Compare the Features and Benefits of Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card and
Capital One Venture Business

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 Free Night Awards since those do require $30,000 and $60,000 in spend.

I also won’t value the $209 CLEAR+ credit as that is available on so many other Amex cards. I also am not adding the $100 property credit which requires a cash booking of 2 nights or more at a Waldorf Astoria or Conrad as that is an extremely niche benefit.

Total Tangible Benefits from your $550 in annual spend? $2,070

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

💳 This card earns Capital One Miles. Capital One often runs transfer bonuses where you can get even more points when you transfer to airline or hotel partners at designated times. Transfer bonuses are awesome. Get 20%, 30%, 40% or more bonus miles when you transfer points at the right times. But they are easy to miss!

You can see all past Transfer Bonuses from Capital One Miles here.

Even better? Get notified when a new transfer bonus comes out and again before it ends (either or both, your choice). Sign up for free alerts right here. 🔔

The Capital One Venture Business card is a uniquely simple small business credit card.

With 2X Capital One Miles earned per dollar spent on all eligible purchases (plus the option to earn 5X miles on hotels, rental cars, and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Business Travel), you can really rack up the miles fast.

And while Capital One Miles used to simply be worth a penny each towards travel, that’s changed entirely since Capital One made their miles transferable.

Many small business owners don’t worry about bonus categories, but they do want as many rewards points for their business spend as possible. And they want, on top of that simplicity, to know they are getting a top end rate of return on spend.

The Capital One Venture Business accomplishes both goals. 2X miles on everything with no limit is among the best options among all small business credit cards. While the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express also earns 2X points on purchases, it is capped at $50,000 in spend per year whereas the Capital One Venture Business has no limit.

And then for redeeming your points, you can simply spend them for travel at a penny a point, or you can use the airline and hotel transfer partners which have really expanded to include some great transfer partners like JAL Mileage Bank.

As an additional bonus, this low annual fee business card comes with up to a $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® every four years.

Overall, it’s a super simple card that is an excellent choice for small business owners that love to travel on their time off.

Need to Know: Capital One generally will make a credit inquiry with all three credit bureaus. For new Venture Business customers, Capital One will not report to personal credit bureaus as long as an account remains in good standing. This card is on our list of credit cards that do not report the credit line to your personal credit profile.