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Amex just launched a new 25% transfer bonus for transferring Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors points. During this promotion, members will receive 2,500 Hilton points for every 1,000 Membership Rewards points transferred. That's effectively 2.5 Hilton points per Membership Rewards point now through August 31, 2023.
That sounds like an incredible transfer rate. However, Hilton is one of Amex's least-valuable transfer partners. So, does it make sense to take advantage of this Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Hilton? Let's dig into the details to help you determine if it makes sense for you.
Amex Transfer Bonus Offer Terms
- Transfer Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors and receive a 25% bonus.
- This offer is available for transfers through August 31, 2023.
- Per the terms and conditions, the estimated transfer time is 24 hours. However, based on AwardWallet Balance Watch tracking, recent transfers from Amex to Hilton have been processed immediately.
- Bonus Points do not count towards elite tier qualification.
Is It Worth Taking Advantage of This Amex Transfer Bonus to Hilton?
At face value, my thought on this Hilton transfer bonus is: meh.
My personal valuation for Membership Rewards points is roughly 1.8¢ per point. Meanwhile, my personal valuation for Hilton is 0.5¢ per point. And it seems that Hilton agrees with my valuation, as Hilton sells points at 0.5¢ per point.
With a 1:2.5 ratio, I see this as trading an Amex point worth 1.8¢ for Hilton points worth 1.25¢. That doesn't sound ideal on the surface. However, that could be oversimplifying the matter.
Hilton's luxury redemptions
One of the most important facets of award travel is recognizing that different people value different points, well… differently. Perhaps you like to leverage Hilton points for the program's luxury sweet spots.
AwardWallet recently analyzed 27,856 Hilton award bookings made by AwardWallet members. We found that AwardWallet members save an average of 0.58¢ per Hilton Honors point on these real-world bookings. Even better, Hilton points provide over 1 cent per point on average at several luxury properties.
So, Honors points might be worth far more than 0.5¢ a piece to you, and this transfer bonus represents a valuable opportunity.
Just consider the opportunity cost. For example, you may earn Membership Rewards points specifically for premium-cabin redemptions via airline transfer partners. In that case, Membership Rewards points are likely worth far more than 1.8¢ a piece to you, making this conversion an even harder sell. In this case, it may make more sense for you to buy Hilton points for 0.5¢ each via a buy Hilton points promotion.
Earn Hilton Points Through Credit Card Welcome Offers
Hilton points can be collected in bulk via co-branded credit card welcome offers. For example, the Hilton Honors American Express Card offers 80,000 Hilton Honors bonus points after you spend $1,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- Earn 80,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points after you spend $1,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- Earn 7X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio.
- Earn 5X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases at U.S. restaurants, at U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations.
- Earn 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card.
- No Foreign Transaction Fees. Enjoy international travel without additional fees on purchases made abroad.
- Enjoy complimentary Hilton Honors Silver status with your Card. Plus, spend $20,000 on eligible purchases on your Card in a calendar year and you can earn an upgrade to Hilton Honors Gold status through the end of the next calendar year.
- No Annual Fee.
- Terms Apply.
- Rates & Fees
- 7X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with a hotel or resort within the Hilton Honors portfolio of brands
- 5X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and U.S. gas stations
- 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card
And that's just one of the many credit cards that earn Hilton points. For most, this represents a much better way to accrue points than transferring valuable Membership Rewards points.
Hilton Honors Expiration Policy
Your Hilton Honors points will expire if you don't have qualifying activity in your Honors account for 24 months. Unfortunately, transferring points from American Express to Hilton Honors does not qualify as an eligible activity for extending the life of your Hilton Honors points. Instead, you'll need to earn or redeem Hilton points through other means to extend the validity of your points.
Before you transfer points from Amex to Hilton during this transfer bonus, make sure that you have a use for the points — or at least have a plan to extend their validity.
AwardWallet can help you track the expiration of your Hilton points — plus the expiration for over 600 other programs. Just add your Hilton Honors account to AwardWallet and you'll get automatic notifications before your Hilton points expire.
Bottom Line
The best Hilton Honors transfer bonus we've ever seen from Amex is 50%, although that Hilton transfer bonus offer has been targeted. While the current bonus isn't the best, it is convenient that it's the same for everyone. But ultimately, this offering isn't all that enticing for most people.
While I don't plan to use my Membership Rewards this way, it's still nice to be able to top off your Hilton account in a pinch. Plus, if you have Membership Rewards points to spare, there are a few situations where transferring for a redemption could make sense. In the end, if you're receiving value for the points that you're comfortable with, that is all that matters.
Will you take advantage of this transfer bonus?
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Hilton Honors American Express Card (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
How often does Hilton Honors have this 25% bonus offer ?
Brett – Once a year on average.
Isn’t this actually a 250% bonus – not 25%?
Hi Steve, Amex points typically transfer to Hilton 1:2. Now, they’re transferring at 1:2.5. That’s 25% extra.
Given the 30% bonus, would they be considered ~equal value if the Hilton “5th night free” policy was taken into account? That is what I plan to do.
Don, good question. Some quick math says it’s nearly equal if you see Hilton points as worth 0.6 cents. You’d get 30% extra in the transfer and then 20% extra value with the 5th night free. The 1:2 ratio makes that close to 1 cent per point, with 1:2 transfer. If you can find a good redemption to not lose value converting MR to Hilton, then have at it!
Great read, Patrick!
Question for you – how often do these 30%-50% bonuses come around? I’m assuming people have noticed a pattern for these by now, e.g., every 3-4 months or every September. Would you say that’s accurate or, is there any way to be notified of these sort of things without logging onto Amex every day?
Thanks as always!
