The Offer
Direct link to offer (need to be logged in)
- You can currently receive a 40% 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 2,800 Hilton instead (1:2.8)
The Fine Print
- Valid through January 31, 2021
Our Verdict
Similar deal just ended on October 31, 2020. You can find the full list of current and previous American Express transfer bonuses here. Similar to the Marriott transfer bonus I don’t think this one is worth considering either due to how much more valuable American Express points are to Hilton.
Hat tip to FM
This is one of those times where it’s a good idea to jump on this if you need to top off your account. Normally I ignore these types of deals, but I’m just short of the number of points needed for an upcoming stay during stay during a high demand time. To me it’s worth transfering a couple thousand points to make the booking before rooms are taken.
This isn’t as bad of a deal as people here are making it out to be, it’s very situational and can be used if you have travel plans in the near future. I am looking at a Hilton hotel that is either $83 a night or 10,000 Hilton points. Given that, the MR to Hilton transfer would make the MR points worth 2.3 cents/point, not bad. I’m not using it as I already have enough Hilton points from a SUB this year but it’s something to look into at least if you have travel coming up soon. It’s probably not worth it just in order to stock pile on Hilton Points.
This is an abysmal use of MR points. If you’re using an HH Amex Surpass card at a large national grocery chain you can generate huge quantities of HH points at a total cost of only .21 cents/point, why would anyone use their hard earned MR points on this terrible promo??
No one is arguing there aren’t better redemptions, but if my goal was to earn HH points, you better believe I am transferring MR over spending on the Surpass.
For grocery spending:
$100 on Gold card = 400 MR = 800 HH with normal transfer (more with the bonus).
$100 on Surpass = 600 HH
Why would you ever spend on the Surpass?
Horrible use of MR points. Anything worth booking is gonna cost a lot of MR points even at this rate. Marriott deal is similar but they have cheaper properties which requires less points overall.
This is not the BEST use of AMEX points for most folks, but 1 to 2.8 is by no means a bad deal. When you factor in taxes/fees, Honors points are again worth 1/2 cent each. So you’re getting 1.4 cents of value out of your points. And if you’re booking certain Hilton resorts at peak times, an Honors point can easily be worth a cent, making the transfer worth almost 3 cents/point. Since so many of us can gin up Honors points we’re probably not looking for more, but I would not discount the value of this offer for certain travellers.
It is very situational. I booked a Hilton with the last bonus that was a 3 cpp redemption. That number is a bit fake because it was a day of booking in a popular vacation spot. I would have never paid full price.
Still not bad for a hotel redemption though.
That’s still too expensive, 1000 Mr to 2800 Hilton points. I have the Schwab plat and can cash at 1.25 and still buy Hilton points for 50 cents each, which could turn 1,000 MR to 2500 Hilton points, and I can still earn rewards on credit card used if buying points.
I wish that I had that card. I just got the vanilla version.
Isn’t 2500 less than 2800? Am I missing something and you some gain a bunch of points by buying hilton points? I agree that it is a bad use of MR for many, but Your example doesn’t prove your point?
I transferred 10,000 MR points to Hilton. Still using up my 100,000 bonus points for the card. I find MR points to be valued between 0.6-1 point per dollar which is the cash value. Once you go overseas, no one accepts Amex and even if they did, all of what you buy is only valued at one cent per point. Chase can still get an effective value of 4.5% of most everything I buy including travel, restaurants, and groceries.
You’re doing it wrong