Compare the Features and Benefits of Hilton Honors American Express Card and
Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠

The Hilton Honors American Express Card is the entry level Hilton card in a family of three Hilton credit cards for individuals including this one, the Hilton Honors Surpass® Credit Card, and the Hilton Aspire® credit card. The is the only one without an annual fee at all, but the benefits on the other two may be worth exploring in exchange for those annual fees.

(All information about the Hilton Honors Aspire® Credit Card ahas been collected independently by Your Best Credit Cards.)

If you stay with Hilton frequently and simply aren’t willing to pay an annual fee, this isn’t a bad card. With 7X earned at Hilton portfolio properties (we value that at 3.5% worth of points back since we value Hilton points at 0.5 cents each), you’ll certainly do well when you pay with this card at Hilton family hotels and resorts.

5X Hilton Honors points at US restaurants, US gas stations, and US supermarkets on a no-annual fee card isn’t bad either, with a 2.5% effective return on spend assuming a value of 0.5 cents per Hilton point).

However, if you do step up to the annual fee cards, you do get more. The Surpass comes with automatic Hilton Gold status instead of Hilton Honors Silver status, which adds a breakfast or meal voucher credit to your benefits along with room upgrades and gives you the opportunity to earn a Free Night Reward valid on any Standard Night Reward after $15,000 in spend on eligible purchases on your Card in a calendar year.

And the Aspire, despite its hefty annual fee, provides come crazy benefits like Diamond elite status.

However, you are probably reading about this card because you want a no annual fee Hilton credit card and this one is pretty strong for a new annual fee hotel card. Not to mention the shopping protections like Extended Warranty and Purchase Protection as well as no foreign transaction fees.

Rates and Fees for the Hilton Honors Credit Card from American Express

💳 This card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Chase 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 Chase Ultimate Rewards 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 Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business is clearly marketed at very high spending businesses that value the benefits and statement credits on offer. That’s why it has a high spending pay-in-full limit that also has Flex for Business, a credit line which allows payments over time with interest.

If you need a less powerful but still amazing Chase Business credit card, you can still get the Chase Ink Business Preferred® card with just a $95 annual fee.

However, I want to highlight one underrated feature that sets this card apart for any business owner with a super high level of ad spend. I want to highlight that the card earns 3X points on social media and search engine advertising. Before you say “so does the Chase Ink Business Preferred® card!,” let me remind you that the Ink Preferred is capped at $150,000 a year on all 3X spend combined.

If you spend a million dollars a year (and I know many small growing businesses that spend in the millions on social media and search engine advertising), you are earning 3 million Chase Ultimate Rewards points which we value at 1.75 cents per point due to the power unlocked with their airline and hotel transfer partners. So using our valuation, $1MM in annual spend on this category is worth $52,500 a year in rewards value. Now to be clear that is an average value for your points, but this card has Points Boost where you can redeem at 2 cents a point for a variety of (always changing) luxury oriented air and hotel redemptions in the Chase Travel℠ portal. Used that way, $1MM in social media and search engine advertising is worth $60,000 in Points Boost travel.

That’s, well, insane…. and if you are a high spender in those categories, you’ll probably want this card now before I go further.

Let’s say that’s not your reason, though.

When you look at the features and benefits outlined above, it’s easy to see how this card provides great value for the right small business owner. The $300 annual travel credit is valid on any travel and is therefore extremely easily used. That brings it down to a level where you are looking at $95 more in value to break even or come out ahead – maybe way ahead. We firmly believe that high annual fees are simply an opportunity to see if you can get more value from the fees – with minimal effort – than you are paying. And the annual fee on a small business card should be a deductible expense for your business (not financial advice).

It’s hard to see not being able to get $100 from the bi-annual $50 credit for GiftCards.com, for example. Between that and the $300 travel credit, we are only looking to offset $395 more to make the annual fee worth it.

I’ll make it simple: look at the Unique Card Benefits section and Annual Statement credits sections above, add to that the lounge access for your and 2 guests, and see if you are ahead before breaking out a pen and paper. If so, this card is a match for you. If you really struggle to see what you’d use, then maybe not…

But don’t forget the bonus categories. In addition to the 3X on social media and search engine advertising purchases, you’re getting 4X on airfare and hotels booked directly. That’s the highest multiplier we know of for a business card when booking directly in these categories. And if you don’t mind booking via Chase Travel, then it’s even better with all travel earning 8X points.

Here’s a reminder on where you can transfer your Ultimate Rewards points besides redeeming via Chase Travel / Points Boost:

The bottom line is this card is packed with opportunities to absolute crush it in value whether through the bonus categories, card benefits, and statement credits. If this card is for you, you already know it.

Note that you cannot product change into this card from any other Chase card. You can only apply outright.

This card is also mentioned in the article Business Credit Cards That Don’t Report to Personal Credit Bureaus.