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I’m still going over the news that happened while I was offline this week.
AMEX scored a victory over Citi by landing exclusivity for Hilton credit cards starting in 2018. Hopefully we’ll see some increased Citi Hilton offers before the end of the year, but the future of existing cards is still up in the air. They may remain Hilton cards, they may convert into another Citi card, or it may become an AMEX Hilton card.
AMEX couldn’t afford to lose another co-brand card after losing Costco to Citi and JetBlue to Barclays, so it’s no surprise that they outbid Citi to win the Hilton account.
Citi however is left without any hotel co-brand card and they don’t even have exclusivity with American. They’ve devalued their premium cards and seem to be heading in the opposite direction while AMEX and Chase fight for mileage card dominance.
The real question on everyone’s mind is the future of the Starwood AMEX. Hilton is a small player in the co-brand card market, but the SPG card has long offered an excellent value on everyday spending thanks to the plethora of redemptions and transfer options that Starwood has.
Chase has a strong relationship with Marriott with several card offerings, it will be tough for AMEX to win that account unless Marriott decides to keep the Starwood and Marriott programs separate. But that will be a long shot. Of course AMEX could always outbid Chase if they feel the need to maintain their co-brand cards as losing Starwood will be a bigger loss for AMEX than losing Marriott would be for Chase.
We should know the future of the AMEX-Chase battle for Marriott/Starwood by the end of this year.
Of course with lucrative bank cards like Blue Business Plus and Sapphire Reserve, perhaps co-branded cards are not as important as they used to be?
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12 Comments On "Goodbye To The Citi Hilton Cards, But We All Want To Know What Will Happen With Starwood/Marriott"
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Do you know if Citi will honor the free night certificate for $10k in spend if the card anniversary is after 12/31? My card anniversary and annual fee come due in March. I plan to meet the 10k spend for the free night by March, but not necessarily by 12/31? Can I still get the free night?
@dave:
Those details need to be negotiated and should trickle out over the coming months.
Dan my spg annual fee popped up, when I called in to close that card, the rep. Offered me 10,000 points to keep the card open, which I accepted. the bonus points are already posted in my account. Do you think its safe to close my account now , or it might cause me trouble?
@Davidthebest:
Why close it?
10K Starpoints is worth much more than the fee and you can always see what happens next year.
Any idea on how long we have to apply for the citi Hilton cards?
@J:
Should be offered until the end of 2017.
Chase will win out.
@dan
I think davidthebest was asking if he should close the card and get his annual fee back with keeping the 10,000 points. He doesnt need the card and is happy to have 10,000 free points.
Does Citi let you transfer credit lines from one card to another
@Jew:
Exactly. I tried to add that a response comment but no clue why the system wouldn’t let it thru.
Hi Dan,
Thank you for the great content! I am educating myself by reading your posts. I would like
To start accumulating some mileage and/or points using different credit card offers. I also have small business. Can you advise on the best way to get max benefits out of all current offers?
I do have timeshare ownership with Marriott . Thank you very much!
Has anything changed regarding the AMEX SPG card? Have they decided what card or program is being kept?