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Amex Hilton Changes

I acquired the Aspire and Surpass cards late last year in back to back apps which offered substantial sign-up bonuses. Additionally, spending on the Surpass card allowed me to earn 3 FNCs and 1 annual reward on the Aspire card. Recently, capping off an anmazing redemption with the help of 150k Amex MR points (300k HH) I’ve was able to secure two rooms (6 nights and 12 nights in total) for post Xmas December 27th, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll be skiing and snowboarding at the Park City Waldorf Astoria. The current room rates would result in a $26,000 cash purge for 2 King fireplace rooms. I’ve been diligently checking my Hilton site over the past couple of months, and I was ecstatic to see a standard award opportunity open up last week. I’ll consider this a well-earned rewar significantly offsetting the Aspire and Surpass annual fees.
 
Jace said:
I acquired the Aspire and Surpass cards late last year in back to back apps which offered substantial sign-up bonuses. Additionally, spending on the Surpass card allowed me to earn 3 FNCs and 1 annual reward on the Aspire card. Recently, capping off an anmazing redemption with the help of 150k Amex MR points (300k HH) I’ve was able to secure two rooms (6 nights and 12 nights in total) for post Xmas December 27th, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll be skiing and snowboarding at the Park City Waldorf Astoria. The current room rates would result in a $26,000 cash purge for 2 King fireplace rooms. I’ve been diligently checking my Hilton site over the past couple of months, and I was ecstatic to see a standard award opportunity open up last week. I’ll consider this a well-earned rewar significantly offsetting the Aspire and Surpass annual fees.
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Omg deal
Of the decade
 
Jace said:
I acquired the Aspire and Surpass cards late last year in back to back apps which offered substantial sign-up bonuses. Additionally, spending on the Surpass card allowed me to earn 3 FNCs and 1 annual reward on the Aspire card. Recently, capping off an anmazing redemption with the help of 150k Amex MR points (300k HH) I’ve was able to secure two rooms (6 nights and 12 nights in total) for post Xmas December 27th, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll be skiing and snowboarding at the Park City Waldorf Astoria. The current room rates would result in a $26,000 cash purge for 2 King fireplace rooms. I’ve been diligently checking my Hilton site over the past couple of months, and I was ecstatic to see a standard award opportunity open up last week. I’ll consider this a well-earned rewar significantly offsetting the Aspire and Surpass annual fees.
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Love WA Park City. Best upgrade I have ever had. We booked the standard room and I asked at check in if they had any upgrades. They had a one bed suite for $100 but not available yet. I said I would take it and we would go into PC for lunch. They called me and asked if I wanted a 2 bed bi-level suite, “um yea”!!! This was July off season though so your miles will vary during Christmas. Also owners will be lodging that time of year. Met an owner that lived at WA next door to where we stayed.
 
Jace said:
I acquired the Aspire and Surpass cards late last year in back to back apps which offered substantial sign-up bonuses. Additionally, spending on the Surpass card allowed me to earn 3 FNCs and 1 annual reward on the Aspire card. Recently, capping off an anmazing redemption with the help of 150k Amex MR points (300k HH) I’ve was able to secure two rooms (6 nights and 12 nights in total) for post Xmas December 27th, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll be skiing and snowboarding at the Park City Waldorf Astoria. The current room rates would result in a $26,000 cash purge for 2 King fireplace rooms. I’ve been diligently checking my Hilton site over the past couple of months, and I was ecstatic to see a standard award opportunity open up last week. I’ll consider this a well-earned rewar significantly offsetting the Aspire and Surpass annual fees.
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Awesome. Well done! I book out as far as I can with the Waldorf properties. I got a week in Maui for 770,000 points. The hilton.com rate for the same room was $8400.
 
I have the Surpass and may not make Diamond on stays this year. Do they offer point incentives often for upgrading to Aspire from Surpass? I'm not seeing anything currently.
 
Mongoose said:
I have the Surpass and may not make Diamond on stays this year. Do they offer point incentives often for upgrading to Aspire from Surpass? I'm not seeing anything currently.
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Years ago, I received an offer to upgrade from Surpass to Aspire, which I accepted. I think that was around the time they first introduced the Aspire. I have subsequently added a Surpass back to the mix.
 
brp said:
We have never tried to use a FNC at a HGV property. Had they previously been included, i.e. is this a change?

Cheers.
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Us either and I don't know if it is a change. Just thought it was interesting
 
brp said:
We have never tried to use a FNC at a HGV property. Had they previously been included, i.e. is this a change?
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We never did either. I don't think they have been allowed, but not sure. Reasoning: TSs don't want people checking in for 1 night.
Now, example against that reasoning: we did use HH pts to book 1 night in HHV Tapa Tower, but Tapa is at least mostly, if not all "hotel" isn't it? If so, that tower is set up for daily housekeeping/changeovers.
With a FNC, I'd have prob booked the Embassy Suites anyway.
 
