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The new Hilton Honors payment cards are here! What are the benefits?

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Hilton Honors has launched two new Mastercard payment cards.

And, very interestingly, they are DEBIT cards and not credit cards.

You can see full details of the new Hilton Honors debit cards, and apply, by clicking here.

Even if you have the (closed to new applicants) Hilton Honors Barclaycard or another debit card issued by Currensea, who is behind this card, you can still apply for these new Hilton Honors debit cards and receive the sign-up bonus.

Hilton Honors debit cards

This is a two-part article.  This part is basically ‘the facts’.  The second part, also published today, is a Q&A piece.

Here are the key features of the new Hilton debit cards

  • You can choose between the Hilton Honors Debit Card (£60 annual fee) and the Hilton Honors Plus Debit Card (£150 annual fee)
  • The cards are linked to your existing current account – virtually all UK banks participate – and transactions are charged to it in the same way as if you used your normal bank debit card
  • Both cards come with a sign-up bonus, which is triggered by FX spend
  • Both cards come with instant Hilton Honors status – Silver Elite for the £60 card and Gold Elite for the £150 card
  • Status is NOT a one year offer – you will retain your Hilton Honors status for as long as you retain your debit card
  • These cards are aimed at foreign spending and have far better FX rates than all travel rewards credit cards – 0.5% FX fee on the £60 card and 0% FX fee on the £150 card
  • You earn points on both domestic and foreign currency spend, with a far higher rate for FX spending and Hilton spending
  • Because the cards are debit cards, you will be accepted irrespective of the number of credit cards you hold or your income or employment status – these cards are for everyone. You will need to hold a UK current account with a participating bank and pass a ‘soft’ credit check for ID purposes.

Let’s look at the two cards in detail.

Hilton Honors Plus Debit Card

The premium card – Hilton Honors Plus Debit Card

Unlike most of our card content, I don’t need to quote an APR interest rate because there isn’t one. This is a debit card, with the money taken straight from your existing bank current account.

As you can see from the picture above, it’s a minimalist design – although in reality it is vertical rather than horizontal as we show. All of your personal information is on the back.

This is what you get (full details are on the application website here):

  • £150 annual fee
  • Gold status in Hilton Honors for as long as you hold the card
  • 0% FX fees when spending in foreign currency
  • 1.5 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in the UK
  • 3 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in Hilton properties in the UK
  • 3 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in foreign currency
  • 4.5 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in Hilton properties outside the UK

There is a sign-up bonus of 12,000 Hilton Honors points if you apply by 30th November 2024. You need to spend £2,500 in foreign currency in your first six months to receive the bonus.

You can apply for the Hilton Honors Plus Debit Card here.

Hilton Honors Debit Card

The basic card – Hilton Honors Debit Card

Again, unlike most of our card content, I don’t need to quote an APR interest rate because there isn’t one. This is a debit card, with the money taken straight from your existing bank current account.

This is what you get (full details are on the application website here):

  • £60 annual fee
  • Silver status in Hilton Honors for as long as you hold the card
  • 0.5% FX fees when spending in foreign currency
  • 1 Hilton Honors point per £1 spent in the UK
  • 2 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in Hilton properties in the UK
  • 2 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in foreign currency
  • 3 Hilton Honors points per £1 spent in Hilton properties outside the UK

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,500 Hilton Honors points if you apply by 30th November 2024. You need to spend £1,000 in foreign currency in your first six months to receive the bonus.

You can apply for the Hilton Honors Debit Card here.

Hilton Honors elite status cards

What benefits do I get with the elite status I receive?

Hilton Honors covers 8,000+ hotels globally under 24 main brands – Waldorf Astoria, LXR, Conrad, Hilton, Hilton Grand Vacation, Embassy Suites, DoubleTree, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, Hampton Inn, Canopy, Curio, Tru, Tapestry Collection and Home2Suites.  New brands include Signia (convention focused), Tempo, Spark (economy), LivSmart (budget extended stay) and Motto (group focused).

There are three levels of elite status in the Hilton Honors programme. Of the two status levels which you can receive from taking out a Hilton Honors debit card:

Gold

  • Status is kept for as long as you hold the debit card
  • Gold usually requires 20 stays or 40 nights or $7,500 of pre-tax spending in a calendar year
  • Key bonus are an 80% bonus on base points on every stay, ‘preferred’ room of some sort (often just a higher floor or better view, not necessarily next category up), free breakfast for two people (or a cash credit towards any food or drink spend in the US)

Silver

  • Status is kept for as long as you hold the debit card
  • Silver usually requires 4 stays or 10 nights in a calendar year
  • Key bonus are a 20% bonus on base points on every stay, free bottled water at most Hilton brands and eligibility for ‘5 nights for the points of 4’ when redeeming

For clarity, you are given the status directly and do NOT receive the equivalent number of elite nights.

