The best hotel credit cards

Featured cards

All 21 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card — Best overall for a hotel cardholder: 7x on flights, $550 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
2. 2 Choice Privileges Select Mastercard — 5x on gas, $95 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
3. 3 World of Hyatt Credit Card — 2x on dining, $95 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
4. 4 Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card — Best for business spending: 5x on gas, $149 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
5. 5 Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card — 6x on dining, $150 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
6. 6 World of Hyatt Business Card — 2x on fitness, $199 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
7. 7 Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card — 4x on dining, $125 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
8. 8 Marriott Bonvoy Bevy American Express Card — 4x on dining, $250 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
9. 9 Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful™ Credit Card — 4x on groceries, $250 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
10. 10 Hilton Honors American Express Card — Best with no annual fee: 5x on dining, no annual fee — 2.5¢ back per dollar
11. 11 IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card — 5x on travel, $99 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
12. 12 IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card — 5x on travel, $99 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
13. 13 Wyndham Rewards Earner Plus Card — 4x on gas, $95 a year — 2.4¢ back per dollar
14. 14 Wyndham Rewards Earner Premier Card — 4x on dining, $395 a year — 2.4¢ back per dollar
15. 15 Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card — 3x on groceries, $95 a year — 2.1¢ back per dollar
16. 16 Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card — 3x on dining, $650 a year — 2.1¢ back per dollar
17. 17 Choice Privileges Mastercard — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 1.8¢ back per dollar
18. 18 Wyndham Rewards Earner Card — 3x on dining, no annual fee — 1.8¢ back per dollar
19. 19 IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card — 3x on dining, no annual fee — 1.5¢ back per dollar
20. 20 Hilton Honors American Express Business Card — 3x on everything else, $195 a year — 1.5¢ back per dollar
21. 21 Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card — 2x on groceries, no annual fee — 1.4¢ back per dollar

The ranking

What these actually pay on a year of dining

A rate is a promise about one dollar. This is the same ranking run over 145 real dining charges totalling $4,789 — our sample year — scored one charge at a time by the same engine the app uses on your own statement. Caps, category rules and point values all apply; nothing is annualised or rounded up.

On this spending the gap between top and bottom is $24 a year — the effective rate, after caps and point values, runs from 2.50% to 3.00%. Your own charges are what matter, and the app scores those rather than a sample.

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. Each card's strongest printed rate that pays ANYWHERE. The large multiplier these cards print at their own hotels is brand-locked — 14x at one chain is worth nothing at another — so it is shown beside the row, labelled, and never ranked.
• Conservative point value. That rate is multiplied by our conservative mid-range value for the currency it pays, which is why a hotel card printing a large multiplier can finish below a plain cash-back card. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free card in this pool is Hilton Honors American Express Card at 2.5¢ per dollar. We never net the fee out of the rate for you — whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a card's headline rate stops after a spending cap, that cap is on the card's own page and in the relevant category guide. This ranking uses the printed rate, so a heavily capped bonus should be checked against the cap before you act on it.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 21 of them are hotel co-brand cards and qualify. All 21 are ranked above — that is under the 24-card cutoff, so nothing was left off.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

The case for a hotel card is rarely its earn rate. It is usually the annual free-night certificate, the elite status it hands you, or the fifth-night-free on award stays — none of which is a rate, and none of which is ranked here. Each card's own page lists what it carries; the value of a free night depends entirely on the night you book.

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →