The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card review: Excellent hotel rewards for loyal business travelers

The Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card is the closest business hotel card competitor to the Hilton card. But the Hilton Honors Amex Business’ rewards structure has a higher flat rewards rate than the Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex card. But the Hilton card is slightly more expensive to keep in your wallet, since it has a $195 annual fee and the Marriott card has a $125 annual fee.

Even though the Hilton Honors Amex Business card can earn slightly more points, the Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex card earns more valuable points. Based on Bankrate’s latest valuations, Marriott points are worth 0.7 cents each, slightly more than Hilton. And the Marriott card comes with a free award night each year after your card renewal month, the value of that night is capped at 35,000 points. 

The Hilton card may be the better option if you want to earn more points with your spending, but the Marriott card might be the choice if you want to earn more valuable points. 

For no annual fee, The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express provides flat-rate 2X Membership Rewards points on your first $50,000 in purchases, then 1X points. These Amex points are more valuable and flexible, but you can also convert them to Hilton points if you want to redeem them for hotel stays. While its flat-rate rewards program doesn’t seem as lucrative as the Hilton Amex Business card’s on paper, it’s a great choice for business owners with startup expenses. However, the Blue Business Plus may not be the best fit for businesses that spend over the annual spending cap on rewards.

When deciding between these two cards, it’s important to evaluate your spending habits and goals. If your company is relatively new and you want to earn rewards on startup expenses, the Blue Business Plus is a great option with which you can to redeem rewards in various categories or transfer them to one of Amex’s many hotel and airline partners. If you want more flexibility in how you earn rewards and you value elite status benefits, the Hilton Honors American Express Business Card is a more prudent choice.

The Amex Business Gold can supplement your business spending and help you earn even more points that you can use toward travel and hotels. It earns 4X points on your top two eligible business expense categories on up to $150,000 in spending per year (then 1X points). And only your top two eligible categories will count toward the cap each billing cycle. Use the Hilton Honors American Express Business card for spending before you reach the cap, then use the Amex Business Gold for its eligible 4X categories.

Pair the Delta SkyMiles Gold Business American Express Card with the Hilton Honors Amex Business card to round out your travel rewards strategy. Cover your Hilton stays with points you earn with the Hilton card and cover your flights to your business destinations with points you earn with the Delta SkyMiles Gold Business Amex card.

People who frequently stay at Hilton properties will get the most value from this card. More stays help squeeze every bit of value from the card’s perks and benefits. 

Frequent business travelers will enjoy complimentary Gold status, which offers immediate benefits that can alleviate costs while on the road. 

Many of the card’s best perks, such as Diamond status, are locked behind high spending requirements. Business owners with higher spending needs can earn the top-end perks easily to boost the card’s ongoing value further.

The best business cards offer rewards in key business spending categories, so a primary factor in a business card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a business card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average small-business owner’s spending habits. In other words, we assess whether the card earns rewards at a high rate in the most popular business spending categories. 

We researched 10 key business spending categories including dining, gas, office supplies, travel, telecommunications, insurance and more to get a sense of the average small-business owner’s spending habits. We assumed an average annual spend of around $40,000 per year based on Bankrate survey data. 

Using this data, we are able to assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your business purchases — as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value.

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other business cards, factoring in the card’s annual fee.

The better these values, the higher its score will be, making it more worthy of inclusion in our list and increasing its potential ranking.

We also score business cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each business card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other business cards. This is because an intro APR on new purchases or balance transfers can be a lifesaver if you need to pay down debt, finance a large business purchase or free up cash flow. 

While intro APRs are not uncommon on business cards, they aren’t a given, so cards that offer this sort of payment flexibility will score higher in our card rating system.

Even more important to both a card’s score and its inclusion in our list, however, is how its annual fee influences its overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against those of other cards in the category when you subtract annual fees.

We rate each business card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on only a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to travel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. Top-tier perks include benefits like airport lounge access, travel credits, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs.

We give extra weight to perks especially useful or valuable for small-business owners, like being able to qualify with no personal guarantee, digital advertising credits, free employee cards and accounting perks.

American Express doesn’t disclose its credit score requirements, but applying with a good to excellent credit score (670 or higher FICO score or a 661 or higher VantageScore) will give you the best approval odds.

Yes, you can have personal and business credit cards attached to your Hilton loyalty number as long as the primary cardholder's name matches the name on the loyalty account.

Usually, business credit cards aren’t reported to your personal credit report, but a few exceptions exist, like your account being delinquent. Consider your personal credit history when determining creditworthiness.