American Express sent out some targeted emails this week to holders of Hilton credit cards offering 5x bonus points when spending up to $1,000 by December 4, 2019. We’ve seen this offer on both Surpass and Aspire cards, so it might well be available on the no-fee Hilton card too.
The Deal
- Earn 5x bonus Hilton Honors points when spending up to $1,000 on Hilton Amex cards.
- Direct link to registration (offer is targeted).
Key Terms
- Enrollment for this offer is required. Enroll and earn 5 additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points per dollar on the first $1000 of eligible purchases made with your Hilton Honors American Express Card through December 4, 2019.
- Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits.
- Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents.
- Eligible purchases can be made by the Basic Card Member and any Additional Card Members on a single Card Account.
- To receive the Hilton Honors Bonus Points, your Card Account must not be cancelled or past due at the time of fulfillment.
- Offer ends December 4, 2019.
- American Express reserves the right to modify or revoke the offer at any time.
- The Hilton Honors Points you may earn as part of this offer are in addition to any other Bonus Points you may get from using your Card.
- Additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points will be credited to your Hilton Honors account within 2–4 weeks after the end of the offer.
Quick Thoughts
I received this offer on one of my Hilton Surpass cards which ordinarily earns 6x at grocery stores. If you’re targeted for that offer, it means you’ll earn a total of 11x Hilton Honors points on the first $1,000 you spend at grocery stores by December 4. If you were to buy two $500 Visa gift cards with $5.95 activation fees, you’d earn a total of 11,071 points. Your net cost would be $11.90 for the two activation fees, so you’d effectively be buying Hilton points for less than 0.11cpp which is great value.
The terms of the offer specifically exclude the following:
…purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents.
I’d hope that the Amex RAT wouldn’t claw back bonus points earned for gift card purchases, but there’s no guarantee, especially given what they’ve been doing when stacking Dell Amex Offers and the Business Platinum credit, so bear in mind that you might not end up earning 11x on gift cards at grocery stores.
Reader Denise also gave us the heads up that this offer is available on some Aspire cards, which means it might also be available no annual fee Hilton cards too. If you have it on an Aspire card, that offers a couple of potentially good uses. For starters, it means you’ll earn 19x for the first $1,000 spent on Hilton stays. With the offer ending on December 4, that doesn’t give you much time to take advantage of the offer. Unlike Hilton Amex Offers though, this will work on Advance Purchase rates provided payment is taken before the offer ends. Their current quarterly promotion is offering cardholders triple points, so Aspire cardholders with this bonus offer would be earning 59x which is excellent.
Alternatively, Aspire cardholders earn 7x at restaurants (among others) as standard. I’d normally prefer to use my wife’s Chase Sapphire Reserve or my Amex Gold for dining purchases, but earning 12x would be tempting if you’re one of the newly minted Aspire cardholders thanks to the recent first year fee waived offer and are targeted for this 5x bonus offer.
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Here’s a data point–got the e-mail for my Surpass card, but when I went to log in, it showed up on my Aspire card. Was able to register for both. Then did a chat with AMEX which confirmed I was indeed registered for this promotion on both cards.