The information for the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card and Hilton Honors Aspire Card from American Express has been collected by LendingTree and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card prior to publication. Terms apply.

Savvy travelers who belong to the Hilton Honors loyalty program can pair it with the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card to maximize the number points they earn and redeem.

Hilton’s 15 brands — including Conrad Hotels, Doubletree, Hilton Garden Inn, Curio Collection by Hilton™ and Hampton by Hilton — cover more than 5,500 hotels in 109 countries and territories.

Being an Honors member gives cardholders plenty of opportunities to earn and redeem points in popular categories such as restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations. It also comes with the perks you’d expect with an American Express-branded card.

But if you don’t want to be tied down to one hotel brand and want to get more value on the points you earn, then the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card could be a good alternative. We’ll take a close look at both cards to see which is better aligned to your needs.

• Welcome offer

  Cardmembers earn Earn 130,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the card in the first six months of card membership

• Higher rewards in top categories

  Earn 12X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with a hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio. Earn 6X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases on your Card at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and U.S. gas stations. Earn 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card.

• Solid redemption options

  Use your Hilton Honors points for purchases such as hotels, car rentals, cruises, shopping, dining, gift cards, donations and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, like a seat at the Chef’s Table at the Michelin-starred Gordon Ramsay au Trianon restaurant in Versailles, France.

• Transfer points for travel

  You can move your Honors points to more than 40 airline and rail partners, although the value for those exchanges aren’t as good as redeeming for hotel stays.

• Status matters

  The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card comes with automatic Hilton Honors Gold Status. It includes 80% tier bonus points per hotel stay, an automatic space-available room upgrade (up to an executive room), a guaranteed member discount, no resort fees on reward stays, early check-in and late check-out, fifth standard reward night free, free breakfast and two complimentary bottles of water daily.

• Travel and purchase perks

  Enjoy benefits like free Priority Pass Select airport lounge membership, which comes with 10 passes a year, travel accident insurance, car rental loss and damage insurance, access to the Global Assist hotline, extended warranty, return and purchase protection and access to ticket presales and cardmember-only events.

• Payment flexibility

  This credit card comes with a purchase rate of 20.74% to 29.74% variable APR. There’s the option of using the Pay It® feature on the American Express app where you can make small payments throughout the month on your balance. Under the Plan It® option, you can create up to 10 payment plans for purchases of $100 or more with only a fixed monthly fee.

• Annual fee

  If you want this card, you’ll pay a $95 annual fee.

• Room reward limits

  While you do receive an annual reward night for your loyalty, you can only use it on weekends in a standard room — and you’ll have to spend $15,000 on the card to get it.

• Poor transfer points value

  While you can transfer your Hilton Honors points to more than 40 airline and rail partners, you may get less value for them. For example, 10,000 Honors points only equal 1,000 United Airlines miles. You would need to transfer 100,000 points just to get the 10,000 United miles needed to book a one-way Saver fare for domestic U.S. flights 700 miles or less.

• Higher status will cost you.

  The card comes with Hilton Honors Gold Status. But if you want to move up to Diamond, you’ll need to spend $40,000 annually on the card.

• Travel coverage perks are meh

  Despite this being a travel card, it only offers travel accident insurance. Other hotel and non-hotel credit cards offer more robust benefits like trip delay/cancellation insurance.

Compare it to the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card

If you don’t want to be tied to one hotel loyalty program, want more flexibility in earning and redeeming miles and get more value for the points you redeem for travel, including hotels, consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card as an alternative to the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card. It also has a $95 annual fee.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card comes with the following welcome bonus: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Earn 5x on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®, 3x on dining and 2x on all other travel purchases

The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card offers better points per dollar spent in the top spending categories, but the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card gives you 25% more value for the points you earn when you redeem them for travel at Chase Ultimate Rewards. And you can transfer your Chase points 1:1 to 11 airline and three hotel loyalty programs via Chase Ultimate Rewards^®, a much better value than the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card’s transfer program.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card also comes with much better travel and purchase perks than the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card, including trip cancellation/interruption insurance, baggage delay insurance, trip delay reimbursement, travel and emergency assistance, auto rental collision damage waiver, purchase and return protection and extended warranty; it doesn’t, however, come with access to an airport premium lounge like the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card.

It all comes down to what’s more important to you when it comes time to decide whether the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card is the best fit for your needs.

If you’re a Hilton Honors member, this card’s lucrative welcome offer, paired with among the highest points per dollar spent on hotels, dining, supermarkets and gas, can be attractive. Plus, it comes with Gold Status and some respectable travel and purchase perks. The card has good redemption options, but we don’t recommend moving your points to airline and rail loyalty programs because of its poor transfer values.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card does have lower points per dollar spent for travel when compared to the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card. But what the card does have is the chance to earn 25% more value when spending your points for travel when you use them on the Chase Ultimate Rewards website. And if you want to transfer your points to Chase’s 11 airline and three hotel loyalty programs, you can do it at a 1:1 rate, a far better value than the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card.

The information related to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has been collected by LendingTree and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card prior to publication. Terms apply.