Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.If you haven’t checked out our coverage of the inaugural TPG Awards, take a minute to read up on the event, which included tributes to Captain Sully and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee, a performance by Bebe Rexha and the announcement of winners for awards for various airline, hotel and credit card categories. It was a celebration of all things travel and charitable giving — and a very fun night, to say the least.One of the many honors handed out that night was Best New/Refreshed Card of the Year, defined as a card launched or refreshed between Sept. 15, 2017 and Sept. 14, 2018. After the initial round of voting, TPG readers narrowed the finalists down to five options, and the one to win big at the Awards was the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card.It’s not hard to see what made the Aspire Card a winner: It offers top-tier Hilton Diamond status just for being a card holder; comes with up to $250 in annual statement credits for use at Hilton properties; earns 14x points on Hilton stays and more. It does have a $450 annual fee (See Rates & Fees), but if you’re able to put the card’s various statement credits and other benefits to use, it’s easy to recoup that.Here’s how the other four finalists in the Best New/Refreshed Card of the Year category stacked up in terms of number of reader votes, in descending order:Hilton Honors American Express Aspire CardStarwood Preferred Guest® American Express Luxury CardSouthwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit CardMarriott Rewards Premier Plus Credit CardThe World Of Hyatt Credit CardAs you can see, all the finalists are cobranded airline or hotel cards. One high-profile card launch of 2018, the American Express® Gold Card, is conspicuously missing from this list, but that’s because the card launched after the cutoff date, in early October.Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.For rates and fees of the Hilton Aspire Card, please click here.