– Avi Kerendian
Hey Avi! It does seem that this transfer bonus is coming around every September (at least). In addition, we’ve typically seen another Amex-Hilton bonus each year. Feel free to bookmark this page. We check for new transfer bonuses each day and will update this post if we see another Amex-Hilton bonus!
I like to see this at least. If I did need some Hilton points then I would take advantage of it. It would depend on what I was booking too.
hilton points bare rarely worth more than 35 cents with their dynamic priicng.
so alwaysd a bad deral to ocnveert to hilton
Sure, some redemption options aren’t great. But we’ve seen many AwardWallet users get a lot more value than that when redeeming Hilton points.
I RARELY get much better than 0.5cpp and if you can, it’s usually because the sticker price is bloated. I’m sorry, I won’t stay at a $300/night Hilton when there’s a perfectly acceptable $150/night hotel nearby.
I will not be transferring membership reward points to Hilton points. If I needed some Hilton points I would purchase them for half cent each.
It crazy really… a 40% bonus still isn’t competitive with the standard conversion ratios of many airlines…
I’ve only stuck to Chase so far, but may finally be time to switch to Amex to grab all the bonuses!
This could be worth it if you need a small amount of points for a high end redemption….Hilton points are becoming the “SkyPesos” of the hotel world though with Hilton’s sky high redemption costs….
HotelPesos? lol
They are indeed pretty worthless but to be slightly fair, they give them out like candy. So much so that a crapton of Pesos is worth more than the few measly Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, etc points that you would earn elsewhere.
Agreed. I just copped 126,000 MR points from the *awesome* Amex Platinum offer, and 110,000+ Hilton Points from the current SUBs on my new Hilton card. Very few of these transfer bonuses make sense, given that one is often trading Euros for Malaysian Ringgits on a non-parity basis. It’s much easier to just add an Amex Hilton card to your portfolio, and use it in the bonus categories.
What a great partnership between Hilton and American Express. Great to see a partnership that is truly beneficial for users.
With the bonus, at best, you’d be getting around 1 cpp. Terrible redemption for such a valuable currency.
Unless I have a specific reason to spend the points on, I don’t usually jump at these offers.
Just get an AMEX-branded Hilton card if you reallywant MORE HHonors points 🙂
I have not seen any enjoyable hotel redemption through Hilton. Pass on this offer
I know valid reasons do exist but how many people take advantage of this? An MR point is widely valued at 2 cents and even with a 40% bonus, you’re still not breaking a penny in total value to transfer out. I’d need at least a 300% bonus to ever even consider such a transfer.
This would not be a good use of my MR points as I can earn Hilton points in other ways. But if you must transfer flexible points, it is always best to do it when there is a transfer bonus.
I am love Hilton hotels, but Not good choose transfer AE MR to Hilton points. But if you want to go to Maldives may be good idea.
Still flush in Hilton points with those Aspire bonuses my wife and I got.
I’d rather transfer MR to any FFP rather than a hotel deal.
Torn. Once I saw the 40% bonus, was immediately going to transfer my 515K for 1,030,000 Hilton. 60k a night a Waikoloa Village, 5th night free would equal 20 nights @ $295 would be $5900 or still half a penny a point. I have 2 months to decide.
Don’t think we ever saw a AMEX MR to Hilton transfer bonus ever!!
Wish we could click a tag or something and see all historical Amex Transfer bonuses for comparison. I’d say majority have been to airline partners. Definitely some Marriott. May indeed be a first to Hilton.
I agree with what several have already commented: the Hilton properties are excellent; but their points program is very poor. We want better deals!
Don’t agree with we need AE MR to hilton as Hilton hotels need many more point to redeem one night. And they will be change the point value frequently . I’d like to transfer to Marriott Bonvoy.
As @Karek said, I also usually like Hilton properties and staying in the Hilton chain but they really need to get more creative with their points system. They hand it out like candy but in most cases the only meaningful redemptions are for high end properties (where you are capped at 85k or 95k points).
I love Hilton but they have you use so many points towards stays sometimes. I usually find I need a lot of points for stays I wish to do. At least you can earn them quickly. I would only transfer if I was close to having enough for a redemption. Even then I would look at the price of a night before I would transfer or even buy points. I think I would look at my husbands account first. lol!
It is very encouraging to learn that the share price of Hilton has NOT fallen much in spite of everything.
Definitely nice for a top-off, but wouldn’t do more than that. Even with the 40% bonus, the relative “value” of converting MR points to HH points is much less than can be realized when transferring to airline partners.
While I would value HHonors points a little higher, I agree that this is really for most everyone not a good deal. Frankly, I’m surprised AmEx came up with such a poor offer.
I value Hilton points at $.0045 each so I do not consider this a good deal and so I will pass!
I have had some of my most enjoyable hotel redemptions through Hilton. With Gold status through a credit card giving free breakfast, it can be really great value. Topping up your points with a transfer bonus might be just what is needed for a cost effective redemption.
AMEX used to have transfer bonuses more frequently so I’m glad they are having them again, I haven’t seen any transfer bonuses for a while for any transfer partner.
Yes, even though most here don’t view it as a great transfer offer, I’m just glad to see one. I just checked, and I believe the last AmEx MR transfer offer was in November.
I would wait for a higher bonus before taking this offer. As the article stated, there is 1.5x which is better than the offer of 1.4x now. You can also buy the points with 100% now.
Yes. I think I will. It’s a good way to increase my points while I am not travelling due to restrictions. Thanks for the info.
Not worth transferring any points speculatively in this environment. Its better to save the points.
Don’t redeem them for HHonors points now since you cannot travel to your dream destinations.
not worth it to transfer now. I’m holding on to my amex points
I don’t think it is a good promotion. At this time, where tourism is suffering, many companies are offering very competitive promotions.
I don’t think this is a great deal. i’m gonna pass on it for now but great post