Compare the Features and Benefits of Citi Rewards+® and
Hilton Honors Surpass® Credit Card

The Citi Rewards+ card comes with no annual fee but offers a unique value proposition among the sea of rewards credit cards on the market. In fact, it’s the only credit card to automatically round up to the nearest 10 points on all purchases made with the card. This can be vastly beneficial for small purchases you make on the card, as you’ll get to supercharge your ThankYou points® earning ability with the Citi Rewards+.

The card’s only bonus categories are gas stations and grocery stores, which will be useful for most households. You’ll earn 2x points on the first $6,000 spent every year in these categories combined, which breaks down to roughly $500 in monthly spend. If you exceed this spending cap, you’ll only earn 1x points per $1 spent.

Redeeming your ThankYou points is easy through your online Citi account, where you’ll get the best redemption value from travel or gift cards at 1 cent per point. While other rewards like “Shop with Points” or redeeming for a statement credit may be enticing, these redemption options present a poor value at just 0.8 cents and 0.5 cents, respectively. (Note: When we value the “minimum” redemption value of this card in our calculator at 1 cent per point, we are assuming you will take the maximum redemption option of gift cards.)

No matter how you redeem your points, you’ll get to earn 10% of all the points you redeem every year — up to the first 100,000 points annually. That’s a nice little boost to your ThankYou points balance.

Not only is the Citi Rewards+ a good choice for everyday purchases, but it also makes for a great supplementary card to any other Citi rewards cards you may have in your wallet since you can pool your points together.

If you already have the Citi Premier, a popular travel rewards card, you’ll earn 3x points on restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations, air travel and hotels, and 1x point on all other purchases. That’s where the Citi Rewards+ comes in: you can use the card for small purchases or non-bonus categories to take advantage of that favorable 10% automatic round-up feature.

Plus, if you also have a Citi Premier, you can cash out all of your Citi ThankYou points for 1 cent each or transfer them to ThankYou airline and hotel transfer partners.

(Please note: Without also holding a Citi Premier or Citi Prestige card, you will not be able to transfer these points to Citi’s ThankYou® airline and hotel transfer partners.)

Finally, you’ll have peace-of-mind with important coverages like purchase protection and extended warranty that can come in handy when your eligible card purchases are damaged or stolen.

With a relatively low $150 annual fee, The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card comes with some valuable benefits, including Gold Elite status, which gets you free breakfast (or a daily food and beverage credit) on all stays at full-service Hilton hotels and resorts.

Waldorf Astoria Pedregal – Cabo, Mexico

With Hilton Honors points having an approximate value of 0.5 cents per point, you are earning roughly 6% back on Hilton stays and 3% back on select categories in the US: gas stations, gas, and groceries. Remember you’ll earn 3X Hilton Honors points on other eligible purchases, so that would be worth about a 1.5% return on spend.

The Hilton portfolio also has some amazing hotels and resorts at which you can spend your Hilton Honors points and Free Night Reward certificates. You can get value of rooms that sell for over $1,000 a night and include the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi and the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal in Los Cabos. You could easily make a case that simply being able to earn the lucrative Free Night Reward certificates is reason enough to hold this card.

While we don’t recommend the Hilton Honors Surpass card as your only credit card, it certainly is worth more than its annual fee if you frequently stay at Hilton portfolio hotels and resorts.

Rates and fees for the Hilton Honors Surpass® Credit Card