 | Flytrippers cofounder |
We’re very excited to announce this great news today, one of the best of the year for Canadian travelers: the launch of the brand-new Hilton Honors American Express Card! And the special introductory welcome bonus can be worth $4000+ in free luxury hotels!!! That’s pretty crazy!
Flytrippers was invited to a special event in Toronto earlier this month to discover the card and chat with Hilton and Amex executives (I’ll share the behind-the-scenes in a separate post soon).
As points enthusiasts ourselves, we couldn’t wait for this embargo to be lifted! Flytrippers helps you travel for less with its free newsletter specifically about travel rewards, its ranking of the best current offers, and its infographic that summarizes all the basics.
Here are the details of the launch of the new Hilton Honors American Express Card.
Should I apply for this new card?
Yes, absolutely all savvy Canadian travelers should get the new Hilton Honors Amex Card. It’s extremely easy for us to recommend it, thanks to its excellent special launch welcome bonus!!!
It’s a must-have card that we’ll obviously apply for ourselves too.
It’s a must-have card even more so for travelers who like getting free luxury hotels, but also for everyone else.
The welcome bonus is worth ≈ $810 in free hotels very conservatively. It gives you ≈ $960 in rewards for a $150 fee.
(It’s so sad that people miss out on getting a net value of ≈ $810 in free travel… to “save” the $150 fee. Don’t forget that knowing how to do the math is one of the 6 most important things in the wonderful world of travel rewards!)
But the bonus can even be worth 5 times more ($4000+) very easily if you follow our maximization tips!
Let’s take a look.
How do I maximize the welcome bonus?
Hilton Honors points are rewards of the more lucrative type, which means their value is variable and literally unlimited. The hotels’ price in points isn’t tied to their price in cash.
But what’s rare with the new Hilton Honors Amex Card is that you don’t even need to maximize the points to maximize this welcome bonus!
That’s because the welcome bonus includes lots of points AND an uncapped free night certificate!!! It can be used at any of the 9000+ Hilton hotels around the world (for standard rooms only, as always).
That means at the most luxurious hotels, like the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi which costs 3157 USD per night! That costs 235,000 points, so your certificate is worth 235,000 points there! It’s honestly phenomenal!
One Hilton Honors Amex Card for you and one for your travel companion, and that gets you a 3-day, 2-night stay worth 6314 USD! Not even counting all the points from the bonus: that’s just the certificate!!!
It’s literally the best free night certificate that exists in hotel rewards programs.
If you’d rather not travel as far, there’s the Waldorf Astoria Costa Rica Punta Cacique worth 1165 USD per night! “Just” that with a single bonus is pretty crazy. And like virtually all hotels, this one is really free free (no very special Maldives tax).
I myself got an amazing 800 USD night this summer thanks to my Hilton certificate (earned from my US-issued credit cards; more on that in the second-to-last section). “Just” 800 USD isn’t fully maximized this time, but my girlfriend wanted this hotel and that’s priceless, isn’t it? 😉
In short, the possibilities are endless.
At the very least, the certificate is worth a few hundred dollars in any destination if you want to keep it simple… but Flytrippers will help you maximize it!
So we can only strongly recommend the excellent Hilton Honors Amex Card deal!
How do I unlock the welcome bonus?
If you want to maximize your rewards, you simply need to always focus on huge welcome bonuses. It really is that easy! It’s THE most important thing.
The Hilton Honors Amex Card‘s main welcome bonus is extremely easy to unlock.
It includes 2 parts:
- 60,000 Hilton Honors points (≈ $300)
- Uncapped free night certificate (≈ $600)
(I’m using the conservative Flytrippers Valuation of points and certificates to show the value that’s very easy to get!)
You get the bonus by simply spending $3,000 in 3 months, which is extremely easy. Especially with our tips for minimum spending requirements.
So you’ll easily earn 12,000 more Hilton points (≈ $60) if you do that spending at grocery stores, restaurants, or gas stations. Those are the purchase categories with the 4 pts/$ multiplier earn rate ($3,000 multiplied by 4 pts/$).
The value of the rewards earned is therefore ≈ $960 (≈ $300 plus ≈ $600 plus ≈ $60).
The value of the welcome bonus is therefore ≈ $810, since the card’s fee is $150 (≈ $960 minus $150).
That gives you an exceptional 27.0% return rate on your spending (≈ $810 on $3,000). Imagine if you redeem the points and certificate even better!
Earning 27.0% is much better than settling for a pathetic 1% or 2% back like so many people do, right?
That’s why welcome bonuses are the key! It’s 27 times faster, for the exact same amount of spending!
Finally, the launch welcome bonus of the Hilton Honors Amex Card also includes another separate bonus of 10,000 Hilton points (≈ $50) if you renew the card and spend $500 in the 13th month, but we didn’t include it in our Flytrippers Valuation.
