Earlier this year, both my husband and I signed up for the Hilton Aspire credit card. This was a weird one for us because the card comes with a $450 annual fee.
Normally, I wouldn’t sign up for a hotel credit card with a $450 annual fee (let alone two), but the Hilton Aspire card’s benefits really won me over. While there are many perks for cardholders, the main benefits of this card are:
- 100K bonus
- $250 annual resort credit
- $250 airline credit
- Hilton Diamond status
- A free weekend night each year you have the card, including the first year
Related: Earn up to 125,000 Points with Increased Hilton Offers from American Express
How I’m Maximizing My Card Benefits This Year
You also get a Priority Pass Select membership, no foreign transaction fees, car rental loss insurance, travel accident insurance, and some other perks. So, obviously, there is a lot to take advantage of with this card despite its annual fee. Here are some of the ways we’re maximizing the perks this year:
I redeemed my air travel credit for gift cards with American Airlines.
You’re not supposed to be able to use your air travel credit for gift cards because it’s supposed to be for “incidental fees” only. But, it works when you buy gift cards directly from some airlines in small denominations. I did two $100 gift cards and a $50 gift card with American and it worked fine. This means we got $500 in gift cards total, which makes up $500 of our $900 in annual fees.
We have a ton of flights to pay for coming up, so these gift cards will come in handy. I think I will probably use them for one-way of our flights to Miami for our winter cruise since award availability is poor around the holidays.
We’re using our resort credits at two different properties.
This fall we’re taking a trip to Phoenix, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon. I booked a few paid nights at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort and the Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock. The resort credits will be used to offset our nightly rate and pay for any food or drinks we charge to our rooms.
Fortunately, we’ll get free breakfast at both properties thanks to our Hilton Diamond status.
We used our free nights at the same Arizona resorts.
Since we both got a weekend night to use our first year, we also redeemed a free night at both Arizona hotels mentioned above. We used my free night for a Sunday night at the Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock when nightly rates are $289. We used my husband’s free night at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort when the nightly rate is $200. That’s another $489 in value.
We have other stays this year.
In addition to these stays, we are also staying at the Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik later this year. I paid for our stay in cash because the nightly room rate was only $650 USD for five nights. Still, we will benefit from a room upgrade (hopefully) and access to the club lounge where we can get breakfast plus snacks and drinks throughout the day.
We earned a ton of points.
In addition to the value we’ve gotten from the card perks, we also earned 100,000 Hilton Honors points each. When you add in points from regular spending and the Hilton Honors points we had already, we are now at around 500,000 Hilton Honors points. I’m not sure how we’ll use them, but I am excited to plan something with them next year.
Did you get this card? If so, how have you used your benefits so far?
No comments:
Post a Comment