Hilton Surpass now 6 points per dollar at US Restaurants

ByGrace Alexander

I received this email today:

 

 

 Now dining out can be rewarding.
You can earn 6 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points when you use your Card at U.S. restaurants.		 AMERICAN EXPRESS (R)
Learn More AMERICAN EXPRESS HILTON HHONORS Card
Now there’s a delicious new way to boost your points balance, whether grabbing a bite with the family or celebrating a special occasion.
NEW! 6 Points at U.S. restaurants
  • Earn 6 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases at U.S. restaurants.1
Continue to earn Points everyday
  • 12 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with a participating hotel or resort within the Hilton HHonors portfolio of brands.2
  • 6 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases at U.S supermarkets and U.S. gas stations.1
  • 3 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card.3
Earn more points than ever before and make the most of them with your Hilton HHonors Surpass Card from American Express.

I mainly just use my Surpass card at Hilton properties since I earn plenty of Hilton points and prefer to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards instead, but I do occasionally use my Surpass at restaurants so this is a nice change.

5 Comments

  1. You do realize they took away some bonus categories as part of this change, right?

    1. @ DW: As I said, I pretty much only use my Surpass at Hiltons. They announced a lot of changes earlier this year that made it less useful. I stay at enough Hiltons to justify this card and the annual fee over the standard Hilton AMEX, but this card may not make sense for many others.
      The AXON redemptions also just took a horrible beating. I would not consider that much of a benefit over the Citi cards anymore. I don’t take too many trips in the same location for multiple days so I can rarely take advantage of AXONs.

  2. Do you think with the recent HHonors devaluation that this makes the Surpass a better card to use than the Sapphire Preferred for restaurant spend?

    1. @Truthiness
      Hilton points were averaging $0.005 before the devaulation. Now the figure is a bit lower and really killed the value at higher $$ locations. Looking at a random day in NYC all of the one night redemptions are just below $0.004 although multi-night rewards such as GLON or AXON would net slightly better. This means 6 Hilton HHonors points = ~2.3cents
      Chase Ultimate Rewards are valued around $0.01/point at a pure cash value, $0.0125 for travel booked on Chase’s site, and can be transferred to other programs. So $1 spent at a restaurant earns 2 UR points which is roughly 2.5 cents. Plus there is the additional inherent value of flexibility. Let’s just say I redeem it for cash at 1 point = 2 cents you can see I’m not too far behind Hilton, but I can also transfer them 1:1 with United or Marriott, etc.

  3. Yeah, I agree with you. Chase Sapphire 2.14X on restaurant spend (after 7% yearly bonus) is better than this anyway.

    Interesting they sent me this email after I cancelled my Surpass Card.

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