Amex Hilton Surpass 75k Upgrade Offer – No Lifetime Clause

I just upgraded my no-fee Amex Hilton card to a Surpass, with 75,000 bonus Hilton points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.  Annual fee is $75.  My offer did not have a “once in a lifetime” clause, meaning I can get the bonus even if I’ve had a Surpass card before.

There are two ways to check if you’re targeted:

1. Go to the official Surpass card page.  Login to your Amex account before going there, and if targeted, you’ll see the offer (screenshot below).  However, it doesn’t seem to load the upgrade offer every time, so try a few times and also with incognito window.
2. Login to https://www.americanexpress.com.  Don’t use an old version of the site.  In the current website, go to your no-fee Hilton card and look for a message on the “Home” page saying something like “upgrade offer 75k, click for more”.  Note, I couldn’t get this message to show up on subsequent logins, but method #1 still worked.

Important: Make sure you carefully read the terms & conditions (T&C) of your offer.  Per Flyertalk, some past offers did contain the “Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have or have had this product” language.

This is at least the 3rd time this year that we’ve seen an upgrade offer from the no-fee Hilton card to Surpass.  The first 2 times, in March and September, the offer was higher @ 100k.  With Surpass being converted to Ascend in January 2018, there’s not much time left for Surpass offers, so rather than waiting for a higher upgrade offer in the one month left, I opted for 75k (also the public offer for new application).  Of course, it’s very possible there will be upgrade offers for Ascend after January.  Whether to upgrade now depends on your speculation of the future.  Importantly, if you upgrade to Surpass now, you won’t be eligible for a signup bonus on Ascend – if there is one, since Surpass will automatically convert to Ascend.  Both Doctor of Credit and Frequent Miler lean towards the “no signup bonus for Surpass holders” speculation, i.e. they speculate Ascend will be considered the same product as Surpass.  My upgrade is predicated on this speculation.

It goes without saying that upgrading to Surpass disqualifies you from getting a signup bonus on that card in the (one month left) future.  If you’ve never had the Surpass, the current best offer that I am aware of is 90k – see this US Credit Card Guide article.  Of course, you’ll have to speculate whether there will be a higher bonus with the new Ascend, or even within the month left of Surpass.

Are you targeted for this upgrade offer, and will you go for it?