IHG premier select v Hilton Aspire v Marriott Brilliant
With the coming of IHG premier select, I thought to have a thread on discussion of the three premium hotel cards. I will start with the following.
Brilliant is the easiest to maintain and the most expensive among the three. At $650 AF, it gives $25 monthly food credits, PP lounge access and a FNC at maximum 85k pts. It worked out to be $350 for being Platinum membership, one premium FNC and PP access. There is no spending requirements to get these benefits.
Hilton Aspire needs some work to get the $400 resort credits, but it carries solid value. At $550, it gives two $200 resort credits and one FNC without cap for standard room booking. It worked out to be $150 (minimum) for being diamond membership and one premium FNC. The resort credits have limitations so their use is not guaranteed from year to year. If one spends $30k in a year, they get another FNC, then one more for another $30k in spending. However, one needs another card in order to get PP access.
Now the IHG Select! At $350, it’s the cheapest premium card among them. It gives $200 flight credits and $75 quarterly hotel food credits and a FNC capped at 60k pts. It worked out to be less than $150 for a FNC. But it only gives Diamond status after $25k in spending. At this point one also gets 20k bonus points for spending over $15k. This card becomes the most rewarding card at $25k spending before using the annual FNC.
Also, it is a Mastercard. However, IHG has the smallest footing among the three, and you need another card for PP access.