At the beginning of February we learned about some major changes that Hilton was making to their loyalty program, including the following:
- The name of the program was changed from Hilton Honors to Hilton Honors
- The introduction of points pooling, where you can pool points with up to 10 Hilton Honors members at no cost
- The ability to redeem points for Amazon purchases; this isn’t something any of us will likely ever use, but I can see value in this for the “average” person
- The ability to extend Diamond status for free as a one-time benefit, assuming you’ve earned Diamond for three years and have at least 250 lifetime elite qualifying nights or 500,000 base points
- The introduction of Points & Money awards, and in the process, Hilton getting rid of their traditional award chart
Up until now, all of these new features have been introduced, with the exception of the ability to redeem points for Amazon purchases. Well as of today that’s live. You can now redeem your Hilton Honors points for Amazon purchases. But please, please, please don’t do it.
The process of signing up for this is super easy.
To get started, just go to this page and link your Amazon and Hilton Honors account.
You’ll just be asked to log into your Amazon account, and then once there, will be asked to provide your Hilton Honors number and password so your accounts can be linked. Once they’re linked, there’s no need to do so again, as the info will be saved. That of course assumes that you want to use your points that way.
To actually pay for Amazon purchases with Hilton Honors points, add whatever you’d like to your Amazon cart, and then on the page with payment options, you’ll see using Hilton Honors points as an option. Using this method you’ll get a consistent value of 0.2 cents per Hilton Honors point. That is not a good deal. At all. For example, my $100 purchase would require 50,000 Honors points.
Personally I like to get at least 0.5 cents per Honors point, so this is way less than the value I’d like to get.
Bottom line
Hilton has made some fantastic changes to the Honors program this year. I love the ability to pool points, and also have found the introduction of Points & Money Awards to be surprisingly positive. I’m told that Honors members are more engaged and using points more than ever before, and that’s a good thing. While more redemption opportunities are always a good thing, this is a really bad way to use your points. While I’m sure some people will take advantage of it, if you’re looking to maximize the value you get, this isn’t for you.
I tried to buy Bass Pro gift cards and it is also disabled. I have 1.5 million points so it would get me $3000 in gift cards. I was planning on putting it towards a boat. If I try to buy merchandise the pay with points works but not with gift cards. You screwed me again Hilton!
I tried for Starbucks gift card, option is disabled.
@Julie,I tried buying the gift cards with the hilton honors points and at the checkout the hilton honors rewards option is disabled
Last year I was able to use Hilton points to buy Amazon gift cards. But over the summer they seemed to have changed their system. I can purchase things on Amazon, but not Amazon gift cards. I have not seen any notice about this. I am swimming in HIlton Points and this was an easy way to get gifts. Have others run into this?
Yes, the exchange rate is horrible but I've start using my Hilton points at Amazon. I've been travelling so much lately for work that I can't use them fast enough for hotel stays. When I hit 500,000 points I started cashing out.
I just noticed that I had about 99,000 points which I have not used any, but only 3000 left. Their customer service told it has been used in amazon, but I do not see any order in Amazon. I am just lost in what is going on. I think the Hilton database has recently been hacked.
Do not link your HHonors & Amazon accounts. I never linked my accounts but a week ago all 800k plus points were drained from my account with the only evidence showing on the AMEX side saying “points redemption” rewarded. There is no evidence on my Hilton account if this and Amazon says they don’t see the transaction either. Amex is investigating now.
I found this article very helpful. I was at excited, at first, when I heard about the conversion of Hilton Rewards points to Amazon dollars but this article highlighted the "cons" to this deal. While this may appeal to some, it may not appeal to the majority. Thank you for sharing!
Cece, thanks for the confirmation re: having Hilton point lifetime extended via Amazon purchase; this seems like the optimal use of this poor conversion, when one doesn't have any Hilton stays planned, and point expiration is looming.
To this end, I bought a $1 Amazon.com eGift card for 500 Hilton points.
Colin Clark, who exactly are you offended at? The author, Hilton or both? Either seems ridiculous. If its the author, you need to realize this site is geared to people who travel, so wasting points with a horrible conversion rate is bad for the "average" person that might be reading this article on this site. If you don't travel or stay in hotels, why would you even be earning Hilton rewards?? Please, go get offended at the wall.
Leveraction3030:
You sound like a pilot... coming from one!
Will not spend mine with Amazon for this "exchange rate." I will instead use my points on Hotel rooms for Vacations and Holidays at Hilton resorts. I have been Diamond for several years now and travel approx. 25+ weeks a year staying in Hilton Hotels for business purposes. I do prefer Hilton, Hilton Garden Inns and Hampton's as compared to other Hotel Chains.
Thank You
What a tasteless and classless way to advertise and announce the new program through Hilton Honors. I wouldn't want us, "Average" people to possibly want to maximize the usage of our points. I am sorry, I don't stay at enough hotels to acquire such grand amounts of points to redeem them for first class upgrades or free trips. I am in absolute awe that this site would itemize such degrading statements. What better way to...
What a tasteless and classless way to advertise and announce the new program through Hilton Honors. I wouldn't want us, "Average" people to possibly want to maximize the usage of our points. I am sorry, I don't stay at enough hotels to acquire such grand amounts of points to redeem them for first class upgrades or free trips. I am in absolute awe that this site would itemize such degrading statements. What better way to attract a new clientele than by making sure they know they are better than the "Average" people would might see the benefit of utilizing their limited Hilton points for Amazon purchases. Unbelievable. Since, "clearly this isn't anything any of us would likely use" is about the most separatist statement one can make, I am seriously considering canceling my membership with Hilton and never staying at their chain of locations again.
I can now confirm that the amazon purchase using 1.00 worth of Hilton points (500 pts) did extend my Hilton expiration date for another year.
Brett,
Did you get an answer to your query? I am hoping it works as I just tried it (only paid for 1.00 of my purchase with hilton points-500 points - small price to pay not to lose them hopefully!)
You could use this option as a way of converting Honors points to TrueBlue points at the outstandingly awful ratio of 500:3 with a lead time of 30 days!
Surely that's some sort of record for poor conversion rates (even worse than Australian AMEX MR points to Air New Zealand AirPoints)
Do these point valuation take account to how you earn them or is it simply looking at what you can get for each point redeemed?
If I use a few will it reset the expiration timer for Hilton? I've got about 2 months to take some activity. I think Amazon lets you split payments pretty granularly?
I agree that there is no value in redeeming HH points on Amazon. I would consider otherwise if Amazon offered bonus' or discounts while redeeming points like AMEX does.
I could *POSSIBLY* see the value in redeeming a few points now and then, if and only if Amazon does a promotion like they occasionally do with Ultimate Rewards or Discover CashBack, where if you redeem X amount, you get an additional X% off your purchase. IIRC, there was one once where spending even 1 UR point got 5% off the whole order. Other than that, I agree it's not a good value.