Hilton Aspire Review
The Aspire is one of the finest perk cards on the market, and might even be a no-net fee card depending on your spending habits. Although the sticker price may be off-putting, if you can afford it, the Aspire offers perhaps the highest upside of any co-branded credit card.
The star of the show is the Aspire’s free night certificate, which can be used at most of Hilton’s portfolio, including plenty of properties where the cost of a night’s stay (far) exceeds the card’s $550 annual fee. The card also offers two $200 resort credits toward Hilton resort stays—one every six months—and with many resorts charging close to or under $200 (I booked a resort for a Saturday in Lake Tahoe during ski season for $250), it’s quite possible to get good value from this credit. If that’s not enough, the card has four $50 credits toward airfare—one every three months. That’s enough to largely offset the taxes and fees on an award ticket. And given Aspire’s 7x on flights and flight protections, it makes perfect sense to use the card to book flights and take advantage of those credits.
Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, the card offers great benefits with Hilton. It comes with Diamond status, which offers space-available room upgrades up to the suite level, free water bottles, and daily food, among other things. Although Hilton points aren’t the best, the card earns so many of them that the earning rates on base purchases, dining, flights, and car rentals are not that far off the top of the market, making this one of the few co-branded credit cards that can be used for everyday spending without a major loss of rewards value. And the card’s massive earning rates on Hilton stays equates to a huge discount when booking directly: a $200 room rate will only cost about $156 when factoring in the rewards that come from Hilton Honors membership, the Diamond status bonus, and the Aspire’s earning rate on Hilton purchases.
The Aspire doesn’t rate as an elite card for me because of its tendency to push holders toward luxury spending (it is a premium card, after all). But if you can avoid the pull to overspend and draw close to even on the annual fee, the outstanding perks can play an important role in your points and miles strategy.
Quick ratings
🥇 Great card
💸 Earner
🦥 Lazy
🤓 Points nerd
⬆️ Upgraded travel
🛡️ Travel protections
🔒 Shopping protections
Bonus
Typical: 150k
Max: 175k
This card is offered at 165k+ points often enough that I wouldn’t considering signing up for less than that, and would probably hold out for 175k. Beware of Amex bonus rules—getting this card may make you ineligible for bonuses on the two lesser Hilton cards, the Honors and the Surpass. Bonuses on those run as high as 100k or 70k + a free night on the Honors and 165k or 130k + a free night on the Surpass (the free night generally being the better deal in both cases), so you’ll generally earn more by starting with a smaller card and taking upgrade offers over time.
Net fee
Annual fee:
$550
Credits and offsets:
Annual free night award (second after spending $30k)
$50 flight credit per quarter
$200 Hlton resort credit every 6 months
$199 Clear Plus credit each year
$100 on-property credit at Waldorf Astoria and Conrad each year (special booking requirements apply)
Typical net annual fee:
$50 (after using two of the $50 flight credits, one of the resort credits, and valuing the free night at $200).
The flight credit counts toward airfare, and the card has excellent flight protections and earns 7x per dollar on flights, so that credit should be fairly easy to redeem, although not everyone will be paying cash for airfare every three months. There are quite a few resorts eligible for the resort credit, including many with nightly rates close to or under $200 (including ski resorts), making it reasonably viable to use that credit at least once per year. With the free night redeemable for rooms costing over $1,000 per night, that benefit alone could offset the fee, at least for those who might otherwise pay hundreds in cash for a premium Hilton room. However, for people like me who never pay more than $150-200 for a hotel room, $200 is probably a fairer number to use when calculating the net fee. Although Clear is nice, most people won’t pay $200 for it, and only ultra-high-spending hotel consumers will be able to use the on-property credit at the luxe Waldorf-Astoria or Conrad, which requires paying cash and booking via a special website or mentioning a special code when booking by phone.
Note that nonrefundable rates don’t qualify for the resort credit, so you can’t stack the resort credits by mixing advance and pay-at-checkout bookings.
Earning and Points
14x/34x on Hilton stays booked directly (14x on the card; members earn 10x on almost all stays, and Diamond members earn 100% bonus points)
7x at U.S. restaurants, on flights booked directly with airlines or amextravel.com; and on car rentals booked directly from select car rental companies
3x on all other purchases
Points rating: ⭐ (1/5)
Hilton points are one of the least valuable currencies out there—NerdWallet values Hilton points at about 0.6¢ each, as does AwardWallet, and I agree. Even lower-end hotels in the US seem to run tens of thousands of points per night. And devaluations are always a risk in a single non-transferable point currency. But Hilton points also accumulate quickly, and luxury hotels, especially abroad, tend to be available at borderline-tolerable rates. Additionally, you can get slightly more value for your Hilton points by booking 5+ night stays, as every 5th night is free for members booking with points.
The Hilton Aspire is easily the best way to pay for Hilton hotel stays. At about 4.2¢ per dollar, the rewards rate on restaurants, flights, and rental cars is solid. In fact, because the true value of most redemptions tops out at around 1.5¢/pt, the Aspire is competitive with even top-of-the market cards like the Amex Gold (4x on dining), Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x on dining and travel), and Bilt Mastercard (3x on dining). Even the base earning rate of 3x is competitive with those other cards’ 1x, or even the Capital One Venture X’s double points. However, those cards offer far more flexibility in their transferable rewards, meaning more opportunities for greater value, and less risk in having your points tied up in a single program.
