At Hilton portfolio properties when you book direct with Hilton or the hotel. Otherwise, earn 3X points
U.S. dining, including takeout and delivery
Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.
I’ve long said at MilesTalk that I think the Hilton Aspire is the best hotel credit card on the market.
Setting aside the welcome bonus, here are your yearly benefits:
Hilton Resort Credits – $400: If you stay at Hilton resorts twice annually (although it must be one time January to June and one time July to December, this is as good as cash.
Airline credits – $200 ($50 per calendar quarter): Easy to use if you fly once per quarter
Hilton Honors Diamond status – $950: This could technically be worth a couple thousand if you stay frequently at Hilton properties (and a certain site I won’t name would say it’s worth over $3,000), but that would also likely mean you don’t need this card to earn it, since you’d earn it from nights stayed.
Even if you only stay 10 nights a year, the free breakfast or daily food credits and lounge access for two would be conservatively worth ~$70 a day. Room upgrades are never guaranteed, but they are frequent in my experience. Let’s call those ~$25 a stay even though that’s very light as a value given that some upgrades are likely to be suites. If you stay 10 nights a year, Diamond status is worth $950 using the calculations above.
Annual Free Night Certificates – $500: Valid any night of the week and good at any Hilton properties in the Hilton portfolio. with no points limit. It’s not going to be hard to pick and choose where to use that for maximum value and at any Conrad or Waldorf-Astoria at a busy time, $500 is easy. I recently redeemed my own for the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal in Cabo for a $1,500 night room!
I won’t value the potential free second or third weekend night since those do require $30,000 and $60,000 in spend.
I also won’t value the $189 CLEAR+ credit as that is available on so many other Amex cards.
Total Tangible Benefits from your $550 in annual spend? $2,050
I mean, that is NUTS. And I hope you can tell that if anything I tried to assign lower values to perks than they are probably worth! If anything, I undervalued them. The only thing is that you obviously need to stay at Hilton hotels or resorts a handful of times a year to enjoy the benefits. And really, if you don’t, then you likely don’t need a Hilton credit card.
Rates and Fees for the Hilton Honors Aspire® Credit Card
All information about the Hilton Honors Aspire® Credit Card has been collected independently by Your Best Credit Cards.
Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Earn this multiplier when you purchase via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you purchase any other way, you will earn 1X points.
Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.
This is a primary card in the Chase Trifecta, which includes a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve, a Chase Freedom Unlimited, and this card, the Chase Freedom Flex. You’ll earn 3% on dining and drugstore purchases with the Freedom Flex. But whereas the Freedom Unlimited gives you 1.5% cash back on other spend categories, The Flex earns only 1%. That is because it has the rotating 5% bonus categories.
The rotating bonus categories each quarter can be fantastic. Amazon is a popular choice, meaning you’d earn 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points ($75) if you spent $1,500 during that quarter.
Since the Chase Freedom Flex is a pure cash back credit card unless you also have a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® with which to combine your Chase Ultimate Rewards points, it’s ideally used as part of a combo.
When you hold one of these premium Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards, you can transfer points earned on the Freedom Flex to the premium card. Once you’ve moved the Ultimate Rewards over to the premium credit card, you can take advantage of points transfers to 12 Chase airline and hotel partners or book travel through the travel portal.
Best of all, you can accrue cash back on this card and decide to add a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® later on – if you suddenly decide that you’d like to delve into the world of credit card rewards that transfer to frequent flyer and hotel programs to book free award flights and hotel nights.
If you book through the travel portal and have a Sapphire Reserve, your points redeem for 1.5 cents each, meaning that you earn 1.5X points or cash back per dollar and redeem them for 1.5X, giving you an effective 2.25% return on your spend.
If you book through the travel portal and have a Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Business Preferred, your points redeem for 1.25 cents each, meaning that you earn 1.5X per dollar and redeem for 1.5X, giving you an effective 1.875% return on your spend.
But our absolute favorite way to redeem is always via airline and hotel transfer partners. The easiest high-value redemption is usually Hyatt. We often get better than 2 cents per World of Hyatt point. Keep in mind that Hyatt doesn’t charge any resort fees when you stay on a free night award. So let’s say you are looking at a hotel with a cash price of $259 and a $25 a night resort fee and 8% tax. That would come to $307 a night. But if that same room costs 8,000 or 12,000 Hyatt points, you could be using your points (which transfer at an even 1:1 ratio to all airline and hotel partners) with a rate of return of 3 – 4 cents.
To be clear, if you don’t also have a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred®, the rewards earned with the Chase Freedom Flex are purely cash back rewards.
That said, even without a card combo, it’s still a solid card to earn cash back, including 3% on dining , including takeout and eligible delivery services, and drugstores) since it has no annual fee.
The Chase Freedom Flex credit card comes with a solid range of benefits for a card with no annual fee. You’ll get Purchase Protection and Extended Warranty on the shopping side and you’ll be taken care of on canceled or shortened pre-paid trips if a covered reason arises. with the included Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance.