Hilton Honors has launched its latest promotion on purchased points, which is in line with the best offers we see from the program.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased Hilton Honors points
Through Wednesday, February 9, 2022, Hilton Honors is offering a bonus on purchased points. It would appear that the standard offer is for a 100% bonus if you purchase at least 15,000 points in one transaction. However, it’s possible that different accounts may be targeted for different offers, so you’ll want to log into your account to see what you’re eligible for.
How much does it cost to buy Hilton Honors points?
Hilton Honors ordinarily charges one cent per purchased point, including all taxes and fees. That’s before any discounts or bonuses. If you’re eligible for the 100% bonus and maxed out the offer, you’d receive a total of 160,000 points at a cost of $800, which is a rate of 0.5 cents per Hilton Honors point.
Ordinarily when Hilton Honors offers a promotion on purchased points, it’s for either a 100% bonus or 50% discount, so this offer is line with the best deals from the program.
How many Hilton Honors points can you buy?
Hilton Honors lets you buy up to 80,000 points per account per calendar year, before any bonuses. Sometimes there are promotions where the cap on how many points you can buy increases, but that’s not the case right now.
Do note that Hilton lets you combine points across accounts at no cost, so in reality you could acquire substantially more points by simply buying them across accounts and then consolidating them.
Which credit card should you buy Hilton Honors points with?
Hilton Honors points purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as a hotel purchase for the purposes of credit card spending.
I’d recommend using a card with which you’re trying to reach a minimum spending requirement, or a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending, like the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (review), Citi® Double Cash Card (review), or Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review).
When in doubt, review which credit cards are best for buying points and miles.
- Earn 1% cash back when you make a purchase, earn 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase
- $0
- Earn 3% Cash Back on Dining
- Earn 3% Cash Back at Drugstores
- Earn 1.5% Cash Back On All Other Purchases
- $0
- Earn 2x Venture miles on every purchase
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- 10,000 bonus miles every account anniversary
- $395
- Earn 2x Venture miles on every purchase
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check Credit
- $95
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
Is buying Hilton Honors points worth it?
There’s potentially huge value to be had buying Hilton Honors points. Hilton Honors sells points at a reasonable cost, has lots of aspirational properties, has good redemptions with a fifth night free opportunity, and elite status is also easy to earn with the program. When you combine those factors, buying points can be a great deal.
How many points do you need for a free night at a Hilton?
Hilton Honors doesn’t have a published award chart, but rather the program has dynamic award pricing. This means that the cost of a standard free night award can vary depending on the day of the week, time of year, etc.
As a general rule of thumb, Hilton Honors free night awards start at 10,000 points per night, and go up to 95,000 points per night. There are two exceptions — the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos costs up to 120,000 points per night, and the Waldorf Astoria Maldives costs up to 150,000 points per night.
Sometimes you’ll see award costs that are way higher than these amounts. In those situations it’s because there’s not a standard room available, so higher pricing kicks in for premium rooms. That’s generally not nearly as good of a use of Hilton Honors points.
What is the Hilton Honors fifth night free benefit?
If you have Hilton Honors elite status (which is easy to earn, as I’ll outline below), you receive a fifth night free on award redemptions. This is a way to stretch your points even further, and whenever possible I’d recommend making your Hilton Honors award stays in increments of five nights.
To take advantage of this, just log into your Hilton Honors elite account, and go through the process of making an award booking for five nights. When you get to the booking page, you should notice that the cost of the fifth night is automatically deducted.
Tip: Easily earn Hilton Honors elite status
One thing I love about the program is how easy it is to earn elite status with credit cards, including both Hilton Honors Gold status and Hilton Honors Diamond status. These tiers offer perks like room upgrades, complimentary breakfast, hotel credits, and more. For example:
- The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review) offers Diamond status for as long as you have the card
- The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (review) and Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (review) offer Gold status for as long as you have the card
- The Platinum Card® from American Express (review) and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (review) offer Gold status for as long as you have the card, and enrollment is required
What are some good uses of Hilton Honors points?
There are so many amazing hotels where you can redeem Hilton Honors points and get great value. Just to give a few examples based on current pricing (not factoring in the fifth night free):
- The Conrad Bora Bora is often bookable for 89,000 Honors points per night; this is a gorgeous resort, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
- Zemi Beach House Anguilla is often bookable for 95,000 Honors points per night; this is an awesome Caribbean resort, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
- The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills is often bookable for 95,000 Honors points per night; this is one of my favorite city hotels in the United States, and paid rates are often over $750 per night
- The Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam is often bookable for 95,000 Honors points per night; this is one of my favorite city hotels in the world, and paid rates are often over $800 per night
- The Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos is often bookable for 120,000 Honors points per night; I stayed here recently and had an incredible stay, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
As you can tell, it’s not hard to do the math here and realize the potential for outsized value, when you consider an acquisition cost of 0.5 cents per point, and the potential for a fifth night free.
