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The Offer
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- You can currently receive a 40% transfer bonus when you transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors points. Normally you can transfer 1,000 MR points and receive 2,000 Hilton Honors points, during this promotion you’ll receive 2,800 Hilton instead (1:2.8)
The Fine Print
- Valid through June 15, 2021.
Our Verdict
Previous transfer bonuses have been:
- December 2nd, 2020 – January 31st, 2021: 40% transfer bonus
- August 3rd – October 31st, 2020: 40% transfer bonus
- February 4th, 2019 – Unknown: YMMV deal for 10-50% transfer bonus
- September 27th – November 30th: YMMV deal for 30-50% transfer bonus
- January 2nd, 2018: Transfer rate increased permanently from 1:1.5 to 1:2
- October 24th – December 15th, 2017: 33% transfer bonus
Even with a 40% transfer bonus I don’t think this is worth doing as I find Membership Rewards more valuable than Hilton points (even at the 1:2.8 rate). You can find more transfer bonuses here.
Question for the travel experts. I have 80,000 AMEX points, should I transfer to Hilton (for the bonus) and then redeem Hilton points for airline travel? Or should I transfer the AMEX points directly to an airline? Trying to fly from Kansas to Hawaii, thanks
This is a really good offer if you’re leveraging a resort like the grand wailea for 5 nights its 76k avg per night for an 800-900 dollar a night room thats 28k amex points which is huge value redemption
I’ve been wondering what to do with my 100,000 Amex points. I have roughly 250k Hilton Points already. This would knock me over 500k where I feel like I could get something / do something really nice. Please advise if I would be mistaken to do this or if I should as I am new to this. Thank you.
I would NOT do that unless you have a particular redemption in mind that you can book right away.
The big value in Amex points is the flexibility to transfer to different programs. I generally find that transferring to airline rewards programs for flight redemptions yields much better value than transferring to hotel programs.
Understood. It just seems like such a simple setup. I guess I could always get another Hilton Sign up bonus. Those amex points are burning a hole in my pocket because their redemption value is so poor for non-travel items. I guess I do have until June 15th for this deal though so I can use that time to see what else comes available. Thank you.
Maybe you’ll want to transfer some to airlines and some to Hilton, the most common advice I see is to wait to transfer the exact number of points needed until you are ready to commit to the trip.
Last time when the same offer was available, I checked using my Hilton honor account that I could easily get 1.5 cent per MR point, due to no tax on award redemption. 5th night free will increase the value even more.
I agree! The 5th night free and no tax or resort fee, I have gotten close to 3 cent per point MR on some of my stays. When I stay at waldorf astoria espacllay with 40% bonus.
Hot Take, but transfering to hilton when this promo or the 1:3 promo is available is my favorite use for MR points. Between 5th night free and no resort fees I typically am able to get at a minimum .8 cpp with hilton which makes these bonuses really valuable.
On top of that, I’d rather take a cheap flight to an expensive hotel vs an expesnive flight to a cheap hotel so hotel points mean more to me from a savings perspective.
Well said. Loved your analogy.
If Hilton points are so valuable then you shd use only Amex Hilton which earns higher points then MR earning cards per dollar.
Hilton point valuations are incredibly complicated. There are lots of situations where if you book early you can get extreme values for special events and certain vacation destination.
A few years ago, I booked two nights at a 40,000/night hotel that had a $499/night rate (before tax) due to a citywide special event. Taxes would have pushed the cash price up to over $560/night. That was $0.014/Hilton point (and would be $0.039/MR point under this transfer bonus).
Of course, these extreme deals aren’t that frequent; however, lots of people see similar deals across all hotel programs for events like college football weekends, college graduations, high interest beach destinations (e.g., Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend), etc.
With 5th night free, I’m able to achieve between $0.016-$0.018/MR point for certain beach destinations. I’m even able to achieve up to $0.039/MR point for midweek stays at one beach hotel — while it’s a nicer hotel, it’s not worth burning up MR points at that rate.
With Hilton card Highest bonus is 7x for groceries/dining; Gold card gets 4x on those. 4 x 2.8 = 11.2x (and up to 12 with a 50% bonus).
Everyday spend is 3x on Hilton, this barely gets below that, but worth considering for those who would take this to the extreme. But also only works for anyone who uses Amex for everyday spend which I certainly don’t qualify for.
This calculation makes sense given there is higher transfer rate and you are notified by DoC.
I agree new Gold card has better earning rate (that is why I am getting one this week) but before that it did not make any sense to use charge cards to earn Hilton points.
I think MRs URs have best value when used for international business class flights, which costs 3 to 7 thousand dollars.
7X Dining/Select travel on Aspire. No groceries.
Using transfer rate w/ 40% bonus: 2.8:1
For base spend
BBP – 2MR/$ or 5.6HH/$ – 87% higher than the 3HH/$ from any HH card (15k free nights on HH Surpass or Biz may compensate and even it out)
For dining
Gold – 4MR/$ or 11.2HH/$ – 60% higher than the 7HH/$ from HH Aspire
For groceries
Gold – 4MR/$ or 11.2HH/$ – 87% higher than the 6HH/$ from HH Surpass (15k free night on HH Surpass may compensate and even it out)
For Gas
Business Gold – 4MR/$ or 11.2HH/$ – 87% higher than the 6HH/$ from HH Surpass or Biz (though the high annual fee and no credits means you need significant spend to justify this. Also consider the 15k free night reward on HH Surpass and Biz)
For flights through AMEX
Gold – 3MR/$ or 8.4HH/$ – 20% higher than the 7HH/$ from HH Aspire
Platinum – 5MR/$ or 14HH/$ – 100% higher than the 7HH/$ from HH Aspire
For car rentals through AMEX
I guess there is no MR bonus category for this reward from what I can see, so all you have is the BBP
BBP: 2MR/$ or 5.6HH/$ – 20% LOWER than the 7HH.$ from HH Aspire
For Hilton hotels
Platinum (booked through AMEX) – 5MR/$ or 14HH/$ – If you have Diamond status regardless, equal to earnings from HH Aspire. I’d still prefer using the HH Aspire here since you may have credits as well, or if working toward the 60k free night.
It really comes down to how much you value the flexibility of MR vs the free nights with Hilton. Personally I have all the MR cards on this list plus the HH Biz and planning on the HH Surpass. I get enough value to make all of them worth it, where I just hit the 15k free night credits on the HH cards bonus categories then go MR the rest of the way.
I agree
Agreed. From a family travel perspective, you can put more butts in a suite than you can in a seat. So spend more on the suites 😉
Very well said. I’m always baffled when I see so many people trashing Hilton points. They can be extremely valuable in high tax locations, particularly when coupled with resort fees. The fifth night free is icing on the cake.
How often do they offer the 1:3 promo? That would definitely push me over the edge.
It used to be all the time but now it seems like 1:2.8 is the norm