Transfer Amex Points To Hilton With 40% Bonus

The US American Express Membership Rewards program has just launched a transfer bonus, which is a repeat of one we saw a couple of months ago. This is in addition to the program also offering a 40% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy over the same dates. Unfortunately I wouldn’t get too excited about either of these offers.

Transfer Amex points to Hilton Honors with 40% bonus

Through June 15, 2021, the US Amex Membership Rewards program is offering a 40% bonus when you transfer points to Hilton Honors.

Points ordinarily transfer at a 1:2 ratio, meaning that during this promotion points transfer at a 1:2.8 ratio. In other words, you get 2,800 Honors points for every 1,000 Membership Rewards points transfered.

You can expect points to generally transfer instantly. See this post for the best credit cards for earning Amex points.

As I mentioned above, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a transfer bonus like this:

• In late 2020 we saw an identical bonus
• In mid 2020 we saw an identical bonus
• In early 2020 we saw an even better bonus, for up to 50%

With Hilton having pre-sold a billion dollars worth of Honors points to American Express, I guess Membership Rewards points has some excess points to play around with.

Should you transfer Amex points to Hilton?

Personally I value Amex points at ~1.7 cents each, while I value Hilton Honors points at ~0.5 cents each. Based on my valuation of points and the 1:2.8 transfer ratio, you’re getting about 1.4 cents of value per Amex point. While not amazing, that’s fairly good, and for many this could prove to be worthwhile.

It’s worth noting that my valuation of points is intended to be conservative, and there are always ways to get hugely outsized value by using points properly.

Hilton does often sell points for 0.5 cents each, and I’ve written about some of the best ways to redeem Hilton Honors points. If you don’t otherwise have easy ways to earn Hilton points, I think there are lots of circumstances where it could make a lot of sense to transfer Amex points to Hilton with a specific use in mind:

• The Waldorf Astoria Maldives and Los Cabos can be booked for 125K Hilton points per night, which is ~45K Amex points per night
• The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills and Amsterdam can be booked for 95K Hilton points per night, which is ~34K Amex points per night

Those are just a couple of examples. I don’t think this will always be worth it, but with a specific use in mind, and after crunching the numbers, I do think this promotion has the potential to be worthwhile.

Earn points with Hilton Amex Cards

There are so many great uses of Amex points, so personally if at all possible I’d try to earn Hilton Honors points through other methods. In addition to being able to buy points outright, it’s worth being aware of the co-branded Hilton Amex credit cards:

• Hilton Honors American Express Card (review)
• Hilton Honors American Express Surpass^® Card (review)
• Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (review)
• Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review)

Those are some great ways to rack up Hilton points.

Bottom line

For the next few months, Amex is offering a 40% bonus when you transfer points to Hilton Honors, meaning the transfer ratio is 1:2.8.

This has the potential to be a good deal with a specific use in mind, though personally I’d rather acquire Hilton points in other ways, and save my Amex points for something else.

Do you plan on transferring Amex points to Hilton with a 40% bonus?