Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
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Hilton is once again offering a 100% bonus on the purchase of points when you buy 10,000 or more points. While I don’t generally recommend buying points speculatively, this can make sense if you have a valuable redemption lined up (and it is indeed how I am generally planning to pick up Hilton points moving forward).
The Deal
- Hilton is offering a 100% bonus on purchased points when you buy 10,000 points or more through 2/19/20 (this makes for a rate of 0.5c per point)
- Our link to this deal
Key Terms
- During this sale, you can buy up to 80,000 Hilton points before the bonus (160,000 with the bonus)
- Expires 2/19/20
Quick Thoughts
Hilton points are among the least valuable hotel points (not quite at the bottom, but not far from it) and I generally find them to be worth about half a cent each. For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing points without any goal in mind.
That said, there are a few angles from which I think this sale is potentially interesting.
First: The limit higher than it appears
First up, the limit is very much a soft cap since Hilton allows you to pool points with up to 9 other people. With ten members in a pool, it is possible to buy up to 1,600,000 Hilton points through this deal and pool them in a single account. That would cost you $8,000 total and I definitely do not recommend anyone spend eight grand on Hilton points — my point, rather, is that you can more or less buy whatever it is that you need with this sale.
Note that Hilton ordinarily limits you to buying up to 80K points per year before bonuses. They have sometimes increased the pre-bonus limit to 160K, but not this time around.
Second: It’s possible to get much better value than the cost of the points
While Hilton points are usually only worth about half a cent each, there are plenty of instances where they can be used for one cent each or even more. Just this year, I’ve used points for a couple of free nights at the Conrad Bora Bora (80K per night for a room costing north of $900 per night at cash rates) and a Hampton Inn in Atlanta for Super Bowl weekend (40K per night for a crummy hotel, but with cash rates around $1,000 per night at the time of booking). When you consider the fact that you don’t pay tax or resort fees when redeeming points, it is certainly possible to get better value than the cost of points here. I wouldn’t recommending buying in the hopes that maybe you’ll redeem the points well, but if you have an upcoming stay where the points will be useful, it can certainly make sense to buy.
Third: Turn your cash back cards into the best Hilton cards for everyday spend
I’ve talked quite a bit this year about my growing infatuation with cash back. I have said and will continue to hold that you’re better off putting most spend on a cash back card and buying Hilton points if it is Hilton points that you are after.
The current lineup of Hilton credit cards earn 3 Hilton points per dollar on everyday (unbonused) spend. Here are four cash back options that would be considerably better for everyday spend:
- Citi Double Cash card: Earn 1% when you purchase and 1% when you pay your bill for an effective return of 2% cash back — that’s two pennies back for every dollar spent. If you then use that cash back to buy Hilton points and buy 10K or more in a sale like this one, you’re essentially earning 4 Hilton points per dollar on all spend (since your 2 pennies will buy 4 Hilton points at a cost of half a cent each). In fact, if you then buy the points with your Double Cash card, you’ll earn an additional two percent back for an ever-so-slightly-bigger win.
- Discover IT Miles card for the first year: Since Discover doubles all rewards earned on this card in year 1, you earn an effective 3% back with this card in the first year. If you use that 3 cents per dollar to buy Hilton points, that’s a return of 6 Hilton points per dollar.
- Alliant Cashback Visa: This card earns 3% back in year 1 and 2.5% back in subsequent years. Even at 2.5% back, that’s an equivalent of 5 Hilton points per dollar when buying through a sale like this.
- Bank of America Premium Rewards with Platinum Honors: This card continually earns 2.625% back on all purchases if you have Platinum Honors with BOA (which requires $100K on deposit in cash/investments). That’s like a return of 5.25 Hilton points per dollar spent.
As you can see, it is therefore possible to earn a hefty number of Hilton points on everyday spend with cash back cards — perhaps even as much as the best category bonus on any of the Hilton cards (apart from Hilton spend) without any restriction as to where you earn. Furthermore, with Amex ramping up its war on gaming, it eliminates some amount of risk in MSing on Amex cards.
Of course, the real “best” category bonus for earning Hilton points is probably the Amex Gold’s 4x at US Supermarkets (on up to $25K in purchases, then 1x). That’s because Membership Rewards points transfer to Hilton at a rate of 1 Membership Rewards point to 2 Hilton Honors points. That means the return at supermarkets is really 8x. Furthermore, there are frequent transfer bonuses as high as 30%.
This analysis ignores the value of using your Hilton Honors Surpass card at US Supermarkets for 6x and spending exactly $15K in that category, which yields a free weekend night in addition to the 6x. That remains a good use of that particular card. However, for all other spend, it likely makes more sense to use cash back cards — both because you can earn a similar/better return in terms of the number of Hilton points and because it gives you the flexibility of cash that can be used to buy cheap Hilton points or buy whatever else you want/need.
The problem with that perspective is that you’re counting on there being a sale on Hilton points on the day that you need them. Assuming you’re likely to need Hilton points on a moment’s notice, perhaps you’re better off earning Hilton points. But with almost monthly sales on Hilton points at this half-a-cent price, I’d be more inclined to collect cash.
Bottom line
I don’t recommend that anybody buy Hilton points speculatively. However, with a good use in mind, it could certainly be worth it. With the ability to pool with others, it’s easy enough to buy the points you need for an extended vacation, and remember that Hilton offers the 5th night free on award stays (which might make your points a bit more valuable yet in comparison to cash rates).
For other current deals on point purchases, see this resource: Buy points for less: When does it make sense to jump on a deal?
Recent similar sales have happened through:
- 12/17 – 12/28/19: 100% bonus (0.5cpp)
- 11/15 – 11/26/19: 100$ bonus (0.5cpp)
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This is actually quite useful. I’m looking to book a room that’s $412 including taxes or 50k points, so $250 if I buy the points. Seems like a great deal, anything I should be aware of (other than missing out on the points from Hilton spend and any cash back from a portal?)
Nope. That’s exactly the kind of situation where it absolutely makes sense to buy the points. Also, it looks like you can click through TopCashBack to go to Points.com and buy Hilton points and get 2.5% cash back at the moment. Just make sure you still see the 100% bonus points.
Thanks for the quick response! any idea how these purchases code? I’m wondering if it’s online shopping at BofA…
I don’t know about that. I can’t remember exactly how my last purchase coded, but I just checked DoC’s payments workshop and it doesn’t seem to be triggering category bonuses on any other cards at this point.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/payments-workshop/
FYI, they code as online shopping at BofA so I got 3% + preferred rewards bonus + 2.5% from TopCashBack, so 7.75% all in.
Nick, please help, you always provide well thought out responses.
To preface, I’m ineligible for amex bonuses so I’m deciding on two cards based on benefits. Also I hold no hilton status and have zero hilton points.
I’m looking to stay 4 nights in the Seychelles at the Hilton Northolme in about 4 months. The cash price for the stay is $1697. I was thinking of multiple options and couldnt decide which is best. First, I could sign up for the surpass and get the free breakfast with no free night for an extra $95 and then buy the points outright or the nights when theres a promotion going on. Or I could sign up for the aspire, get the free night and then buy the remaining nights OR I could get either card and then buy hilton points when their on sale. I know points have a little bit more flexibility in regard to cancellations. To buy the points for 3 nights would cost $1425 but then I’d have to pay the annual fee for the aspire upfront and I would earn no bonus on the spend vs paying for the hotel with the aspire. I suppose the resort credit could help offset that, though I’m a little worried about being able to fully use the airline credit even though there are some ways around the restrictions. plus i missed the deadline to triple dip the aspire so idk if I should wait but then i could be forgoing a huge amount of points if i buy the nights with huge aspire and promotion multipliers that would help offset me missing the triple dip.
Im so confused, please give me some guidance!
What would you recommend is the best way to secure this 4 night stay with zero current hilton points or status to make it the most enjoyable? (ie free breakfast, possible upgrade)
Also I’ll add that the $1697 price for 4 nights is a sale price that included breakfast in the rate. Idk if it has different restrictions then if I had gold status.
I guess a third level to this is that Rakuten is showing 7.5% cash back at hilton for blue members, my account is set to MR and I have a BBP, so 3 nights paid is $1273 multiplied by 9.5x which equals 12K MR conservatively valued at .015 that is $181 in value or an extra 14 % off.
anyone help lol.
My husband and I were booked at the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico for next week, but changed our plans on Tuesday after the earthquake. We booked at the Hilton Aruba instead for 80,000 pts/night for 4 nights + 5th night free + both of our Aspire weekend nights. Cash rate is $718/night, including taxes and fees. I’m happy with spending 320,000 Hilton points.