The special launch welcome bonus offer is available only until January 11, 2027.
What are the card’s other benefits?
The amazing welcome bonus alone is a good reason to get the Hilton Honors Amex Card, but there’s one card benefit that can be very interesting for many travelers.
The card gives you automatic Hilton Honors Gold elite status.
Hotel elite status is one of the best tips to upgrade your travels. I’ve had this exact status for several years and it’s made my Hilton stays much more enjoyable and affordable.
Here are the main benefits:
- 5th night free when paying with points (like a 20% discount on nights)
- Free breakfast (or food credits) at most of Hilton’s 28 different hotel brands
- 80% more points earned when paying with cash (on top of the 6 pts/$ when paying with the card)
- Free upgrades to better rooms (no suites, though)
This status isn’t the highest (no access to hotel VIP lounges), but it’s still very interesting if you want to stay at Hilton often.
Without the Hilton Honors Amex Card, you’d have to stay at Hilton often every year (15 stays or 25 nights) to reach this status level in an organic way.
It’s excellent to have it on a card at this level!
To put it in perspective, automatic Hilton Honors Gold elite status is also offered by the Amex Platinum Card, which is the best premium card in Canada and has a $799 fee (although it’s a net $399 after the $200 credit you can cash out and the $200 dining credit).
For another comparison, the Marriott Bonvoy cards, which were the only hotel cards in Canada until this morning (more on that in the next section), only give Marriott Bonvoy elite status Silver, which doesn’t include breakfast and very rarely includes room upgrades.
Having the Hilton Honors Amex Card is the easiest way to get this level of elite status and free breakfast.
Is the card better than the Marriott Bonvoy cards?
The thing that’s the hardest to understand for those just starting out in travel rewards is really the fact that having more cards is better.
It’s better for your credit score (despite the very widespread and very false myth), it’s better for the amount of rewards you get, it’s better for the amount of benefits you get, etc.
So, asking which one is the best is often misguided.
Instead, the question should always be: is the Hilton Honors Amex Card the best one to get today?
There are indeed several good offers right now, including on the Marriott cards.
With the launch offer, though, and the scarcity of hotel points… the Hilton Honors Amex Card is definitely the best for many travelers.
Compared to the Marriott Bonvoy cards, we’re going to do a detailed comparison post soon.
But to be clear, all Canadian travelers should still have the Marriott Bonvoy Amex Card AND the Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex Card (which doesn’t require having an incorporated business).
The Hilton Honors Amex Card complements those and allows you to get even more free hotels. It’s a must-have for all travelers now.
It’s even more interesting for 3 types of travelers:
- Travelers who love high-end luxury
- Travelers who travel a lot
- Travel rewards pros who want more points
Travelers who love high-end luxury should run (not walk) to the online application for the Hilton Honors Amex Card. Getting an uncapped certificate that can be worth thousands of dollars at the world’s most luxurious hotels is incredibly good. Unbeatable! One of the best deals in the entire world of travel.
Don’t forget to convince all your loved ones to get the card too. Unlike points, the certificate isn’t shareable in theory, but we’ll give you some tricks for that if you want to redeem the certificates earned by other people who don’t like to travel.
Travelers who travel a lot should have 2 main hotel rewards programs, definitely not just one. In my case, Hilton was already one of them.
But with this new Hilton Honors Amex Card, Hilton should be part of the hotel rewards strategy of everyone who travels a lot.
Travel rewards pros who want more points should get US-issued credit cards. Our detailed step-by-step guide is finally going to be published in the coming weeks (after a scare following a change made by Trump this summer, which ultimately didn’t change anything thankfully).
And the best first card to get is actually one of the US-issued Hilton cards. In fact, their lineup of cards there is among the best, so being able to complement that with the Canadian Hilton Honors Amex Card is excellent.
How can I learn more about the deal?
You can already learn almost everything by checking out our Hilton Honors Amex Card resource page, which has 10+ tabs with lots of information (like for all cards).
But we’re going to help you a lot more. It’s true that, before this launch, we didn’t cover the Hilton hotel chain’s rewards program as often as Marriott’s.
That’s going to change, and we’re going to make it easier for you to get the hang of it. Including very soon with a great post that compares both programs and includes a summary in infographic form.
We’re going to share lots of content to help you fully understand and maximize your card and the Hilton Honors program in our free newsletter specifically about travel rewards.
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Summary
The launch of the brand-new Hilton Honors Amex Card is great news for Canadian travelers who like getting free hotels. Especially those who want to experience a very high-end luxury hotel worth $1000 per night… by paying with a free night certificate!
What would you like to know about the Hilton Amex credit card launch? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Hilton Amex event (photo credit: Andrew D’Amours/Flytrippers)
