I love credit cards so much!

[Angrose]

I am at 5/24 already, so looking for non-Chase cards. Was considering the Hilton Honors no AF card but not sure if the bonus is high/normal/low for Hilton. If this is their usual offer, I will wait as we're already working on spend for DHs CSP

This is the highest offer I've seen for the Hilton no AF card. I got the card earlier this year when it was just a 50,000 bonus with only a $750 spend. It worked perfectly for us because we needed to stay a night at the Hilton next to Universal Hollywood. Just an FYI, Hilton award nights require a lot of points. We used the entire 50K points for only one night! I've been looking at their hotels in Hawaii and they are all 60K plus per night! You do earn points faster though since it's 5x on groceries, gas, restaurants and 3x on everything else.

 

[peel]

I am at 5/24 already, so looking for non-Chase cards. Was considering the Hilton Honors no AF card but not sure if the bonus is high/normal/low for Hilton. If this is their usual offer, I will wait as we're already working on spend for DHs CSP

The Hilton Surpass with the 100K bonus is an Amex card. It's the higher end version of the no fee card. You could get the Surpass for the extra 20K bonus points and the free night and then downgrade after a year.

 

[tink1970]

Right now the Hilton Honors AMEX has a signup bonus ok 80k points for 2k spend. Anyone familiar with Hilton cards? Is this a normal bonus, any chance it will go higher? Or lower? This one ends 5/31 but just got approved for CSP and would prefer not to try 2 at once.

Before I apply for a new card base on the sign up bonus I go to doctor of credit and there is a spreadsheet that lists current and historically high offers. Just checked and the no AF Hilton Amex 80,000 is considered to be the highest offered in their data bank.

Of course all the issuers do their own thing but this helps me if I'm struggling to make a decision!

 

[peel]

Fwiw we have 3 AA cards. We fly out of OHare (AA hub) & have not had issues with using rewards for domestic coach flights.

I'm near an AA hub so we mostly fly One World alliance. I haven't had any issues redeeming and getting availability.

Good to know, thanks. I've been reading more and more complaints about AA devaluations and dwindling award availability.

 

[Aanna]

This is the highest offer I've seen for the Hilton no AF card. I got the card earlier this year when it was just a 50,000 bonus with only a $750 spend. It worked perfectly for us because we needed to stay a night at the Hilton next to Universal Hollywood. Just an FYI, Hilton award nights require a lot of points. We used the entire 50K points for only one night! I've been looking at their hotels in Hawaii and they are all 60K plus per night! You do earn points faster though since it's 5x on groceries, gas, restaurants and 3x on everything else.

We got the Hilton offer a number of years ago, when 50k points would still get you two free nights at a reasonable hotel. For a while I got good value out of it, just putting spend from Costco on it and still having enough points for a night or two each year.

But over the past year I've been looking for ways to spend my last ~31k points with no luck. It wasn't even enough to out-right get us a night at a mediocre Hampton Inn with poor shuttle service to JFK. Devaluations have hit too hard, hotel nights cost so much, and I have yet to find a points and cash night that seemed cost effective. At this point, I feel like I'm just trying to get rid of what I have.

 

[Angrose]

Before I apply for a new card base on the sign up bonus I go to doctor of credit and there is a spreadsheet that lists current and historically high offers. Just checked and the no AF Hilton Amex 80,000 is considered to be the highest offered in their data bank.

Of course all the issuers do their own thing but this helps me if I'm struggling to make a decision!

This is always a good idea. I've found some really good deals posted on that site!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

This is the highest offer I've seen for the Hilton no AF card. I got the card earlier this year when it was just a 50,000 bonus with only a $750 spend. It worked perfectly for us because we needed to stay a night at the Hilton next to Universal Hollywood. Just an FYI, Hilton award nights require a lot of points. We used the entire 50K points for only one night! I've been looking at their hotels in Hawaii and they are all 60K plus per night! You do earn points faster though since it's 5x on groceries, gas, restaurants and 3x on everything else.

The hotels I'm looking at are 30-40k per night so 80k would likely be enough. Just need a couple nights for trip to Grand Canyon for the nights we won't be in the park itself. Thanks for the info.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Before I apply for a new card base on the sign up bonus I go to doctor of credit and there is a spreadsheet that lists current and historically high offers. Just checked and the no AF Hilton Amex 80,000 is considered to be the highest offered in their data bank.

