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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 (150)

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

  • Fraser says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:29

    Earnings seem on a par with other cards, assuming 0.33p per point = 1p per £1 in UK and 1.5p per £1 abroad. Is that on the total paid, or the ex-VAT price?

    So the question comes down to the fee, if you spend 5 nights as a couple or 10 nights solo in Hiltons for personal stays, it could work out well (assuming that your employer pays for breakfast on work stays).

    One area where people may come a cropper is using the debit card to pay for the stays, and then having a sizeable balance placed on reserve by the hotel (one reason I would always pay for the hotel on a credit card, not to mention S75, Amex Plat insurance etc).

    if you have an upcoming trip but no Gold, it might be worthwhile especially in locations where Gold is likely to get you bumped up to an Executive room.

    • John says:
      26 Sep26 September 13:07

      It should be on the amount charged to the card, they won’t know how much is taxes

    • Volker says:
      26 Sep26 September 19:44

      @Fraser At check-in, you could present your credit card and later pay by debit card when checking out. The hotel would pre-authorise your credit card with no impact on your available current account balance at that point.

    • Lady London says:
      27 Sep27 September 15:10

      Unless you’re booking a pre–pay rate you can always use credit card to guarantee the hotel on booking and checkin, then to beat Hilton’s habit of charging your card overnight on your last night, pay at Reception on your last evening using the debit card. This avoids the credit hold being kept on your current sccount before you pay.

  • Sotirios Aligiannis says:
    26 Sep26 September 10:50

    As always in this game, every person is a separate case and every card may or may not be a fit for every person. Comments like “this is rubbish” translate as “this is rubbish TO ME”.

    From my point of view, the £150 annual fee covers the equivalent of £5016 spending in foreign currency. If one does spend at least that amount every year, then it makes sense. The outcome will be at least 15000 HH points, maybe more if there are Hilton stays abroad. It can add up quickly if one is staying in Hilton properties, considering the additional promos that HH runs all the time.

    Let’s compare it to Curve, which comes at £120 annually for the plan that gives £1000 monthly spend at 0% FX, to be comparable with the Hilton debit card. For the same £5000 annual spending, the return in miles/points would depend on which card is being used in Curve. I personally use a Barclaycard to earn avios, others may use something else. In the end of the day, there’s a small saving in the annual cost and that’s all about it.

    So, ask yourself if you’re staying in Hilton properties, and how often, and if you do spend at least £5K abroad, then it may be worth to gather some HH points.

    • Roy says:
      27 Sep27 September 15:03

      I’m not sure I understand your arithmetic. You’d have to spend £15,000 abroad (assuming non-Hilton spend) to break even – assuming you don’t value the gold status (perhaps because you already have Gold or higher).

      £15,000 spend will get you 45,000 Hilton Honors points, which at the HfP valuation of 0.33p per point means you’ve earned £150 worth of points.

      The free card is much worse, though. You have to spend £36,000 to break even – hence earning 72,000 points worth £240 – which will offset the £60 annual fee and the £180 you paid in foreign exchange fees on that £36,000 spend!

      • Roy says:
        27 Sep27 September 15:07

        For the free card, you’d be better off concentrating on UK spend – then you’d break even with only £18,000 spend.

        This is all ridiculous, though, unless you value the status.

  • JDB says:
    26 Sep26 September 10:58

    While the cards are of no interest to me, Currensea should be applauded for innovating in this space. A paid debit card gets round the prohibitive costs of funding a credit card operation. I’m sure Hilton and its owners will be delighted to have a card back on the market although putting such a cheap price on Gold might upset some. I imagine others will look closely at the concept.

    Where does this leave the Hilton Barclaycard? Does Hilton have exclusivity with Currensea?

  • Sandgrounder says:
    26 Sep26 September 11:13

    For anyone who needs quick status, it’s a great deal, you could easily make back the fee from breakfast on one stay. Ditto if you see a bargain buying and paying in points, because you get the 5 for 4 offer on redemption.
    It’s not for me as a plat holder, but it’s good to see this product on the market.

  • SIP says:
    26 Sep26 September 11:42

    As a diamond member, this doesn’t really impact me that much.
    But it does make it quite a simple decision to just get gold just for the breakfast, especially if you travel a bit across Asia (the hiltons and conrads are pretty good).
    What would be interesting is with easy access to become a gold member going foward, will there be a chance that Hilton devalues the benefits for Gold to remove breakfast or even just give credits for meals like they do in the US.

    • John says:
      26 Sep26 September 13:10

      Removing the free breakfast will be the end of my stays at Hilton (after I burn all my points)

      • JDB says:
        26 Sep26 September 13:56

        Is the free breakfast gained via membership/status actually ‘free’ though?! Don’t you first either need to stay for 40 nights/20 stays or have an expensive credit card or get this £150 breakfast season ticket. It appears to cost considerably more and oblige changing behaviour to get these ‘free’ breakfasts rather than just paying.

        Earning via status also doesn’t get you breakfast in arrears, you have to have a lot of breakfast free stays before they’ll open a tin of powdered egg for you.