From reading Flyertalk, it looks like we won’t pay a resort fee either. The resort fee is 15% of the room rate. The base rate is $567, so 15% adds 85.05 a night. With points, 15% of $0 is $0. Hopefully, that’s what turns out to be true. We would have paid $40/night at PR.
I’m not sure I’ll buy more points right now though. Maybe we’ll rack up a few with food & drink spend on property… that will get reimbursed by our Aspire credits.
I personally might have stuck with the Caribe Hilton. There’s no earthquake damage in San Juan, and the Caribe is a decent deal at 50K (40K over 5 nights). The problem with saying the Hilton Aruba is “worth” 80K because room rates are $718/night is that you would probably never pay that price. You shouldn’t. I’m headed to Aruba and I’m “paying” 8000 points for the new airport Hyatt Place. I’d love to pay 2x that for beachfront, but that’s not possible to get that type of value with any of the chains. You could certainly find a decent beachfront place to stay in Aruba for $200.
It was a tough decision to go to PR or not. We were up against our deadline to get our airline miles back on Tuesday. The Hilton has no damage, but with more aftershocks every day, I didn’t want to chance power outages.
We chose Aruba because Hilton had Standard Award nights. That way we could use our Aspire weekend certificates. And we want to use our Aspire credits, so it has to be a Hilton. Aruba was not on my bucket list before Tuesday. I knew very little about it before yesterday. But, you’re right. I wouldn’t spend $700 a night on a hotel room. That’s why I book hotels with points. For a last minute booking, I think we did alright on points. Plus, as Diamonds, we get $25 per day to spend on food & drinks + our $500 for our two Aspire cards + I have a $250 credit balance on my Aspire from my airline incidental reimbursements. So, 7 nights with no resort fee, 320,000 points, $925 to spend on food and drinks – I’d actually rather do that than spend $1400 cash + meals at a decent beachfront place. That’s why we each do points and miles in ways that suit us individually.
We will cancel our Aspire cards when the AFs post this year. It is too restrictive to have to choose Hilton to use the resort credit that I really already paid as an annual fee. I’ll keep my Surpass for Gold status. I’m focused on Chase/Hyatt points in 2020 for 2021.
If you’re a flyertalker, please post a review of the Hilton Aruba after your stay (or use tripadvisor). Like many here, I’ve got a ton of Honors points and are always looking for good uses for them. I also have Aspire cards and the credit. I did look at staying at the Hilton Aruba and it just didn’t seem like I could get enough value at 80K/night. The hotel is certainly not loved. But maybe it’s better than the reviews. The Caribe Hilton is also not universally loved and is a good chain resort with a nice beach. At 50K, it’s a good place to use Honors points for a beach resort in winter (PR weather and water is much better than Florida weather this time of year).
I am happy to post a review of the Hilton Aruba on Flyertalk. Is there anything specific you want to know?
The Flyertalk reviews I read said not to expect anything special for being Diamond – no room upgrade, only $25/day food/bev credit, no lounge. I’m fine with that. I don’t need to eat a buffet for breakfast.
An aquaintance told me the Hilton is in the middle of the high-rise district, so an easy walk in either direction on the boardwalk and a bus stop right in front of the hotel.
I agree that the Caribe Hilton is a good place to use HH points. That’s why I booked it 9 months ago with the intention of going the day after tomorrow. Even with the $40/day resort fee eating one of the Aspire credits whole, it could be a good value. Maybe we’ll hang onto the Aspires one more year and try again next year for the Caribe. (I only get one beach vacation a year. Hubby gets bored with beaches.)
No resort fee at the Caribe if you pay with points.
@Dee and @ iahphx
There is a new Hilton-bookable property in Anguilla that looks VERY interesting, although flights are trickier than to PR. I stumbled on this list recently that includes some of the “under the radar“ point notes in the Caribbean. I would lobe to see Greg or Nick come out with their own comprehensive list since their analysis is always the best.
https://10xtravel.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-using-points-for-hotels-in-the-caribbean/
Thanks for the link MRS. Sadly, it confirms my suspicion that there aren’t a lot of good deals using hotel points in the Caribbean. Personally, I think the best current deal is at the new Hyatt Reserve in Puerto Rico (12K points), but I would caution that this isn’t a great resort. The second best deal is the Caribe Hilton. That Anguilla hotel looks VERY expensive; only really use for those weekend “any hotel” Honors certificates.
Alliant cashback Visa is a no-no for MS.