Of course all the issuers do their own thing but this helps me if I'm struggling to make a decision!

Great resource! Thanks

 

[Aanna]

The hotels I'm looking at are 30-40k per night so 80k would likely be enough. Just need a couple nights for trip to Grand Canyon for the nights we won't be in the park itself. Thanks for the info.

This is perfect, then! Good good

 

[Lain]

But over the past year I've been looking for ways to spend my last ~31k points with no luck. It wasn't even enough to out-right get us a night at a mediocre Hampton Inn with poor shuttle service to JFK. Devaluations have hit too hard, hotel nights cost so much, and I have yet to find a points and cash night that seemed cost effective. At this point, I feel like I'm just trying to get rid of what I have.

Didn't Hilton just revamp their Honors program so there's a pay with points option?

 

[Aanna]

Didn't Hilton just revamp their Honors program so there's a pay with points option?

I haven't paid much attention over the past couple months. so maybe they have something better now, but when I was trying to book that Hampton Inn in January, I think that option was available. It just didn't seem worth it to use over 30k points, pay another $80 on top of that, *and pay $22 parking, etc.

Normally, I'd have good facts/figures before I post here. I'm too tired today LOL, so this is just a "this used to be better and I don't like it now!" whiny rant.

 

[ejcraft]

so can someone answer this, are the southwest cards counted in the 5/24? And anyone that has the business cards, I know you can use your SS, but I actually have a tax ID number for my small craft business, which one do I use and if I use the tax id how do I know the points will come to me, just by putting my RR # on the application? And third ? anyone want to guess on what the chance is if I apply for the Ink now, will I be able to get the SW business in say Oct? , yes I know everyone is different, just trying to decide if I should just wait til Oct since I know I want both of the SW so I can get the companion pass. And finally anyone want to chime in with there favorite hotel card, I don't have a favorite hotel, but we are coming to a point where we are going to start traveling to see our grandchildren( both belong to military families, 1 currently in Guam and another in San Diego.) I currently only sit at 1/24 since I just got back into this, so want to take advantage and start stocking up points, thanks

 

[elgerber]

Didn't Hilton just revamp their Honors program so there's a pay with points option?

Yes, the cash and points option has changed, you can drag a slider to use the amount of points you want, and it will show the amount of cash it will cost. So you can change it around, it's not a flat # of points and $$. You can also transfer points to someone else for free, so you can combine points if that would help.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

so can someone answer this, are the southwest cards counted in the 5/24? And anyone that has the business cards, I know you can use your SS, but I actually have a tax ID number for my small craft business, which one do I use and if I use the tax id how do I know the points will come to me, just by putting my RR # on the application? And third ? anyone want to guess on what the chance is if I apply for the Ink now, will I be able to get the SW business in say Oct? , yes I know everyone is different, just trying to decide if I should just wait til Oct since I know I want both of the SW so I can get the companion pass. And finally anyone want to chime in with there favorite hotel card, I don't have a favorite hotel, but we are coming to a point where we are going to start traveling to see our grandchildren( both belong to military families, 1 currently in Guam and another in San Diego.) I currently only sit at 1/24 since I just got back into this, so want to take advantage and start stocking up points, thanks

I can help a bit. SW cards do count toward 5/24, at least the personal ones. Your RR points go to the RR account you put on the app.

As for fave hotel card, mine is AMEX SPG because you can get a hotel at WDW for 10k points per night and you can transfer points to airlines as well.

 

[hsmamato2]

does the hilton honors offer count for 5/24? b/c I'm over also....

 

[eeyoresmom]

Can someone help with earning a SW companion pass? Do the sign up bonuses count towards the 110k needed to earn the pass? I'm thinking of having DH open the premier business card to earn 60,000 pts and a personal card to earn 40,000 pts. That would leave us just 6,000 pts needed since the minimum spend would be $4,000. That's the easy advice needed. I'm also wondering if these are the next cards we should be shooting for. I KNOW the usual advice is INK, CSR and CSP then CF maybe....DH got the INK business and CSR in April, I got the CSP. We are working on MS for the CSP right now(ink and CSP MS completed), and should be done by end of June which is why I'm considering our next steps. Why I'm considering the SW cards for CP: We live in New England and fly out of Hartford, Boston, Manchester and Providence and ALWAYS fly SW domestically and often to the Caribbean. Our tentative travel plans for 2018 and 2019 are Orlando x3, Hawaii, California, Grand Canyon and Europe in 2018. We will use the UR points earned from opening the INK, CSP and CSR for our international flights. For Hawaii and both Orlando trips we will use DVC points for hotels. We will likely use Air B&B for Europe. With this plan, hotels are not a major travel expense for us, but flights are, hence my thinking that the SW cards may be a better bet for us. We may use points for hotel stays in California and Grand canyon but have already earned more than 180,000 UR points with the 3 cards just opened. If DH gets the 2 SW cards, I can still get the other Chase cards that are recommended before the SW ones. If you can follow this you are a genius and I would appreciate any input in to our specific situation.

