10 Ways the Hilton Aspire Card Saved Us $1,755.96 at the Boca Beach Club
$1,755.96 in Value From a One Night Stay!
View of the Boca Beach Club, a Waldorf Astoria Resort.
To the Point
The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card comes with some insanely valuable benefits. The Points Passport took full advantage of all these perks this weekend at the Waldorf Astoria, Boca Beach Club and Boca Resort located in sunny and beautiful Boca Raton, Florida. Waldorf Astoria's are notoriously expensive and boujee, but we found a way to make this over $1,700 two day trip nearly free by using our travel hacking strategies. This strategy utilized and exploited the Hilton Aspire Card’s plethora of benefits, which you can read more about here in our full Hilton Aspire Card deep dive review. For a peek into our free stay check out the highlights story labeled “Boca Beach Club” on our Instagram.
1) The Free Weekend Night - Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card holders get one complimentary Annual Weekend Night stay simply for being a card member. This free night is booked at the rewards rate, which is generally one of the least expensive rooms offered. The entry level room without an ocean view or balcony was valued at $591.61, after resort charges and taxes. Fortunately, with the Free Weekend Night benefit, you don't pay any taxes or resort fees. Total value so far: $591.61.
2) The Room Upgrade - Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card holders are given complimentary Diamond Status for being a card member. Diamond Status rewards their elite status members with space-available upgrades. At check-in, we were upgraded to an ocean view room with a balcony, which is super exclusive at this resort, due to the very limited amount of balcony rooms. The ocean view room with a balcony without taxes or resort fees would cost $711.55. The price of this room upgrade was $119.94, bringing our total value to: $711.55.
View from our ocean view balcony.
3) Early Check-in and Late Check-out - Hilton Honors Diamond Status rewards members with an early check-in and late check-out dependent upon availability. Similar to the room upgrade perk, this perk may vary, which means you may get lucky and get one or the other. In our case, at the Boca Beach Club we got both! We arrived around 9:00 AM and received a text around 11:00 AM that our room was ready. Normal check in was listed at 4:00 PM, which is fairly standard for most hotels, but not for us. Even with our early arrival, the Boca Beach Club extended a warm welcome and offered us six complimentary drink vouchers and let us check our luggage into the lobby until our room was ready. This allowed us to enjoy a few complimentary drinks at the pool and kick off our stay. When the room was ready, we picked up our room keys at the front desk and our luggage was delivered within minutes. We were also offered a 4:00 PM check out the next day, without even asking. Normally, check-out time is at noon, which is still better than the 11:00 AM industry standard checkout. To calculate the value of this perk we assessed each additional hour we received at $35.55/hour, here’s how: The total room cost would've been $711.55 from 4:00 PM to 12:00 AM the next day, which is 20 hrs. That's $35.57/hour. We multiplied this hourly rate by the extended hours, which were 5 hours for early check-in and 4 hours for late check-out which equaled to an additional 9 hours total.
$35.57/hour x 9 hours = $320.13
Based on this hourly rate, early check-in and late check-out brought us an additional $320.13 in value making our total value so far: $1,031.68.
4) $250 Hilton Credit - The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card provides you with a $250 Hilton Statement Credit that’s applied to your account after you charge anything to your room at most Hilton properties. This credit can include charges at property restaurants, bars, the spa or other establishments. Make sure that your property is included in this list to be eligible for the credit. At the Boca Beach Club we took advantage of this credit by purchasing a few drinks, two lunches, and a very fine lobster dinner at The Blue, located at the highest point in Boca Raton, Florida. Using this entire Hilton Credit added $250 in value to our stay. Here is a list of all the available restaurants on property. Total value so far: $1,281.68.
5) Complimentary Breakfast - Hilton Honors Diamond Status comes with complimentary breakfast for every night you stay. Diamond Status members had the option of two Boca Beach Club restaurants to enjoy breakfast at. We decided on the SeaGrille because it was right downstairs and had a beautiful beach view. This was not your typical buffet or continental breakfast. SeaGrille had a chef making omelets, pancakes, and French toast fresh to order. They had multiple fruit stations with exotic fruits like mango, passion fruit and papaya. There was oatmeal, chia seed pudding, and parfaits with all the mixings you can imagine. They had every bagel and cream cheese variety you could think of as well as loads of different cheeses, meats, pastries, breads and croissants. There was also a huge selection of hot plates such as warm cinnamon buns, sausages, bacon, eggs benedict, hash browns and more. It's safe to say we were very happily full after this breakfast. The normal pricing for this breakfast was $35 a person. So for a party of two we gained an extra $70 in value. If you were staying multiple nights you can see how this complimentary breakfast benefit's value would multiply fast. Total value so far: $1,351.68.
