Questions and Answers

Is the Hilton HHonors SurpassCard from Amex a good deal, I mean you get at least 3X points on purchases. Also, should you use your credit card to pay big bills, like school tuition? Please Respond.

There are other cards that generally offer better return on spending than the Hilton AMEX. But, if you have an immediate need for Hilton points, then it could be worthwhile. Typically you’d be better off building a nice balance of transferrable points, but again, if you have an aspirational Hilton property you’re looking at, then it’s better.

Most tuition bills/mortgage payments/etc. charge a fee to pay with a credit card. If yours doesn’t, then yes, that’s a great way to build up points. Just be sure you can pay your bill off in full each month or the interest completely wipes out any benefit.

I’d recommend looking at Lucky’s valuations of points & miles before choosing a card. You can find that under the Start Here tab at the top of the page.

Yes, Surpass gets you 3x points everywhere (and more in certain categories) and gold status with Hilton. But the trade off is that rooms at Hiltons can cost quite a large number of points so in the end you might be better off accumulating a different type of points; it all depends on your travel patterns. One good thing about Hilton points is that unlike some hotel programs, you can redeem them for non-standard room types which is great if you want to redeem for a suite or even a 2BR unit.

Also, keep in mind that the Surpass card is an Amex and therefore not accepted as widely as Visa/MC. And it does impose foreign transaction fees should you use it abroad.

Accumulating points is great, but if you accumulate the wrong kind of points for your travel patterns, it doesn’t help you much in the long run. If you’d like, maybe you could share a bit about how you’d like to use your points and we can make some recommendations.