Good morning everyone. I hope you enjoyed my post from yesterday: Keep, Cancel or Convert? Chase Sapphire Reserve & Chase Ink Plus. All this week, I am going to review my credit cards that had annual fees post in March. As a reminder, here are all the credit cards and their annual fees. In today’s post, I am going to cover both the American Express Hilton Honors Ascend Credit Card and the American Express SPG Business Credit Card. Are they worth keeping, should I close them, or should I convert them to another credit card?
- Chase Sapphire Reserve – $450 (posted 4/1)
- Chase Ink Plus Business – $95 (posted 4/1)
- American Express Hilton Ascend – $95 (posted 4/3)
- American Express SPG Business – $95 (posted 4/6)
- Bank of America Alaska Airlines Business – $75 (posted 4/2)
- Citi AT&T Access More – $95 (posted 4/4)
- US Bank FlexPerks Gold – $85 (posted 4/3)
- Wells Fargo Propel World – $175 (posted 3/31)
American Express Hilton Honors Ascend Credit Card
I’ve only had this credit card since January, before then, it was a Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Credit Card. I received the annual free weekend night certificate for spending $10,000 on the credit card when it was a Citi credit card. MSing on the Citi credit card was much easier than MSing on the new AMEX credit card. I also dropped from a Hilton Honors Diamond Elite Member on April 2 when the new Hilton Honors program changes went live, which was terrible timing since I checked into the Hilton Garden Inn on Kauai on April 2 as a Hilton Honors Gold Elite Member. Should I pay $95 to keep this credit card? Having this credit card gives you Hilton Honors Gold Elite Status, but I can already get that for free with my American Express Platinum Business Charge Card. I don’t pay for Hilton stays very often, so if I no longer had this credit card, I would miss out on earning extra bonus points for Hilton stays.
I have had my eyes on the new American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Credit Card that comes with 100,000 Hilton points, Hilton Honors Diamond Elite Status, a free weekend night certificate, and $250 Hilton resort credit. The $450 annual fee is steep, but I think the card is wroth it for the first year. I have a credit card App-O-Rama coming up, so I plan on applying for the new American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Credit Card. If I do not get instantly approved, I plan on calling American Express and asking them to move my credit line from the American Express Hilton Honors Ascend Credit Card to the new card. If that is not possible, I will downgrade to the no annual fee American Express Hilton Honors Credit Card and use that card for the occasional AMEX Offer.
Decision: American Express Hilton Honors Ascend Credit Card will be a sacrificial lamb when I apply for the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Credit Card. Plan B is to downgrade to the no annual fee American Express Hilton Honors Credit Card.
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