 

[elgerber]

does the hilton honors offer count for 5/24? b/c I'm over also....

the Hilton cards are not Chase cards.

 

[amalone1013]

Can someone help with earning a SW companion pass? Do the sign up bonuses count towards the 110k needed to earn the pass? I'm thinking of having DH open the premier business card to earn 60,000 pts and a personal card to earn 40,000 pts. That would leave us just 6,000 pts needed since the minimum spend would be $4,000. That's the easy advice needed. I'm also wondering if these are the next cards we should be shooting for. I KNOW the usual advice is INK, CSR and CSP then CF maybe....DH got the INK business and CSR in April, I got the CSP. We are working on MS for the CSP right now(ink and CSP MS completed), and should be done by end of June which is why I'm considering our next steps. Why I'm considering the SW cards for CP: We live in New England and fly out of Hartford, Boston, Manchester and Providence and ALWAYS fly SW domestically and often to the Caribbean. Our tentative travel plans for 2018 and 2019 are Orlando x3, Hawaii, California, Grand Canyon and Europe in 2018. We will use the UR points earned from opening the INK, CSP and CSR for our international flights. For Hawaii and both Orlando trips we will use DVC points for hotels. We will likely use Air B&B for Europe. With this plan, hotels are not a major travel expense for us, but flights are, hence my thinking that the SW cards may be a better bet for us. We may use points for hotel stays in California and Grand canyon but have already earned more than 180,000 UR points with the 3 cards just opened. If DH gets the 2 SW cards, I can still get the other Chase cards that are recommended before the SW ones. If you can follow this you are a genius and I would appreciate any input in to our specific situation.

I'm getting the CP currently. I got the business card and then am going to get a personal card. The sign up bonus points do count towards the CP. I'm going to try the 1800 flowers deal for my last 6000 points, you can get 1000 RR points per order and they should count towards the pass. We always end up on SW too, and knew for sure that we've got Orlando twice and a California trip coming up so it seemed like the best deal for us. Others on here know more about getting flights to Hawaii, and more advice about choosing your next cards

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Can someone help with earning a SW companion pass? Do the sign up bonuses count towards the 110k needed to earn the pass? I'm thinking of having DH open the premier business card to earn 60,000 pts and a personal card to earn 40,000 pts. That would leave us just 6,000 pts needed since the minimum spend would be $4,000. That's the easy advice needed. I'm also wondering if these are the next cards we should be shooting for. I KNOW the usual advice is INK, CSR and CSP then CF maybe....DH got the INK business and CSR in April, I got the CSP. We are working on MS for the CSP right now(ink and CSP MS completed), and should be done by end of June which is why I'm considering our next steps. Why I'm considering the SW cards for CP: We live in New England and fly out of Hartford, Boston, Manchester and Providence and ALWAYS fly SW domestically and often to the Caribbean. Our tentative travel plans for 2018 and 2019 are Orlando x3, Hawaii, California, Grand Canyon and Europe in 2018. We will use the UR points earned from opening the INK, CSP and CSR for our international flights. For Hawaii and both Orlando trips we will use DVC points for hotels. We will likely use Air B&B for Europe. With this plan, hotels are not a major travel expense for us, but flights are, hence my thinking that the SW cards may be a better bet for us. We may use points for hotel stays in California and Grand canyon but have already earned more than 180,000 UR points with the 3 cards just opened. If DH gets the 2 SW cards, I can still get the other Chase cards that are recommended before the SW ones. If you can follow this you are a genius and I would appreciate any input in to our specific situation.

We are planning WDW in 3/2018 & Grand Canyon 6/2018.

What hotels are you planning for Grand Canyon? Just curious. SW won't get us to Flagstaff. So we're planning AA for flights.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

the Hilton cards are not Chase cards.

Just to add on, they have Hilton cards with AMEX & Citibank.