WaikikiFirst said:
We never did either. I don't think they have been allowed, but not sure. Reasoning: TSs don't want people checking in for 1 night.
Now, example against that reasoning: we did use HH pts to book 1 night in HHV Tapa Tower, but Tapa is at least mostly, if not all "hotel" isn't it? If so, that tower is set up for daily housekeeping/changeovers.
With a FNC, I'd have prob booked the Embassy Suites anyway.
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But, you can book a single night with them using cash or HH points via the Hilton site and, as far as I know, the property gets paid by corporate for FNCs.
 
HuskerATL said:
But, you can book a single night with them using cash or HH points via the Hilton site and, as far as I know, the property gets paid by corporate for FNCs.
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True, but I wonder if a HGVC would have a “standard room rate”. I honestly have never looked to see if FNCs could previously be used at HGVC properties.
 
GT75 said:
True, but I wonder if a HGVC would have a “standard room rate”. I honestly have never looked to see if FNCs could previously be used at HGVC properties.
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I haven't either but if you can book with HH points then it should be the same. They can just make them all "premium" versus excluding them.... Not that I would use a FNC for them anyway.
 
HuskerATL said:
But, you can book a single night with them using cash or HH points via the Hilton site
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Maybe this says it is not a change. I looked it up. I was wrong. We had an expiring FNC that we used for that 1 night in HHV last December. We got Tapa Tower.
HHV building designations can be hard to decipher on Hilton's site, but I'm pretty sure I have figured them out. When we booked that FNC, if any of the listings that I think are Kalia or Lagoon or Gr Islndr were available to choose, I'm pretty sure we would have chosen one of those instead of the more generic sounding listing that I chose. So, I think they were N/A, but :shrug:. FWIW.
unless there was something else about the listing that intrigued us? :shrug: cuz, it was only 1 night and I don't get bentoutofshape about 1 night as long as the location is right.
 
brp said:
We have never tried to use a FNC at a HGV property. Had they previously been included, i.e. is this a change?

Cheers.
Click to expand...
It’s not a change. At least not one in the last 5 years or so.
 
There are standard room awards available for HGV. Generally studios off season but I have seen some former Diamond properties at 1 bedroom. Here is SeaWorld and Grand Beach
 

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I agree, i think in the past it just said they were not valid a t HGV locations, so perhaps this is an improvement as not all HGV locations are listed. But I also did not look that closely in the past as we usually just use them for hotels we want to visit.
 
Jace said:
I acquired the Aspire and Surpass cards late last year in back to back apps which offered substantial sign-up bonuses. Additionally, spending on the Surpass card allowed me to earn 3 FNCs and 1 annual reward on the Aspire card. Recently, capping off an anmazing redemption with the help of 150k Amex MR points (300k HH) I’ve was able to secure two rooms (6 nights and 12 nights in total) for post Xmas December 27th, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll be skiing and snowboarding at the Park City Waldorf Astoria. The current room rates would result in a $26,000 cash purge for 2 King fireplace rooms. I’ve been diligently checking my Hilton site over the past couple of months, and I was ecstatic to see a standard award opportunity open up last week. I’ll consider this a well-earned rewar significantly offsetting the Aspire and Surpass annual fees.
Click to expand...
WA PC is our favorite rewards stay. We do every year around Presidents’ Day. Always saves 10s of thousands in cash value in ski season. Just have to snag early before the standard rooms get booked.
 
Adding on to this as this is the first time this has ever happened to me. I called to redeem 3 FNC and the rep said it had to be individual nights and not combined. I knew this wasn’t true because I have booked multiple nights before (last year at the WA PC using 5 certificates). So I decided to call for another rep and that rep said the same thing. So I pushed her to do it anyways and it went through. The rep acted shocked that it worked. Found it strange that two reps said this. Worth noting the terms say the certificates can be combined. I think the only issue is when the certificates are with different honors numbers, but we don’t have that issue since we share one through our timeshare ownership.
 
SNS02 said:
Adding on to this as this is the first time this has ever happened to me. I called to redeem 3 FNC and the rep said it had to be individual nights and not combined. I knew this wasn’t true because I have booked multiple nights before (last year at the WA PC using 5 certificates). So I decided to call for another rep and that rep said the same thing. So I pushed her to do it anyways and it went through. The rep acted shocked that it worked. Found it strange that two reps said this. Worth noting the terms say the certificates can be combined. I think the only issue is when the certificates are with different honors numbers, but we don’t have that issue since we share one through our timeshare ownership.
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We've done this, too. I think, technically, this is booked as individual nights and then the reservations are combined after-the-fact. But, even if you complied with that the agent said and had them book three separate, consecutive, nights, the hotel could treat them as a single reservation anyway. We've done this as well.

Cheers.
 
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