I know it's all subjective… But I'm curious to hear how everyone ranks the major hotel credit cards (or their top 5), based on the following criteria.
Assume a standard SUB (unless that just totally moves the needle).
- Perks
- Status
- Free night award(s)
- Points earning
- Maintainability (i.e., easy to keep year-after-year)
- Ease of use (e.g., hotel footprint, hoops to jump through to get value, etc.)
- Any other major factors
Rank the Best Hotel Credit Cards
byu/x_KRYPTOS inCreditCards
Posted by x_KRYPTOS
3 Comments
It depends on whether one prefers mid-tier value-oriented hotels or high-end aspirational experiences.
Personally I prefer the former group, I think the best hotel card is IHG premier > Hyatt WOH > Marriott Boundless > Hilton Surpass.
I assume people who prefer high-end aspirational experiences will rank Hilton Aspire and Chase Ritz-Carlton among the best.
I’m really interested to hear what others have to say 🙂
Here’s my ranking based on my habits:
1. Hilton Surpass – I use this as my gas/misc card to earn an FNC after hitting $15,000 in spend. Even with a poor Hilton cpp, the multipliers are decent and the FNC makes it worth using. For me personally, up to the 15k in spend, I come out ahead of using this card as a catch-all card when comparing against my Venture X. I also often stay at Hiltons, so the $50 quarterly credit is naturally easy to use.
2. Hilton Aspire – The FNC and airline credits are valuable, but the $200 semi-annual resort credit hasn’t always been easy to use. In this case, I’m not always offsetting the annual fee with the credits alone, and have to make the remaining difference worth it with the FNC and Diamond status. To be fair, this is fairly easy to do. For times when I do use the resort credits and redeem the FNC at a fantastic place, the Aspire ends up being an absolutely killer of a hotel card.
3. IHG Premier – Disclaimer that I don’t actually have this card but am aiming to. In the places I intend to travel, I’ve been able to find decent places to stay that are redeemable with the annual 40k FNC. Combining that with a low annual fee, $50 United travel bank credit, and the ability to get a 4th night free on rewards stay makes this super interesting to me.
4. Bonvoy Boundless – I use this when I need to do a quick cheap stay somewhere. I don’t think the FNC is really as good and easy to use as the IHG Premier, but the 35k FNC still puts me ahead of the low annual fee. Technically, I think the World of Hyatt card is higher value and easier to use, but my Platinum status makes staying at Marriott a bit more favorable.
5. World of Hyatt – The Cat 4 FNC is quite decent and I would argue has higher value and ease of use when compared to the Boundless. The only thing really that holds me back from placing this higher is I don’t often “willingly” choose to stay at Hyatts except when redeeming UR/Bilt points.
6. Bonvoy Brilliant – Platinum status has technically been better than Hilton Diamond in my case. The credits alone though won’t offset the annual fee, so the 85k FNC and Platinum status need to make up for the difference. While this is fairly easy to achieve, I don’t get the feeling I’m getting crazy value as my Aspire does.
For me the Amex Bonvoy brilliant is right up there.
$650 annual fee, but $25 restaurant credit every month takes care of $300 of that.
That restaurant credit can be used anywhere in the world at any time, so it’s simple to use, unlike Chase‘s dining credit which is only for specific restaurants, and Citibank’s restaurant bonus that is only certain times of certain days of the week.
Then you get one night free stay certificate up to 85,000 Bonvoy points which is pretty easy to use and recoup the rest of the $350.
The big bonus for me is getting automatic platinum status. I wouldn’t rank this card at number one if I already had platinum or higher from my own spend, but for those of us who wouldn’t have had platinum otherwise, it’s a huge benefit, automatically giving you lounge access etc. that a platinum gets which is fantastic, especially outside the United States.
Marriott has the most number of hotels around the world compared to Hilton and Hyatt, so it’s very convenient anywhere I travel.
An extra bonus is Priority Pass and a bunch of other things that I don’t use.
If you travel around the world and like this level of hotel and don’t have platinum Marriott status generically, this is a great card to get