The US American Express Membership Rewards program has just launched a transfer bonus, which is the first one we’ve seen from the program in several months.
Transfer Amex points to Hilton Honors with 40% bonus
Through October 31, 2020, the 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.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first transfer bonus we’ve seen from Amex to Hilton. We saw one earlier this year as well, and at the time there was a 50% bonus, rather than a 40% bonus. So that was even better.
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, including the:
- 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 several weeks, 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?
Pass
Since you can cash out Amex Membership Rewards a 1.25 cents (via Schwab), and you can basically always buy Hilton points at 0.5 cents per point, the minimum transfer ratio you should accept for Hilton is 1 MR to 2.5 Hilton points. This slightly exceeds that, so it could be worth doing, but not as attractive as it was at 1 MR to 3 Hilton points (which I think they ran last year)
Last year they had 1:3 transfer ratio for 1.5 cents value per point. Without any immediate use or unless you’re sitting on a lot of points maybe not worth the transfer.
I have been waiting all year for the transfer bonus to British Airways. It is usually in spring, then again in September. Hope they start offering more transfer bonuses soon.
It’s still not worth it. The number of points needed to book a Hilton hotel room fluctuates and generally it takes more and more points to books the same room. Keep your Amex points for transfer to airlines.
If you can find a scenario where Hilton points are actually worth 0.5 cents (really really rare, especially domestically now that US citizens are banned from going abroad), then this transfer bonus will do you just find. But that’s a big, big if.
*do you just FINE
Will the transfer count for points towards Hilton lifetime diamond status?
Good question, do these points count for lifetime diamond???