        • SIP says:
          26 Sep26 September 22:01

          As I said..not all breakfast are built the same.
          My partner and I go through Asia very frequently and the diamond membership gets us very decent breakfast across places like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, even Australia. If gold gives access to the breakfast, 150 a year is well worth it. However, I have to admit in recent trips even in places like Fukuoka, it has become so crowded for Gold members that they have a special area for Diamonds with slightly better items…that said I still explore into the regular areas for food.
          For Europe, US and UK – I’d probably stay away from the breakfast, and in most cases the lounges – it’s not worth the time.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          26 Sep26 September 22:02

          They hand out gold status like confetti if you know how to get it

          My gold from Platinun lasted about 6 years before I had to reapply … cheap considering I held my first plat for less than 2 months paid c£90 and earned about 50k miles.

      • Neil says:
        27 Sep27 September 17:47

        Me too if they do that!

    • Rui N. says:
      26 Sep26 September 13:19

      Again, Gold has been pretty easy to get in the US for 15 years, and also in Germany and Japan (as reported here). This is not new!

      • Rui N. says:
        26 Sep26 September 13:44

        Also, in the US anyone using Bilt Rewards, a company allowing you to pay rent, can get Hilton Gold until the end of the year. TOTALLY FREE. Please do tell us how this niche debit card in the UK matters lol

  • jannis says:
    26 Sep26 September 14:26

    we need IHG card for Uk residents

    • DTR says:
      26 Sep26 September 15:43

      You may not like the earning rate but Virgin points convert 1:1 to IHG. So that’s one IHG reward point per pound on the free Virgin Atlantic Mastercard, and 1.5 on the paid card. Not that much worse than the 2 points we used to get from Curve…

      • BBbetter says:
        26 Sep26 September 15:45

        Can someone petition the uk govt to remove interchange caps as part of ‘Brexit freedoms’ ?

        • meta says:
          26 Sep26 September 16:50

          UK was the one that had the idea in the first place and lobbied extensively for it.

          • QFFlyer says:
            27 Sep27 September 14:13

            Makes sense, as I believe the UK always had higher overall credit card use per capita than elsewhere in Europe.

        • Roy says:
          26 Sep26 September 19:14

          Which would basically mean most of the country becoming poorer due to higher shop prices, with the beneficiaries being those emersed in the miles and points game who manage to get outside value. Even leaving aside the inflationary effect, it’s hard to see how the government would want this.

          Ok, it could perhaps be done with less impact by permitting shops to charge a credit card surcharge, but that’s still likely to be regressive and very unlikely to happen.

          • meta says:
            26 Sep26 September 19:49

            But where EU countries really poorer before the introduction of interchange caps? I don’t think so. Even some small shops that accept Amex have a limit of £10+ spend to be able to use. Some small shops in the UK still charge for small amounts if you want to use the card.

          • Kevin says:
            26 Sep26 September 21:30

            The interchange fee reforms from the EU basically made refusing a debit or credit card daft from a retailers perspective – cash is far more expensive to handle than card fees.

            There are a few niche cases like fx advances on a debit card where fees went up, but basically everyone was a winner- except Visa etc.

            High interchange fees are simplistically a wealth transfer from poor to rich – whilst I was a beneficiary, it is morally correct that it is now limited as it just got added to the shelf price for all.

          • QFFlyer says:
            27 Sep27 September 14:16

            Interchange caps were introduced here too (Australia), albeit at 0.8% not 0.3%, and annual fees are more widely accepted here too. Credit card surcharges are also fairly common in a lot of places, notably hotels (places like petrol, supermarkets, etc. absorb the cost, but there’s a decent proportion of retailers which don’t). I’m happy enough with that if it means I can get 100k points from a single credit card signup.

        • Paul says:
          29 Sep29 September 15:51

          That would suit me! However it would however have the effect of making using cards more expensive, which may not be seen as a good deal just to get points.

        • Paul says:
          4 Oct4 October 07:44

          Just what we need, another Brexit Benefit….not

      • DTR says:
        26 Sep26 September 19:10

        Creation* even

  • meta says:
    26 Sep26 September 16:51

    Only if you work for certain companies as the article you posted mentions.

  • Swiss Jim says:
    27 Sep27 September 10:42

    Now I’ve thought about it overnight, this is a licence to print HH points…

    • Dace says:
      27 Sep27 September 10:48

      How?

      • Swiss Jim says:
        27 Sep27 September 11:03

        Do you seriously think I’m going to answer that? Just requires some thought. Neither obvious nor that obscure.

    • Rob says:
      27 Sep27 September 11:12

      I’d be very surprised, given that Currensea have been running debit cards for 3 years or so now and have learnt all (?) the loopholes in that time.

      It’s not like the Miles & More payment card when the issuers didn’t have a clue and you could bung all your tax through it.

    • the_real_a says:
      28 Sep28 September 14:34

      They usually cap it with an annual spend limit. Having read the T&Cs they say its “personal” so who knows.

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