This means that if you receive Silver status you will still need to do the full 20 stays or 40 nights or $7,500 of pre-tax spending to become Gold.

Similarly, if you receive Gold status you will still need to do the full 30 stays or 60 nights or $12,000 of pre-tax spending to become Diamond.

In Part 2 ….

What I have written above are the ‘hard facts’ about the new Hilton Honors debit cards.  In Part 2 – click here – we’ll look at the pros and cons and try to anticipate some of your questions.

You can learn more about both cards, and apply, via this special Hilton Honors / Currensea website here.

Category

Hilton Honors, Hilton Honors Mastercard

Comments (153)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
    26 Sep26 September 04:26

    This might do quite well for them. The points game isn’t for everyone and even less so when credit cards get involved. It’ll be a simpler concept for some to grasp.

    They ought expand it to Ireland, where the government stamp duty on debit cards is much lower than on credit cards. Most of the spending will be GBP and EUR so will it matter much what direction the spend is (It’s after 4am so far too tired to work out that logic)

    • executiveclubber says:
      26 Sep26 September 06:15

      plus ALL that real estate to advertise the cards in… site, in-room, reception, confirmation emails… should be a slam dunk really

  • Alex G says:
    26 Sep26 September 04:40

    On an Android phone, your link is directing me to the Google Play Store to download the app.

    The website is at https://hiltonhonorsdebitcard.currensea.co.uk/

  • Paul says:
    26 Sep26 September 05:13

    How does this work with HMRC payments as it’s a debit card.

    • Alex G says:
      26 Sep26 September 05:18

      See the website:-

      “Points cannot be earned on the following transactions:

      UK or European taxes (e.g., HMRC, council tax)
      Rent or mortgage payments
      Card fees
      ATM cash withdrawals
      Financial product payments
      Cash recycling schemes
      Educational fees
      Cash advances disguised as purchases
      Transactions with retailers controlled by the cardholder”

      • Paul says:
        26 Sep26 September 05:29

        That’s a shame, I would have pounded it… so may as well stick with my old Hilton card Andy curve card.

      • Erico1875 says:
        26 Sep26 September 06:30

        Those are the only transaction types I would use my debit card for so pretty pointless for me,

      • NFH says:
        26 Sep26 September 19:09

        What is Currensea’s rationale for removing the incentive to use the card for these types of transactions? Instead of making a profit on all transactions from interchange fees etc, is Currensea making a loss on all transactions which is subsidised by the annual fee?

        Nevertheless it’s nice finally to see an article here about Currensea that is genuinely relevant to Head for POINTS readers!

        • Rob says:
          26 Sep26 September 19:20

          Interchange is 0.2% on debit cards so unless you think Hilton is selling points for 0.2p then the answer is pretty obvious.

        • Roy says:
          26 Sep26 September 19:31

          Well, we don’t know exactly how much Currensea is buying the Hilton points for, but even on the free card they are giving out 1 point per £ on domestic transactions, which (using the HfP valuation of 0.33p per point) is a return of 0.33% on spend. Given they receive interchange fees of 0.2% on debit card transactions, it’s quite possible they’re making a small loss even on those transactions.

          • QFFlyer says:
            27 Sep27 September 14:21

            Indeed, but I’m guessing they’re hedging their bets on the bulk of transactions being overseas, where they can charge higher swipe fees.

      • Sam says:
        3 Oct3 October 11:21

        Precisely why this this card is a waste of time to anyone apart from those who want Hilton Gold status on the cheap.
        As a Diamond I would have considered it if I could put my monthly amex bill on it (to boost point earnings on top of stays) but otherwise this product has nothing going for it.

  • BJ says:
    26 Sep26 September 05:16

    Haha, I was right all along but I didn’t think for a moment they would be debit cards 🙂

  • Rui N. says:
    26 Sep26 September 06:23

    How exactly do you easily get status without paying for it with a card?

    • BJ says:
      26 Sep26 September 07:11

      Comes with amex Platinum which you might pay for for other benefits. You can complete the required stays which these cards would be pretty ‘poibtless’ were you not staying that often anyway. You can do a match/challenge which you can try you luck requesting anytime, no need to wait for the formal promotion. You can be gifted status by top tier elites. You can do mattress runs to help you along the although I think these are a bit daft too in that everybidy should be able to make a hotel stay for one good reason or another.

      • John says:
        26 Sep26 September 12:59

        Well you can get gold with 20 one night stays but now you can pay £150 and get gold even if you have one stay of 20 nights.

  • AndyW says:
    26 Sep26 September 06:34

    I was hoping this new card was going to be interesting, given I am half way through my Amex break, but poor ongoing earning rate and a low signup bonus, I don’t really see anything here.

