The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass (formerly known as the Ascend and Surpass) is back with a new and very impressive offer. It’s one of the best Hilton Surpass offers we’ve ever seen so it’s definitely worth checking out. Here’s everything you need to know about the new offer!
Offer no longer available.
Table of Contents
The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass
- 130,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points and a free weekend night reward after you spend $4,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 4 months of Card membership.
- 12X at hotels or resorts within the Hilton Portfolio
- 6X at U.S. restaurants, at U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations
- 3X on all other eligible purchases
- Complimentary Hilton Honors Gold
- Free Weekend Night Reward from Hilton Honors after you spend $15,000 in purchases on your Card in a calendar year.
- No foreign transaction fees
- $95 annual fee
Note: While I love this new Hilton offer, if you are under 5/24, you probably don’t want to burn a slot for this card and you should consider Chase cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, World of Hyatt Card, Southwest Airlines Performance Business Credit Card, etc. — you know the drill.
Sign-up bonus
- 130,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points and a free weekend night reward after you spend $4,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 4 months of Card membership.
This is an amazing welcome bonus. 130K Honors points is a huge welcome bonus for this card (the best public offer ever I believe) and it’s nice you can get up to four months to meet the spending requirement. Top-tier Hilton properties go for 95K but you can find quality properties in the 60K range so this could cover two nights at a pretty solid Hilton property.
But what’s really exciting is that you also get a free weekend night which you can use at top properties like the Conrad Maldives. The free night could easily be worth $400+ or if you’re really strategic, you could get $1,000+ in value!
If you used a free night and your points to stay at one of the most expensive Conrads or Waldorfs, you could potentially walk away with up to $2,000+ worth of value from this offer. Also, if you’re playing this in two-player mode, you could double that.
Bonus categories
- 12X for for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with a hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio
- 6X for or each dollar of eligible purchases on your Card at U.S. restaurants, at U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations
- 3X on all other eligible purchases
12X on Hilton properties is pretty good. If you value Hilton points at .5 cent per point then that’s like 6% back on Hilton purchases which is competitive with top-earning cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
6X on U.S. restaurants, at U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations would come out to 3% back which is still okay but I’d rather earn 3X Ultimate Rewards or 4X Membership Rewards on many of those purchases. Still, if you want to maximize points on Hilton purchases worldwide, the Surpass is a great option.
Elite status
- Complimentary Hilton Honors Gold
- Spend $40,000 on eligible purchases on your Card in a calendar year and you can earn Hilton Honors Diamond status
You’ve probably heard me say it 100X, but I think Hilton Gold is an amazing mid-tier status considering you can get the status automatically with the American Express Surpass. Hilton Gold will hook you up with a lot of benefits like:
- Complimentary breakfast for two
- Upgrades (subject to availability)
- Late check-out
- 80% bonus on base points
- Lounge access when upgraded to lounge level rooms
- 5th night free
Don’t forget that you can also get automatic Gold status with the Amex Platinum.
I’m not crazy about spending $40K to earn Diamond when you can simply pick it up with the Hilton Aspire card.
Free weekend night
- Free Weekend Night Reward from Hilton Honors when you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases on your Card in a calendar year
Hitting $15K worth of spend in a calendar year isn’t that difficult so this free night is very obtainable in my opinion.
Final word
This is a very high offer and one of the best we’ve seen for the Surpass. I think it’s definitely worth hopping on for a lot of people over 5/24. You might also be interested in the new Hilton business card offer as well (which you can check out here).
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
Thanks. Hadn’t heard about this before, and it does look like a very good offer.
I don’t think you mentioned what, if any, the transfer possibilities are for Hilton points. Can they be transferred to airlines? If so, which ones? What is the point conversion factor when transferring?
You can transfer them out to different airlines but the ratios are pretty bad. Something like 10,000 Hilton points to 1,000 or 1,500 airline miles. I would stray away from it but you can check it out here: https://www.hilton.com/en/hilton-honors/guest/exchange-points/