I think the changes are great. As someone who travels often for work and stays at Hiltons. The flight credit is great for me as I have status with my airline and never have incidentals. These changes are designed for frequent travelers and frequent Hilton guests. If you only travel once or twice a year this isn’t the card for you. Hilton and Amex made these changes to be better for their target audience and worse for those that travels infrequently and want to put the card in the sock drawer.
Great video as always! I must say, I think it’s bc of awesome credit card RU-vidrs like you that banks have had to make changes to account for a much larger pool of CC users. These quarterly and semiannual credits seem to be designed for people that stay at Hilton Hotels often. I’ve stayed at Hilton hotels 5 different times this year for work and vacation and could have made use of all of those credits. These spaced out credits may be a good thing for us bc it makes us reevaluate whether or not these cards are worth it. I prefer bank reward cards so I have options for transfer partners but now I think I want to get the Aspire card. I’ve seen comments that Diamond doesn’t seem much better than Gold. I’ll go one further, Gold status in Europe gets you into all of the Executive Lounges not just Diamond. That’s free breakfast plus free food all day until like 9-10pm. The biggest value for this card is the free night with no category, point or price limit. It would be very easy to stay a night at a hotel that is worth more than the annual fee.
Thank you for the video. The $400 credithat you have break up twice a year. My wife and I find it very easy to use since we travel a lot. As far as the 200 for airline $50 each quarter, it's not difficult to use. I fly Southwest. And I just buy $49 ticket when they come on sale. With the Hilton card and then I just cancel the flight. And received the $50 credit that way.
Nice to see you Mark! I agree with you on these Amex credits that are doled out quarterly/ semi-annually. I’d rather have one amount that can be used anything during the year. Keep it simple.
At least in my case it became even better! I rather get an extra $150 resort credit and the $189 Clear than another Priority Pass card collecting dust. Diamond 💎 benefits and free night can cover the annual fee. The credits are just icing on the cake. Still the 👑of hotel cards. Great overview Mark!🫵
Honestly I was on the fence about it previously and I’m definitely not with it now. I’ve kind of taken a stance against Amex with their dumb credits requiring mental gymnastics to draw value from all of their cards.
@@markplymale it’s all about that trend though. They’ve nerfed a lot of their cards, but the bigger question is the motivation. Is it because they’re tightening the belt or to increase profits? No one else seems to be doing it at the pace that they are.
Idk, I have had Diamond status for a long time and I don't see much value at all in Diamond over Gold. Food credit is the big benefit to me. And you can get that with Gold. I guess I stay in too many Hampton type properties to get any good upgrades. But even when I stay in a place like a Waldorf, I don't get any upgrades. Probably will still keep my Aspire, but not overly excited about it any longer. If Diamond was actually worth something, I might be.
Long time no see, how have you been buddy, I have the surpass and I will prob be keeping it due to gold status, free room upgrades and the breakfast are very pricy and I get 2 for free.
Dang, low key someone's got an opinion of Ben Hedges last video, huh? No drama (I don't think there's bad faith), but y'all see it, right? Would be interesting to see a conversation between y'all on that card but I'm not sure of a way to pitch that.
I have a question, I have them American Express Aspire card just paid for the membership but I also got an offer in the app. Does that count against the once in a lifetime rule for the card?
Yes, just saw it in the app. Just pay my annual membership fee back in September. I don’t think I will take the offer. But I was just curious with that card against my once in a lifetime rule with Amex.
Cards make sense still, but only for people that already had them because they will look for ways to justify it now somehow. If you wanted to pick up this card for the first time, i don't think it would be worth it.