6) Coffee Vouchers - At check-in we were given two $15 vouchers for the lobby coffee bar. These vouchers were included in our Diamond welcome envelope. This lobby coffee bar also had other snacks, fruit, soft drinks, and pastries. We used our vouchers to purchase four very strong espresso lattes spanning over two days. This supplied us with lots of energy and also $30 more in value. Total value so far $1,381.68.
Sunrise from one of the five resort pools.
7) Premium Water Vouchers - At check-in we were given two premium still water vouchers. These also came in our Diamond welcome envelope. They had free water bottles in the lobby as most resorts would, but the two big $9 Evian bottles in the room's private bar came in handy after a few date night mojitos! The two Evian bottles, valued at $18 brought the total value to $1,399.68.
8) Free Drink Vouchers - As mentioned above,at check-in we were given six complimentary drink vouchers in our Diamond welcome envelope. Each voucher was good for one glass of house wine, beer, soda, coffee or tea. It was nice to see there was a wide selection of drink options including non-alcohol choices for people who don't drink. We traded our vouchers for Corona's, which would have cost us $9 each. The six Corona's we ordered helped us relax and bask in the warm Florida sun, while bringing an additional $54 in value. These beers brought our total value to $1,453.68.
9) Flowrider Vouchers - At check-in we were given two complimentary Flowrider day passes. The Flowrider is a standing wave machine that you can surf on! These two passes came in our Diamond welcome envelope. Obviously these vouchers are very property specific so depending on the property you are staying at this will certainly vary. A normal Flowrider day pass costs $95 and we were given two. These Flowrider day passes added $190 in value and brought our total value to $1,643.68.
10) Earning Hilton Honors Points - The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card earns a huge 14x Hilton Honors Points from American Express for every $1 spent at a Hilton property. On top of that, Hilton Honors Diamond Status earns 20x Hilton Honors Points. This means you’re earning a total of 34x Hilton Honors Points at Hilton properties because of your Aspire Card and the complimentary Diamond status it comes with. We ended up spending $354, and fortunately the $250 Hilton Credit will take care of the majority of that cost. By putting $354 in charges on the Hilton Aspire Card, we earned 7,080 Hilton Honors Points from Hilton Honors and the 20x multiplier. We will not earn points from American Express on the $250 Hilton Statement Credit. But we will earned 14x Hilton Honors Points from American Express, on the extra $104 we spent, which equals 1,456 HH. We also received several promotional points including a 2500 HH courtesy welcome bonus, 2000 HH from a multi stay bonus, and 1000 HH from a Diamond Status benefit, which equated to 5500 extra promotional Hilton Honors Points. The grand total of points earned from our free night stay was 14,036 HH. Points Passport values Hilton Honors Points at $0.008 cents per point, so if we multiple our 14,036 HH x 0.008 we get $112.28 in points value earned on our stay. This brings our total value to $1,755.96.
Grand Total: $1,755.96
The Final Point
From the complementary ocean view balcony room upgrade, the Flowrider surfing vouchers,to the deliciously buttery lobster dinner that was covered by our $250 Hilton credit, we couldn’t have asked for a more luxurious and quintessential South Florida vacation. By using our travel hacking strategies, combined with the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire card, we were able to realize a total value of $1,755.96 from one stay. Of course, we have to factor in the $450 annual fee for this card, so even after subtracting that from our grand total, we still received $1,305.96 in value from this card. This obviously does not include the 150,000 Hilton Honors Point sign up bonus either, which we value at $1,200. For us, the experience of the stay and the value from the Hilton Aspire Card more than made up for the annual fee. If you want to experience luxury travel like this while saving money, check out our in-depth review of the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Card.
Keep in mind that all of these status perks and benefits are based on property availability and discretion of hotel staff. This article reflects Points Passport's experience, and your mileage my vary.