This is a pretty exciting brand-new card offering from Citi. It’s not even officially on our site as of the time I’m, writing this…. we literally just got it.
Similar to, yet very different from, the Amex Hilton Surpass card, this new Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card is a premium offering. It carries a modest annual fee, but packs in benefits making it worthwhile.
(If you don’t make it all the way down my lengthy post, here is the link to apply.
The signup bonus:
Earn 2 weekend night certificates good at select hotels and resorts within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio after $2,500 in eligible purchases within 4 months of account opening*
Not bad! Yes, we’re all used to getting points or miles for a new card, but two free weekend nights can be worth far more than 30k-50k in bonus HHonors points. Just use them wisely!
The card features (bolding mine):
-Earn 2 weekend night certificates good at select hotels and resorts within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio after $2,500 in eligible purchases within 4 months of account opening*
- Earn 10 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on hotel stays within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio*
- Earn 5 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on airline and car rental purchases*
- Earn 3 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on all other eligible purchases*
- Enjoy the benefits of HHonors Gold status as long as you are a cardmember*
- No foreign transaction fees on purchases*
- Travel with ease and enjoy global acceptance with your Citi chip credit card
- Earn an anniversary bonus of 1 weekend night certificate at select hotels and resorts within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio each cardmembership year with qualifying purchases*
Let’s talk about these features. To me, the best feature is the annual Gold status. With the Amex version of this card, you get Gold status only the 1st year, needing to spend $20,000 subsequent years to requalify. With the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card, you get it automatically. So basically, you are getting Gold status yearly for $95. Gold status at Hilton isn’t bad – free breakfast, free Internet, and sometimes pretty decent upgrades.
Not stated in the bullets, but in the marketing materials, is that this card will also give you Diamond Status (Hilton’s highest tier) with $40,000 in annual spend. If you stay at Hilton a fair bit, but not quite enough to reach Diamond “butt-in-bed” style, this is huge for you.
Next, you’ll earn 10 points per dollar spent at Hilton family hotels. Ten! That’s great earning potential if you spend a lot at Hilton.
Let’s talk foreign transaction fees. If you travel outside the country a lot, those fees of around 3% really add up. This card won’t ding you there. So that’s yet another way you’ll cover that annual fee (we’re covering it over and over, aren’t we?). And I already wrote about getting a Chip and Signature card if you are US based and travel internationally. So with this card having a Chip, you are covered there as well.
Finally, every year (as long as you spend $10,000 that year) you will get a free weekend night certificate. I think we can easily value a free night in the $200 range (some of us get much better values!) so that’s a solid yearly bonus to keep the card and – again! – covers that annual fee.
If you are as convinced as I am, once again, here is the link to apply for the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve credit card
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