Compare the Features and Benefits of Hilton Honors American Express Aspire® Card and
United℠ Business Card

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.

If you’re a business owner contemplating on getting a personal United credit card, it’s worth taking a closer look at the United Business Card first. Cardholders earn 2x unlimited miles on a diverse range of bonus categories, including United purchases (which includes United flights, seat upgrades, wifi or onboard purchases), dining including eligible delivery services, gas stations, office supply stores, and local transit and commuting. All other purchases accrue 1x miles. And don’t forget, beyond the initial hard inquiry when applying for a business card, it won’t report to your personal credit as long as you remain in good standing.

The annual fee is waived for the first year, but will cost $99 every year thereafter. Fortunately, maximizing the card is effortless thanks to its number of tangible benefits. You can get every first checked bag free on United flights and even earn an annual $100 United credit after purchasing seven United flight purchases. Coupled with the opportunity to enter the United Club twice per year ($59 value each time), that’s roughly a $200+ value off the bat toward travel.

Other non-tangible, yet equally useful, benefits that the United Business Card provides include priority boarding, a 25% discount on inflight purchases, and the ability to earn up to 1,000 Premier Qualifying Points every year. Depending on how often you’re flying United every year, these perks offer elite-like benefits just by holding this card.

And don’t forget the ability to earn PQPs towards elite status from spend. You’ll earn 25 Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs) for every $500 you spend on purchases – up to 1,000 PQPs per year.

If you were purely looking to earn United miles, however, you might well do better with the Chase Ink Business Preferred® Card which would earn 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points on the first $150,000 spent on all travel purchases, has similar trip protections, and its points transfer 1:1 to United – but also to more than a dozen other airline and hotel partners.

We have a detailed comparison of the United Business Card vs. the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card.

Chase is the issuer of this business card and is quite generous when it comes to providing travel and purchase coverages with high limits. Plus, Chase tends to offer partner benefits exclusively for cardholders. Currently, cardholders can register for one year complimentary DashPass benefits from DoorDash. This perk gets you unlimited deliveries on orders of $12 or greater with no delivery fee and lower service fees overall.