As a Hilton Honors loyalty program member, you may want a credit card that helps you earn points — but don’t want to pay for that privilege. Your best option is the Hilton Honors American Express Card, which charges a $0 annual fee and offers a robust rewards rate. With the Hilton Honors American Express Card, you’ll earn the most points for hotel-related spending, along with higher points when using the card for U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and  U.S. gas stations.

Hilton offers a worldwide selection of properties, with more than 6,500 hotels under 18 brands — from the Waldorf Astoria to Hampton Inn — located in 119 countries.

However, despite all this card has to offer, you may prefer to the flexibility to use your credit card rewards with hotel brands outside of the Hilton Honors program. Or you may want a card where you earn a simple flat rate for rewards, without worrying about different points categories. Finally, you may be traveling internationally to a country where American Express credit cards aren’t widely accepted. In these situations, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is an alternative worth considering.

To see rates & fees for the Hilton Honors American Express Card please click here.

• Solid welcome offer

  Earn 100,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer ends 04/05/2023. For an example of what’s that worth, a recent search showed that 100,000 points would cover a night for two guests at the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas.

• Good rewards

  Earn 7X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio, 5X Hilton Honors Bonus Points at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and U.S. gas stations AND 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card. The points you earn for spending on dining, supermarkets, gas stations, along with everything else, are more than you’d earn with most travel-branded credit cards.

  The Hilton Honors points you earn can be redeemed for hotel rooms, car rentals, cruises, shopping, dining, gift cards, donations and experiences, such as a family getaway in Antwerp, Belgium.

• Multiple transfer partners

  Transfer your Hilton Honors points and use them at more than 30 airline and rail partners.

• Automatic silver status

  Get silver Hilton Honors status with the Hilton Honors American Express Card (enrollment required). That gets you a 20% tier bonus points per hotel stay, a guaranteed member discount, no resort fees on reward stays, late checkout, fifth standard reward night free, two bottles of water daily and free breakfast.

• $0 annual fee

  If you like to travel but aren’t sure a luxury travel card with a hefty annual fee is right for you, you’ll like the Hilton Honors American Express Card and its $0 annual fee.

• Foreign exchange fee: None

  If you use this card while abroad, you won’t have to worry about being charged an extra fee on each transaction.

To see rates & fees for the Hilton Honors American Express Card please click here.

• Spend requirement for gold status

  If you want to go from Hilton Honors silver to gold status (enrollment required), you’ll need to spend $20,000 a year on the card to get it. So make sure the extra benefits that come with gold status are worth that amount of spending.

• Poor transfer rate for points

  While it’s nice to transfer your Hilton Honors points to more than 30 airline and rail partners, it may not be worth it since the exchange rates to do it are so poor. For example, you’ll only get a measly 1,500 AAdvantage® miles on American Airlines for 10,000 Honors points. In order to get 15,000 miles on American, you would need to transfer 150,000 Honors points. That’s enough miles to get you a one-way, limited availability MileSAAver coach seat to the Caribbean, Mexico or Central America.

• Lack of travel benefits

  If you’re looking for travel benefits such as lost luggage insurance or trip cancellation and delay insurance, you won’t find it on this card. However, with a $0 annual fee, that’s not surprising. Cards with more premium travel benefits typically charge an annual fee.

  To see rates & fees for the Hilton Honors American Express Card please click here.

 

This $95 annual fee card should be considered as an alternative to the Hilton Honors American Express Card if you’re looking for a straightforward and flexible travel card. New cardmembers enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel. Those miles can be used as a statement credit or be applied toward travel purchases.

For ongoing rewards, cardmembers earn 2 Miles per dollar on every purchase, every day; 5 Miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. You can redeem those rewards for travel booked at capitalone.com or book directly through any airline, hotel, rental cars and more. You can also redeem your miles for a check, an account credit or gift cards. Miles don’t expire as long as your account remains open, and there’s no cap on how many miles you can earn.

It’s true that the amount of miles earned per dollar spent with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card are lower than the points you’ll earn when using the Hilton Honors American Express Card for dining and grocery purchases. However, if your spending habits don’t line up with the latter card’s categories, you may prefer a card that offers an elevated rewards rate on general purchases.

When it’s time to decide between these two cards, much of the decision comes down to whether you want to boost your loyalty points with the Hilton Honors program with the Hilton Honors American Express Card or get more flexibility with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. The two cards also have different rewards structures —  the Hilton Honors American Express Card offers elevated earning rates a U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations, while the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers a solid rate on general purchases. Finally, whether you want a $0 annual fee card or are willing to pay $95 a year will also influence your decision.

To see rates & fees for the Hilton Honors American Express Card please click here.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply