Amex Hilton Business Card Changes

While the American Express Hilton cards may be the last family rule hold out it appears they wanted to find a way to work us over anyway. They decided to “enhance” the Hilton Business card into oblivion. While some people may like these changes, aka the people that never actually used it, I think most will hate these Amex Hilton Business card changes. It has flipped the card from a long term keeper to a no doubt closure for me personally. Let's dive into the details.

Goodbye Free Night Certificates

The biggest blow is the loss of the free night certificates you can earn after $15,000 and $60,000 in spend each calendar year. This was a great perk of the card, especially since the Hilton free night certs are the most valuable on the market.

Not only are the certificates going away but American Express is sticking it to current cardholders on the way out the door.

Here are the terms for these certificates:

Eligible purchases made through June 30, 2024 will count toward the Hilton Honors Free Night Rewards benefit. After June 30, 2024 the Hilton Honors Free Night Rewards benefit will no longer be available on your Hilton Honors American Express Business Card, and you will no longer be able to earn Free Night Reward(s) as a benefit of your card

That means you only have a few months to do what you should get until the end of the year to do. They have even removed it from the card benefits page for current cardholders all together, which I find shady. This was probably the best perk of the card, especially if you could pair it up with spending in a 6x bonus category. Speaking of bonus points…

The Best You Can Get Is 5x, But It Is Everywhere

The next change that I am not a fan of is eliminating the 6x bonus points categories. You used to be able to rack up 6x Hilton Honors points in the following areas:

• US gas stations
• US purchases for shipping
• Wireless telephone services purchased directly from US service providers
• Flights booked directly with airlines or with Amex Travel
• Car rentals booked directly from select car rental companies
• US restaurants

Those are some bigger areas of spend for people. Now, you will earn 5x on everything, on up to your first $100,000 worth of spend each year. Some people may like this change if they didn't have a lot of spend in the 6x earning categories. For me, I just lost 1x on a lot of my spend, plus an additional 6x on the first $15,000 in spend from the loss of the free night certificate. No bueno.

Here are the terms for the changeover:

For eligible purchases made From March 28, 2024 through June 30, 2024

You will receive 3 Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases on your Hilton Honors American Express Business Card.

You will receive 2 additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points (for a total of 5 points) for the first $100,000 of eligible purchases in each calendar year on your Hilton Honors American Express Business Card that are not (1) Hilton Purchases or (2) purchases for which you receive 3 additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points.

You will receive 3 additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points (for a total of 6 points) for each dollar of eligible purchases at the following categories of merchants: restaurants located in the U.S.; airfare on a scheduled flight charged directly with passenger airlines or American Express Travel (charter flights and private jet flights are excluded); purchases directly from select major car rental companies listed at americanexpress.com/rewards-info; gasoline at gas stations located in the U.S.; shipping services purchased in the U.S. for courier, postal, and freight; and on monthly wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. wireless telephone service providers (purchases of hardware and equipment are excluded; any purchases from third parties and resellers are excluded).

Annual Fee Increase & You Guessed It … More Credits

Unsurprising to everyone reading this, the annual fee on the card has increased from $95 to $195 a year. The justification for this jump after everything that we lost listed above? You guessed it, more coupons credits. We should just call all Amex cards expensive coupon books at this point.

You will get a quarterly credit, much like the Surpass card now, for up to $240 each year.

Here are the terms for this new addition:

Basic Hilton Honors American Express Business Card Members can receive up to a total of $60 in statement credits each calendar quarter

• January through March
• April through June
• July through September
• October through December

for up to $240 back annually, for eligible purchases charged directly with a property within the Hilton portfolio on their Card Account, including bookings and incidental charges. For a booking to be eligible for a statement credit, the booking must be made directly through a reservation channel operated by Hilton. Bookings or purchases made through a third party other than Hilton, such as an online travel website, will not be eligible for statement credit(s). For incidental charges (including charges made at restaurants, spas, and other establishments within the hotel property) to be eligible for a statement credit, the incidental charge must be charged to your room and paid for with the Hilton Honors American Express Business Card at checkout.

Priority Pass Will Be No More

One day after a competitor removed Priority Pass restaurant access, the Hilton Business card is dropping it all together.

Here is what they have to say about the transition:

The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card will no longer offer a complimentary membership to the Priority Pass™ Select program. If you have a Hilton Honors American Express Business Card, you can continue to enjoy the Priority Pass™ Select benefit on your Card for a limited time:

If you haven’t enrolled in Priority Pass™, you can still enroll through June 30, 2024, by calling the number on the back of your Card.

If you enrolled in Priority Pass on or before June 30, 2023, your membership will be active until June 30, 2024, and will be cancelled as of July 1, 2024

If you enrolled between July 1, 2023 and June 30 2024, your membership will be active until March 31, 2025, and will be cancelled as of April 1, 2025.

Who Are These Changes Actually Good For?

While these changes are horrible for me, they may be good for you. Who falls into this bucket though? If you stay at Hilton hotels often, and were holding the card just the Gold status, then these are positive changes. You should be able to maximize the quarterly credits fairly easily and more than offset the entire annual fee.

Likewise, if you spend on the card in non bonus areas then the extra 2x points will be nice. They even offset some of what you are losing from the free night certificate spending. Even then you are coming up around 4x short compared to what you have now though.

That is it. That is the tiny bucket of winners right there. Well, to be fair, the second one is just less of a loser and not a winner overall.

Amex Hilton Business Card Changes: ToP Thoughts

I would have been okay with these Amex Hilton Business card changes if they had left the free night certificates alone. While losing the extra 1x per dollar on some spend would have stung a little, I would have made it up on the non bonus spend. The increase in annual fee would have been negligible by using the credit once or twice a year.

However, with the removal of the free night certificates they simply nuked this card's value for me. If you stay at Hilton hotels often, and rarely spend on the card, it may have been an improvement for you though.

I may not be a fortune teller but I can tell the future of this card to you. It will be meeting my scissors at the next annual fee date. Pour one out for your Hilton homies everybody.

Let me know if you like or hate these changes over in the ToP Facebook Group.