Perks
Diamond status: Space-available room upgrades (up to a 1-bedroom suite), 100% bonus points on stays, free bottled water, daily food and beverage credit or continental breakfast, executive lounge access, premium wifi, 48-hour room guarantee, and spa discount.
Free night award: Unlike other cards whose free night is subject to a points or category cap, Hilton’s free night can be used at almost any property worldwide, with very few exclusions, meaning it can be redeemed for nights in hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria Park City, where rooms can cost over $1,000 per night during ski season
Rental car status: The Aspire comes with complimentary National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive status.
Concierge service: The Aspire concierge can help with things like restaurant reservations and travel tips.
Protections
✅ No foreign transaction fees
✅ Trip Delay Insurance (6+ hour or overnight delay, up to $500)
✅ Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance
✅ Baggage Insurance
🚫 Baggage Delay Insurance
✅ Rental Car Insurance
✅ Purchase Protection
✅ Return Protection
✅ Extended Warranty
✅ Cell Phone Insurance
🚫 Travel Accident Insurance
The Hilton Aspire’s protections rate as among the best available on any card, offering high-quality trip delay insurance and most major protections. However, some of Amex’s protections are a little more restrictive. For instance, you must charge an entire round-trip to your card (minus points on the card or discounts from a frequent flyer or similar program) to trigger the trip delay insurance, whereas the Capital One Venture X, for example, requires only that a portion of a trip (not necessarily round-trip) be paid with that card.
Hacks
Use two-player mode: The Aspire’s biggest asset is the free night, which can unlock stays at otherwise-unattainable luxury hotels. But one night in these places may not always be all that useful. For example, a ski-in-ski-out hotel won’t be nearly as nice if you don’t even have a full day at the resort. And a single night won’t get you a full weekend stay anywhere. If you have a partner, however, and you both have an Aspire, you can book two nights back-to-back, then call the hotel to link the reservations, ending up with a two night stay.
But you don’t necessarily need a partner. Some people open multiple Aspire cards (paying multiple fees), just to take advantage of multiple nights at these premium properties.
The Waldorf-Astoria, Park City, UT
Buy TravelBank cash: Although it is always subject to change, purchases of United TravelBank cash often trigger the flight credit, allowing you to add $50 at a time and build towards a free flight. (If you also have the IHG Premier, you can get an additional $25 every 6 months, although it won’t accumulate like a purchase with the Aspire would). TravelBank cash expires after 5 years, leaving plenty of time to use it.
Use the flight credit for redemptions: If you frequently book award flights, using the Aspire towards the taxes and fees can cut down on those cash expenses and provide important travel protections. I usually book Delta Skymiles trips to Europe and Alaska Mileage Plan trips to Asia, with taxes and fees ranging from $60-95. Using the Aspire would cut the out-of-pocket costs of those trips by half or more, while providing trip delay, trip cancellation, and lost luggage protection (assuming the flights are round-trip).
Laziness rating
🦥🦥🦥 (3/5)
The Aspire can be pretty simple to use, as you could easily use it only for Hilton purchases and to get a free night at a splurgy hotel each year, and that could just about justify the annual fee. Although it wouldn’t be my card of choice for dining or base spending, using it for those purposes is certainly a defensible choice (especially if you reach the $30k in spending that will net you a second free night). But to get full value from the Aspire, you’ll have to keep track of its quarterly flight credits and try to find ways to get real value from the resort credits, which may be easier said than done.
Alternatives
For a different premium hotel card, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant may be better for more frequent and loyal travelers. Its earning rates are inferior to the Aspire, its annual free night is less valuable, and its face and net annual fee will be steeper for most people. But while Marriott Platinum status is comparable to Hilton Diamond, you can use the Brilliant to get a head start on Marriott’s Titanium and Ambassador status if you plan to earn 50+ elite night credits with Marriott in a given year. Those statuses can elevate you above the credit-card status crowd, and come with increased perks like United Airlines elite status.
For a card with tons of perks and hotel benefits but a net-zero fee and only $99 in out-of-pocket costs, the IHG Premier (our #3 card on the market) may be a more wallet-friendly alternative.
Card Pairings
With the Aspire providing hotel benefits, you could add in the Chase Sapphire Reserve for great earning rates, acquiring Ultimate Reward points that can be redeemed for great value on flights, and getting lounge access when flying. If the CSR’s substantial net fee is off-putting, consider the Venture X for double points on base purchases, lounge access, and flight redemption options all for a net-negative annual fee.
If you want to earn even more Hilton points, consider the Amex Gold, which actually earns more Hilton points than the Aspire in some situations. The Aspire earns 7x at U.S. restaurants, but the Gold earns 4x at restaurants worldwide, plus grocery stores. Because Amex points transfer to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio, that means 8x Hilton points per dollar—more, if you wait to transfer points when there’s a transfer bonus.
Conclusion
If you can stomach the $550 annual fee, the Aspire can more than pay its way with massive discounts and perks when staying at Hilton properties, a free night each year at a hotel that might otherwise run you hundreds of dollars, and hundreds of dollars in statement credits toward resort stays and airfare. The Aspire is also somewhat unique among co-branded cards for being semi-viable as an everyday spending card. Even if you don’t quite break even on the annual fee, the card still might be a worthwhile investment for the access it can provide to premium experiences like ultra-luxe hotels and occasional room upgrades. Just be careful not to overspend, as premium hotels and resorts often come with lots of ancillary fees, and other hotel brands might offer better deals if you shop around.