The Offer
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- You can currently receive a 25% 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 2,500 Hilton instead (1:2.5)
The Fine Print
- Valid through 8/31/23
Our Verdict
American Express points are even more valuable than Hilton points even at a 1:2.6 rate so I don’t think this is worth considering.
TPG advertising a 30% transfer bonus to Hilton from MRs today, but I’m not seeing anything on my gold card. Could see it live on amex’s website soon.
It’s worth it if you’re planning a trip to some high end international Hilton resort. If you’re not planning on doing the same then the deal may or may not be good value for you.
I’m saving up points for an extravagant honeymoon in a few years. With the fifth night, you can get at least 1 cent per Hilton point. That means this deal makes one MR point worth 2.5 cents for me.
I’ve been waiting for this deal again. I just transferred 104k MR points for essentially $2,600 of value.
you can usual buy points for .5cpp when they run a bonus which is frequently so 320000 points can be bought for $1600
Is this a bump compared to the usual bonus that comes around every so often or is this less?
There was a 30% bonus, so this is slightly less.
I find Hilton points worth it at 1:2.6 if you always use the free fifth night, plus have diamond so get upgrades, executive lounge, meal credits, etc. Especially so at international hotels where the executive lounges are quite good.
Another thing about transferring to Hilton is that its a lot more economical. You can use it for a regional/domestic stay that you need (Wedding/funeral/visiting family) that reduces OOP costs. If you use it on high CPP business class flights you’re dropping $thousands on fees, airport parking, restaurants, taxis, PTO, etc. Yeah the experience is usually worth the cost but at some point another trip to Europe/Asia is excessive or not sustainable.
I travel quite a bit and constantly hear that this isn’t a good redemption. As someone who does a lot with marriott, hilton and delta, what’s a better redemption?
Hyatt
But Hyatt is in way fewer locations that Hilton and Marriott. So it’s not necessarily a better redemption for many people.
Shhh… don’t tell that to those hoarding Chase UR points! People and blogs love CSP, but I can’t imagine that being a useful card at all. Chase Travel Portal rates for hotels are almost always 10-30% higher than what I can find on other online travel portals (not even including all the cashback through shopping portals) essentially making the $50 travel credit useless. The only useful redemption from Chase is Hyatt (not considering United after the most recent deval in redemption but no increase in SUBs/earning)!
I don’t see why anyone who’s hoarding Chase UR points needs to worry about that. You only need to get the CSP for one year, get a signup bonus from it too, do your transfer, then downgrade to a Freedom family card, and then if several years later you’ve accumulated many more points you want to transfer, upgrade that Freedom card back to CSP for one year. Even if you don’t have much use for that Freedom family card, it doesn’t cost you anything for the years when you aren’t doing transfers.
Or if you know it’s going to be long enough before you need to transfer again, you could cancel CSP (if you’ve transferred all the points you earned on it already), and re-apply after enough years have passed that you qualify for another signup bonus. Just remember you have to wait several years before you can reapply for a Sapphire card, and you never know if Chase won’t extend that amount of time after you cancel. So that’s why some people may want to downgrade instead of cancelling.
I don’t think it makes sense for anyone who’s hoarded a lot of UR points to use the poor value redemptions that you get if you don’t transfer, for which you need a CSP for only the year(s) you’re doing transfers.
Hyatt is better for shorter stays, maybe 2-3 nights max. Hilton and Marriott work better for longer stays with the 5th night free perks.
This might be an OK transfer for someone flush with Amex MR points who wants to book an aspirational Hilton and use the 5th night free on award nights. E.g. Conrad Maldives for 5 nights for 184k Amex MR points is not bad. Note that Hilton points are on sale for 0.5cpp so this makes transfered Amex MR valued at 1.3cpp
Your comment kind of contradicts itself.
With hilton points on sale at 0.5 cpp, your MR are capped at 1.25 CPP regardless of how you redeem them.
For me, 1.25 CPP for amex is a good deal though. Only when I have hilton redemption in mind.
can you explain the 5th night free idea? Like if i book 4 nights using points, a 5th night is awarded for free?
satellite
You book 5 nights on points as a single reservation (can’t use free night certificates, only points): you get charged for 4 nights. You need to be at least Hilton Silver (Platinum gives you Gold).