  • Dominic says:
    26 Sep26 September 06:41

    Would be interested to know if the educational fees clause prevents earnings on Student Loan repayments…

    Rapidly clearing mine with around 35k left… would be a useful tool if it somehow didn’t count this

    • Paul says:
      26 Sep26 September 06:48

      Big piece on Radio 4 yesterday. Bottom line is that unless you have very significant earnings student loans should be ignored. In part because it falls away after 30 years (now 40 years for new students)

      • Dominic says:
        26 Sep26 September 07:00

        Fortunately/unfortunately, I fall into that bracket. Would be repaid within 12 years using conservative salary increases (I wouldn’t call my earnings very significant… but relatively decent).

      • JDB says:
        26 Sep26 September 08:17

        @Paul – I wonder if you understood what was being said or understand the mechanics. You can’t exactly ‘ignore’ student loans when repayments are automatically taken out of your salary from a very low threshold – c. 20% above minimum wage. I would hope most HfP readers and their children are a bit more ambitious.

        • Callum says:
          26 Sep26 September 09:43

          I know it means you don’t necessarily fit in with the “in crowd” here if so, but not all of us measure success in terms of wealth…

  • Paul says:
    26 Sep26 September 06:45

    Underwhelming and very disappointing. Can’t imagine who the focus group was that thought that paying £160 for a debit card, with all its attendant issues was good idea!

    What protection is offered by debit cards. S75 for example?

    • Rui N. says:
      26 Sep26 September 06:52

      Because it offers Gold status, is not that deep. Most people have no freaking clue about what S75 is, and being a debit card is also quite attractive for a lot of people. Get out of your bubble.

      • Sam says:
        26 Sep26 September 06:58

        That’s not necessarily a good thing – you’ll literally have every single person in a queue waiting to check in to a room with either Hilton gold or diamond status – it’s saturated enough as it is!

        • NorthernLass says:
          26 Sep26 September 07:15

          I don’t think it will have that effect. The vast majority of people baulk at paying a fee for a credit card, and they’ll think it’s doubly bonkers to pay one for a debit card which doesn’t even offer a credit facility.

          I don’t seem to see loads of golds & diamonds in the U.K. and Europe anyway, I think those numbers are driven across the pond.

        • DarrenS says:
          26 Sep26 September 09:50

          I don’t think that most people in the queue have any status at all, as they use OTAs. I would be interested in any Stats.

          • JDB says:
            26 Sep26 September 10:22

            @DarrenS – if you go presentations by the big chains trying to attract owners, there’s a lot of guff about loyalty and the system booking channel but Marriott is the only one claiming over 50%. It’s a source of considerable tension between hotel owners and the big brands. OTAs spend much bigger bucks marketing/advertising as can be seen at big global events or internet searches. Easier for OTAs when you don’t have such a plethora of brands.

          • Rob says:
            26 Sep26 September 11:00

            There was an interesting piece of research done by one of the big consultancies recently on hotel branding.

            Bottom line – independent hotels have higher gross margins than branded hotels because they are not paying any chain fees. However, branded hotels have higher net margins because they have very low direct marketing costs – no big sales team, fewer OTA commissions to pay etc.

          • John says:
            26 Sep26 September 13:02

            I glance at the breakfast lists and sometimes I can see how many G/D there are. In the UK it seems to be usually less than 20%

      • Matt says:
        26 Sep26 September 06:59

        Would the kind of person that doesn’t know that S75 is contemplate spending £150 on a debit card? I’m not sure 🤔

        • Novice says:
          26 Sep26 September 10:43

          S75 doesn’t automatically mean it’s to the benefit of you. I am currently in a dispute with Amex over a product was sold to me which when received I don’t believe matches what I was expecting. So I got a partial refund for returning but want a full refund and Amex seem to be siding with the company.

          It was my first S75 ever and I am not impressed. I thought as long as you have sufficient proof and explain your issues then it is a definite refund.

          • The Savage Squirrel says:
            26 Sep26 September 10:55

            I frickin loved S75 when Maxjet went bust….

          • NFH says:
            27 Sep27 September 07:14

            I’ve made many Section 75 claims to American Express, and they mostly agree with me. You need to prove either breach of contract or misrepresentation. To achieve this, it can help if you refer to contractual terms and/or parts of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that create contractual terms such as Section 49 (for services) and Section 50.

            A credit card issuer has little incentive to turn down a Section 75 claim for a merchant that is still trading, because it has the right under Section 75(2) to recover the amount from the merchant.

      • BJ says:
        26 Sep26 September 07:20

        Take the £150 off Pkatinum and work the benefits, you’ll get your Gold status and a whole lot more besides. And you just need to do it for a year (or less while fee refunds persist); I’m saying no more but no doubt somebody will feel the need to shout it from the riiftops.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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