hilton points, I was referring to the points I would earn on this last months statement from my Surpass Card. I have about 6k points pending. I understand if I cancel my Surpass card, those points would be forfeited and not credited to my HIlton Honors account. (not the points I already have in my Hilton Honors account)
Re: Offers I see, how far will it let me go if I’m not eligible for the SUB? Will it go so far as approving me for the card and then later saying, “here’s your card, but sorry, you didn’t get the SUB b/c xyz reason”.. Or will it actually make it clear before I finalize my application that I’m not eligible? Don’t want to waste a CC application and approval if I don’t get the SUB
Amex will give you a popup to let you know if you’re ineligible for the bonus.
No Lifetime Language
Saw this too late unfortunately. Nor sure if this is useful, but I checked a couple times this morning and it appears that the Aspire card has been completely removed from the Amex website (the other 2 personal Hilton cards are still there). I assume card takedown was their quick solution to stopping this. Since this was such a good offer, it’s a long shot but probably worth giving the links another try after the Aspire is back online. A card takedown might also be the reason people with upgrade offers saw them disappear or not work properly or got the popup.
True, but there are other links still available to apply for the Aspire… i.e. the Hilton website. No AF waiver though 🙁
OK, but what’s the point if there is no AF waiver? If I wanted the Aspire with the fee, I’d just wait for Amex to bring it back online.
I’m just saying that the card wasn’t taken down completely
For those of us who are stuck in 2/90 and who applied anyways… application said rejected, but obviously we can recon once one of our cards falls off. Do you think we will be able to keep the waived AF T&Cs or would you think the “correct” T&Cs get applied?
People who got denied and had to recon due to 5CC rule are still showing the waived AF, if that’s any indication.
[…] a notice came in from Nick Reyes at Frequent Miler: Aspire w/ first-year fee waived! Next, Miles To Memories shared: Hilton Aspire Card, 150K Offer with Waived Annual Fee. If you […]
Alot of people throw out the term “deal of the year”…this may have been it. Crazy good deal for absolutely zero fee. Thanks for the heads up.
If this isn’t the credit card deal of the year, I don’t know what is. Agreed.
@Nick Reyes
I think your spot on – even with pop-up and no SUB ( but also no MSR) this is on par with Triple-dipping the FYF Amerprise Pt RIP
This deal also probably broadly available to most people (unless your 2/90 or @5 CC w/AmEx)
Only deal I can think that was better was
U.S. Bank Business Cash Rewards deal that ended 3.31.19 w/$200 cb with $1K spend x 10 AU – $2200 with $11k MSR.and it was a MC to boot.
But approvals are another story had to wait 3 days for UW -with EIN/SP didn’t apply the “business” in my name route for this one – as had a US bank biz acct already under EIN.
Personally I see plenty value to give up a 5/24 slot – will be 4/24 when this hits CR then I have one slot left till 10/2020.
Think that a refresh for Hilton cards is coming or a minor change like hit the Delta cards with benefit changes and possibly an AF hike across Hilton cards (would love to see Centurion access like Reserve -now that we are Pt free ATM till we upgrade a Biz card.
This deal was, at least, comparable with the USB cash rewards one. $500 in airline credits, $500 in resort credits, give or take $750 in HH points, and 1 or 2 FNCs with HH diamond to top it off? If you could maximize the HH points and FNCs, even better than the USB deal. I’d also argue that this one required less work, as finding 10 AUs to add could be problematic, I’d imagine.
Thanks for the heads up! I’m a Hyatt guy, but with a $0 AF for the first year, agree this is a no brainer. Even at lol/24 (I know it’s not specifically an AmEx thing) I was approved instantly.
Approved for the 150k points and the first year $450 fee waived. Thanks Nick!
Wife’s said preapproved, showed the no annual fee, but she got the message “Thank you for applyong, we’ll get back to you within 14 days”. Weird, because she always gets instantly approved. Anyone else getting that message? If so, are you waiting or calling?
People are calling.
And quite a few who have called have been approved based on anecdotal reports (though surely not everyone will be).
Ok. She called and they said pending. But she got approval email now. All good.
Same for me. Normally get approved, saw “pre-approved”, got the 14-days message. Going to wait.
Watch your email. She got hers within a couple hours.
Hah, I checked my email and right on cue… approval!