Do Hilton Honors points expire?
Hilton Honors points don’t expire as long as you have at least some account activity once every 12 months. Eligible account activity includes earning or redeeming points, so buying points would even reset the expiration of your points.
How much are Hilton Honors points worth?
Everyone will value points differently, but personally I value Hilton Honors points at 0.5 cents each, and I tend to value points pretty conservatively. As you can see, the pricing here is roughly in line with how much I value these points, and there are ways to get a ton of outsized value with this promotion.
Does Hilton Honors have blackout dates?
Hilton Honors doesn’t have blackout dates on award nights, and all standard rooms are available for award redemptions. So this is about as good of a policy as you’ll find with any hotel group when it comes to award room availability.
How else can you earn Hilton Honors points?
There are lots of ways to earn Hilton Honors points, beyond just staying at Hilton properties or buying the points directly. You can easily earn points by using Hilton Honors’ co-branded credit cards, which also offer great welcome bonuses. These cards include the following:
- Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review)
- Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (review)
- Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (review)
- Hilton Honors American Express Card (review)
While you can also transfer points from Amex Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors, I tend to think this doesn’t represent a very good deal, given how valuable Amex points are.
Bottom line
Through February 9, 2022, Hilton Honors is offering a bonus on purchased points. It appears that the standard offer is for a 100% bonus. This is a pretty typical offer from Hilton Honors, so with a short term use in mind, there are plenty of situations where this could represent a good deal. Hilton Honors has grown on me a ton, especially thanks to the Aspire Card.
See this post for more inspiration on how to redeem Hilton Honors points for luxury hotel stays.
Do you plan on buying Hilton Honors points with a 100% bonus?
I don’t how see how anyone can stay at Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills when the iconic classic vintage Beverly Hilton is down the street at half the price.
@DCS
Would you buy Hilton points with 100% bonus?
Can you recheck the Waldorf Maldives being only 150,000 points for a free night? I keep seeing this number used but the only availability I have found online and by calling Hilton direct is 1,066,000 per night which makes no sense to use your points for a stay.
@Will - the item that Ben kinda glossed over is that the hotel needs to have “standard” award availability for you to book at 150,000/night. When those rooms are sold out (or sometimes not offered at all), the only thing available are “premium” awards, which can get insanely expensive in terms of points. I just got back from the Waldorf Cabo San Lucas for four nights on free night certificates over New Years, and the...
@Will - the item that Ben kinda glossed over is that the hotel needs to have “standard” award availability for you to book at 150,000/night. When those rooms are sold out (or sometimes not offered at all), the only thing available are “premium” awards, which can get insanely expensive in terms of points. I just got back from the Waldorf Cabo San Lucas for four nights on free night certificates over New Years, and the points/night around those days was over 2,000,000. You just have to get lucky at some of these properties. I’d also have to disagree with Ben that the WA Cabo has space available though - there is not a SINGLE NIGHT for all of 2022 available as a standard award right now.
No need to recheck because there is no error. It's simply that there are no standard awards available for the dates you checked. Hilton standard awards...
No need to recheck because there is no error. It's simply that there are no standard awards available for the dates you checked. Hilton standard awards are those that max at 95K/night, with the exception of WA Malidves and WA Cabos that can go as high as 150K/night). One way to make sense of 1,066,000 per night is with this simple realization: that's just like searching for standard awards in other programs and finding none available for the dates you checked, which could span 2, 3 or 6 or even 12 months at very 'aspirational' properties (like WA Maldives or WA Cabos).
In short, which is more annoying between 1,000,000 points/night and no availability? You just need to decide for yourself but, IMHO, the situations are identical.
Though Hilton Honors uses dynamic award pricing, the program seldom prices its standard awards dynamically. Rather, it's the program's "premium" awards (i.e., those for rooms higher than standard rooms, all the way up to presidential suites, though often even standard room are classified as "premium") that are always priced dynamically because they are exactly like revenue rooms. A "premium" room that is available for booking with cash is also always available for booking with points, lots and lots of points. As a result, the costs of "premium" awards in points are tied to the prices of the same rooms in cash with which they, thus, change in synchrony.