Thanks to: Tom, Edso and MisterPicture Hilton Honors Amex Card On The Way

You convinced me I need a hotel card for free stays now that my air travel needs are met.

I looked at the various programs mentioned here. For where I want to travel, Hilton Honors works best for me.  I started hitting the Amex page for offers.  At first, the base card with no annual fee appealed to me.  My final offer was 95k (the original was 80k) in points for a small 3k spend. 

Then they kept hitting me with a 150k point offer (3k spend) if I took the Surpass (mid-tier) card.  The base offer was 130k points. The second offer was 140k points. I also like the idea of gold status rather than silver status.   My planned trip to Asia is for 3 to 4 weeks.  I was going to spend most of my stays at cheaper places but it is nice to know I will get to stay some of those nights basking in luxury. The points multipliers on this card are nice for everyday spending so I think it is will be my daily driver from now on.

I prefer the Amex Cards over the Visa/MC Cards as the customer service with some of those card issuers leaves a lot to be desired.  For example, Barclay's CS is a nightmare. Amex customer service is rock solid. 

Again thanks to everyone.

Good to hear.  The Amex Surpass card should also get you access to various airport lounges.   Not sure what locations though.

Sadly, they took away that benefit at the beginning of the year. That benefit was access to ten priority pass lounges a year. They also took the Lounge Buddy passes away from Amex Green which is why I didn't get that card. 

In any event, when I started looking at these travel cards, the idea of lounge access appealed to me but from what I have seen to get any lounge access free now you have to commit to the top card of the program (any points program) in question with an annual fee of somewhere around $700.  Initially, the Amex Platinum appealed to me but the high spend for the bonus points and the high fee turned me off.  If you are going straight up Amex, the Gold Card offers the best overall value for most people with the high multipliers on gas and groceries.  These are higher than on the Platinum card in those categories.  A family of four or larger could clean up with that card but they wouldn't get lounge access. 

I have also discovered that for most folks, it is simply cheaper to buy day passes at the lounges. I typically don't use the lounge, traveling out of smaller airports to a major one when I travel domestically.  But I am interested in the International lounges where I found day passes and even discounted day passes are available through sites like Get Your Guide.

A lot of foreign airlines also sell day passes to their lounges when you book an international flight.  Turkish Airlines comes to mind. I also discovered if you book the lounge yourself often there is not that 3 hours before departure time limit you get when using Priority Pass which is nice for those long layovers. 

Thank you, Mark.  So true, the highest "tier" of certain seat/class selections or credit card doesn't necessarily provide the most advantageous benefits, depending on one's priorities.  It seems intuitive that it would, but, as in your examples, perhaps not.  If one mostly uses a card for domestic flights/routes with the shortest layovers, a lounge perk is of little benefit compared to points for gas and groceries.  Appeciate the sharing of your research.

Candy

Bummer about the new cards not having the lounge access.  My mom has the AMEX platinum card and travels to Germany every other year for 3 weeks to visit family.  She really likes the lounge at the Frankfurt airport.  She didn't even know about the lounge access until I told her about it years ago.  It came in handy two years ago when her flight was delayed about 6 hours, and she had a place to kick back without dealing with lots of people. 

How do you get multiple offers generated from the card company?

What has worked for me is searching with my browser in incognito mode. I've also heard about people trying different browsers, but that's never made a difference for me. 

If you want to know what the best public offers are at the moment I would check the following:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-current-credit-card-sign-bonuses/

To get Priority Pass lounge access for yourself and guests I really recommend the Capital One Venture X card. It has a $395 annual fee, but you get $300 credit on their travel portal plus an extra 10,000 points every year which is worth about $200 if you know how to transfer points. So it pays for itself. 

You also access to the new Capital One lounges plus one visit per year to a Chase Sapphire lounge, although I don't know if you can bring guests to that one. They price match on the travel portal within 24 hours of purchase, and I've received those credits while I'm still on the phone with them. And you'll also get a comped TSA PreCheck / Global Entry fee.

They are extremely sensitive to inquiries with this card, so the trick is to freeze your Experian account before applying if that's an issue.

Thanks!

Easy peasy at least for Amex branded cards.  I take a different approach than MrPicture.  First I make sure everything is on cookies, signed into browser, ad blocker off and VPN off.

Second I Google the card name I am interested in usually something like Hilton Honors credit card.  I click on the link to Amex and spend 5 minutes or so slowly scrolling through the page. Then I leave.  At this point they know who I am more or less and they begin tracking me across the web. I visit their competition and spend time slowly scrolling on those pages.

I usually give it about 12-24 hours before I go back to that same Amex page.  If the offer hasn't changed, I come back a day later. After I get that second offer, I rinse and repeat for the third. 

While you are fishing for better offers make sure you are signed into everything. They know you are interested in the card and their competitors card and will offer incentives (more points) to close the deal.

Also, as you surf around the Internet pay attention to the ads you are being shown. They will sometimes have the better offers in there.

It is funny. The first travel card I signed up for was the Amex Delta Gold card.  I lost interest in it and just when I quit looking at it online guess what I found when I opened my USPS mailbox?

An offer from Amex with 20k more points and 1k less spend for the very card I was looking at. Kind of spooky they knew my name and where I lived just because I visited their website.

Thanks Candy 😀