Did Amex Just RUIN Another Credit Card?

Well, after massive changes to the series of personal Hilton Hotels co-branded credit cards, many of which are unpopular, American Express has now set its sights on destroying its Hilton Honors business credit card as well. Hey, guys, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shoo-Foo. And on this channel, we talk about all things credit, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. It's free. You'll get videos like this several times a week. So we joke about these changes to the Hilton business card. And of course, some people are going to think they are terrible and some may think that they are quite good. And in this video, we are going to go through exactly what these changes are and when they come into effect. So first of all, the most important by far is that they've changed the card to metal, which was cool back in 2017. But in 2024, I don't think anyone cares unless it's the Robin Hood credit card. Anyway, that part was kind of a joke. Let's go through what the new benefits are. Then we will go through the ones that are being taken away. And lastly, we will talk about the new limited time welcome bonus. So for point earning, the card has always earned 12 points per dollar at Hilton. But in addition to that, they have now taken away all of the other previous six points per dollar bonus categories in favor of having card members earn five points per dollar on everything for the first hundred thousand dollars worth of spending per calendar year. This could be seen as positive by some. It certainly simplifies the earning structure and may give some cardholders the ability to earn way more points. Like, for example, if you had loads of spending on building materials, you didn't get a bonus for that before. But now you get five X. Then they've added two hundred and forty dollars worth of Hilton credits per year. That will be sixty dollars per quarter. And this is very similar to what they've done on the Hilton honors surpass personal card. They added fifty dollars per quarter on that one. And I actually just used that benefit last Monday. I stayed at a Hampton Inn in Manchester, Vermont on my way to skiing at a chemo and I booked with points and I only had thirty seven thousand points in my account. So I didn't want to use them all. And Hilton gives you the ability to use points and money. You have this little slider that you can slide along to see, you know, change the amount of points versus money that you use. And so I purposefully slided the slider down towards a lower amount of points and I got it as close to, you know, a load of points plus fifty dollars in cash as I could get it. I think I ended up paying forty eight dollars in money, which I already got refunded for through this credit. So now I still have a load of points left over in my account that I will be able to use next time. And in the next quarter, I can probably do the same thing, use some points, pay part of it with money and get refunded fifty dollars. So personally, I do like the quarterly Hilton credit thing. After all, I do use it. If I wasn't going to stay in Hilton hotels, why would I have this card in the first place? The next added benefit is national car rental executive status, which is a status I have from the Amex Platinum. In the past, I had it from the Chase Sapphire Reserve. And guys, this isn't totally an added benefit, though, because guess what? National already lets you match Hilton gold status to their program through their status match page. And the Hilton business card gives you Hilton gold status that you need to do the match. And what is more, by matching your Hilton gold status, you may even be able to get executive elite. All right. Not just executive, which this card now gives you, but executive elite nationals top status. Here is a data point of someone doing it just a few months ago on the website, StatusMatcher.com. So it's not a new benefit, guys, and it's not even as good as what you could already do with the Hilton gold status that the card already gives you. It's just that not that many people knew that you could do that. So those are the new benefits, guys. Now let's get into the negatives. And first of all, is the annual fee increasing? Well, unfortunately, yes, it is. The annual fee is going up from ninety five dollars to one hundred and ninety five dollars. But obviously, they did add that two hundred and forty dollar Hilton credit. So in theory, if you use up all those quarterly credits, you spend two hundred and forty dollars. You are going to be forty five dollars in profit every year before you even look at how many points you earn from the card. So the annual fee increase, I wouldn't say is terrible as long as you use all those credits. Next, let's look at the benefits that have been taken away. But first, if you have a lot of credit cards that you are using to earn rewards and you struggle to keep track of, do check out the sponsor of today's video, Max Rewards. It's an app that pulls data from all of your credit cards in one place, even if they're from different issuers. So you can see your transactions, your balances and your rewards and points balances all in one easy to use dashboard. The app will also tell you which card to use from your wallet, which store to earn the maximum rate of rewards. They fixed the earlier problems they had connecting to Chase. So it now works with all major U.S. credit card issuers. It's especially useful with Amex cards like this Hilton Honours Amex business card, since if you have the pro version of Max Rewards, Max Rewards Gold, you can have all of your Amex offers activated for you automatically so you never miss a deal. And when you activate all of your Amex offers, new offers will actually appear in your account that you never knew existed. And Max Rewards will activate them, too, and it'll save you even more money. You can get a free month of Max Rewards Gold with my link below or just download the app and check out the free features. All right, let's now look at what has been taken away. So first of all, all of the old point earning categories, apart from Hilton, where the card used to earn six points per dollar, have gone in favor of that five points per dollar catch or on one hundred thousand dollars worth of spending. Those old categories were U.S. restaurants, airfare booked directly with an airline or through American Express travel rental cars booked directly from select car rental companies, U.S. gas stations, U.S. shipping services, U.S. wireless and telephone services. Now, this is going to be annoying for some people who made use of that, but you're only actually losing one Hilton point per dollar, which is only worth zero point six cents. So in my opinion, the new five X on everything is actually probably a positive change. The old categories go away on July 1st. So for now, you're actually getting 12 X on Hilton, six X on those old categories and five X on everything else, which is pretty cool. I think that applies for new card members in addition to existing card members. But there are two other things that are changing. The card is losing its 10 priority pass airport lounge passes per year. This doesn't stop immediately, though. So for current card members who already enrolled in priority pass, here is when you will lose this lounge benefit. If you enrolled in the priority pass select program on or before June 30th, 2023, your priority pass membership will continue through June 30th, 2024 and will be cancelled on July 1st, 2024. If you enrolled in the priority pass select program between July 1st, 2024 and June 30th, 2024, your membership will continue through March 31st, 2025 and will be cancelled on April 1st, 2025. So from that, actually, it seems that even if you apply for the card now, if you are a new card member after these changes came into effect, you could actually still sign up for the priority pass card and get 10 passes as long as you sign up before June 30th and then you have 10 passes valid for a whole year. Any passes not used once the benefit goes away, though, will be forfeited. And then there is one more negative change, which for me really sucks, and that is the opportunity to earn the Hilton free night on this card is going away. So you used to be able to earn a free night if you spent $15,000 on the card in one calendar year and then another if you spend a total of $60,000, but both of those are going away. However, not immediately. I'll read you out the new terms concerning the free nights. Eligible purchases made through June 30th, 2024 will count towards the Hilton Honours free night rewards benefit. After June 30th, 2024, the Hilton Honours free night rewards benefit will no longer be available on your Hilton Honours American Express business card and you will no longer be able to earn free night rewards as a benefit of this card. So it seems like this also applies to both current card members and new card members alike. So if you just got the card, go and spend $15,000 before June 30th. All right, pay your taxes with the card and you'll get that benefit. In my view, this is a very negative change. All right, Hilton free nights can be worth $700 or more since you can use them at any Hilton brand, even the high-end ones like Conrad and Waldorf Astoria. So I value it at least $700. So if you are one of the people who used to be able to spend $15,000 a year on the card and get one free night, you're losing $700 and only gaining $240 in Hilton credits and the annual fee is going up. Not a very good deal. All right, let's have a little bit of good news, though, before we end to cheer us up. There is currently a limited-time welcome bonus on the card. Now, I know this is only for new card members, all right, so it doesn't really cheer up the current card members, but the new welcome bonus is 175,000 Hilton points. That is worth $10,050 if you value them at 0.6 cents per point, and that is for spending $8,000 in the first six months. Spend requirement is kind of high, but it's a business card. They tend to be a bit higher, and that is available until June 5th, 2024. So if you don't have the card yet and you do still want it, despite those changes, now is a good time to get it. But in all, I think these changes are negative for many of the people who have this card. The strategy in the past would be put a lot of business spending or tax payments on this card or whatever payment you have to get you over that $15,000 limit, and then you get a Hilton free night, and you could even get two if you spend $60,000, or you could combine that free night with a load of points earned from your spending on the card, and you'd probably be able to get a two or even three night vacation staying at one of Hilton's top hotels. Well, now that's gone in favor of $50 per quarter and an increased annual fee. So for people who use that strategy, these are definitely terrible changes. You may want to now consider opening the personal Hilton honors surpass card, which does still get one free night if you spend over $15,000 in a calendar year has 155,000 point bonus as well now too. And also if you used to use the priority pass benefit, these changes are bad too. Although you can still get priority pass pretty cheaply from the Capital One Venture X, and that is unlimited. So to me, this isn't that big of a deal. I get priority pass from the Amex Platinum. Many people who have this Hilton business card also have other higher end travel cards as well. So they might have even been doubling up on that benefit. But what do you guys think? Please leave your comments below. Don't forget to get a free month of max rewards gold with my link below and get all your Amex offers activated and unlock secret offers you never knew existed. We'll see you in the next video. Bye bye.