I know they sent a bunch of letters to people a while back. I’ve been doing $5K-$9K/mo at Simon since July and similarly did the same type of volume at the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 when a warehouse club near me had no fees on VGCs for a few months and no letter so far. Could change tomorrow, but so far staying at relatively low volume has been OK.
Buying Hilton at 0.5cpp? Please don’t. I’m Diamond via $60K @6x grocery with Surpass = 0.2cpp cost plus get second weekend night cert at $15K spend (despite claims the Aspire is the no-brainer card, it’s really Surpass for those with grocery access). Hilton are only worth 0.4cpp for most redemptions (ignoring value of Diamond perks). I’m a seller at 0.5cpp (converted a million when Amazon was allowing 0.5cpp redemptions). Combine with regular grocery promos and can get negative cost points.
Personally, I’d much rather have cash than have to wait around to hope that Amazon comes back so I can hopefully redeem my million Hilton points for half a cent each to barely come out ahead (if we’re valuing Amazon gift cards as highly as cash) over having used a cash back card from the get-go.You (apparently) locked yourself into a million Hilton points to get the same value you could have gotten with a first year Alliant or Discover IT Miles card (or marginally better than a BOA Premium Rewards card with Platinum Honors ). If you had spent at 3% cash back, you wouldn’t have needed to pounce on the ability to redeem Hilton points for Amazon cards during a tiny window of opportunity, not to mention having to consider the opportunity cost of having your money tied up in Hilton points and then Amazon gift cards instead of cash that is earning more money somewhere else. That hardly seems like a win in my opinion. Yes, the weekend cert can be valuable (and I noted spending exactly $15K to get that plus the Hilton points is marginally better than using a cash back card and buying points as necessary). Spending $60K at the grocery store and locking yourself into a currency you value at *less* than half a cent each makes no mathematical sense to me. Based on your valuation (0.4c for redemptions), your 6x at grocery stores is only earning 2.4% back plus whatever value you attach for the free weekend cert. Continuing to spend beyond hitting the threshold for the cert continues to push your return in the direction of 2.4% back, which just isn’t better than you can do elsewhere in cash without being limited to Hilton points.
If you used a Ducks Unlimited card at a gas station instead of MSing at the grocery store, you could have been earning far more Hilton points. $60K at gas stations = $3K cash back on Ducks. Used to buy points at half a cent each, that’s 600K Hilton points vs your 360K + a free weekend night. I know that grocery store promos will reduce your cost, but will they reduce it by enough to make up for the 240K points left on the table? I don’t value a restricted free weekend night certificate the same as points that can be used any night of the week or for multiple nights at lower tier hotels. I’m not saying that MSing with the Surpass at grocery stores is a terrible play, and I don’t know if FNBO would be tolerant of $60K MS on the Ducks card, but I definitely wouldn’t call $60K on a Surpass at the grocery store a runaway winner if cashing out for Amazon at half a cent each is the example of leveraging them for better value.
Just my opinion, but I think having cash back and using it to buy the points makes more sense. It’s also a good way of reminding ourselves of the opportunity cost of earning points since it forces us to actually trade the cash we could have if we didn’t decide to trade it for points. You make that trade up front with $60K spend on the Surpass card. I’m happy to make that trade only when I need the points.
Thanks, Nick – what card are you personally going to use for pay for thrm?
Most of my unbonused spend (like this) goes on either the Alliant Cashback Visa or the Capital One Venture card. The Venture gets some of the spend because I have the magic ability to redeem 64,250 “miles” for a $900 Marriott gift card (only available on some old accounts — mine is a rare account that has the capability). While Alliant is better for straight cash back, I also like putting unbonused spend on the Venture card because my floor redemption rate is 2% back towards travel, while I have potentially more valuable options between an effective 1.5 airline miles per dollar in several useful programs or an effective 2.8% back towards Marriott stays if I redeem for those $900 gift cards.
That said, this time around, I was thinking about liquidating some VGCs/MCGCs that I have lying around to be honest. Staples has me flush with $200 cards that seem tedious to liquidate in an era of $1K Simon cards, so I may just use a couple of those, convincing myself that I got 5x and saved myself on some money order fees :-).
Lol yesssss…am starting my holiday shopping this weekend by liquidating my own stash! Thx
Great analysis Nick. It’s interesting how the branded cards are not always the best for earning points. The old SPG card was a good example. It earned the equivalent of 1.25 AA points, the citi AA card earned 1point. In your example, if someone was solely focused on earning Hilton points, the Amex Gold cards beats the Amex Hilton card.