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One of the big changes unveiled during the Hilton Honors program relaunch was Hilton Honors points pooling, which allows friends and family to transfer their points into one account for an award redemption. The system is relatively straightforward with only a few terms and conditions:
- You can send 500,000 points per calendar year
- You can receive 2,000,000 points per calendar year
- Points are transferred in 1,000 point increments
- You can receive points from up to 10 members
- There are no fees for pooling the points
- Status cannot be pooled
- Pooling points does not count as a qualified account activity to stop your points from expiring, for either the sender or the recipient
To qualify for points pooling you must meet the following requirements:
- You must be a Hilton Honors member for 30 days
- You must be an active member
- You must have a minimum of 1,000 points
Once transfers have been initiated, it can take up to 24 hours for the points to post to the other account.
Multiple Earners and One Redeemer
Now that Hilton has opened the option for pooling, it's a great opportunity for families and friends to maximize their value by pooling their points. The fastest way to amass a healthy balance of points is through Hilton's co-brand American Express credit cards.
There are four Hilton credit cards from Amex and all of the points can be pooled.
- Hilton Honors American Express Card – 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.
- Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card – Earn 130,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card in the first 3 months of Card Membership
- Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card – Earn 150,000 Bonus Points after you use your new Card to make $4,000 in eligible purchases within the first 3 months of Card Membership. Plus, enjoy a free Weekend Night Reward within your first year and every year after renewal.
- The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card – Earn 130,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 in purchases on the Hilton Honors Business Card in the first 3 months of Card Membership.
Steps to Setup Hilton Honors Points Pooling
1. Send a Pooling Request
Visit the Hilton Honors Pool Points request page and enter the name and email address of someone with whom you'd like to pool points.
2. Review the Request Receipt in your email
You'll receive a receipt of the email request with a list of names you've requested to pool points
3. Alert the Recipient to the Pooling Request
The recipient will receive a similar email.
4. Initiate the Transfer
After they click on “pool your points,” they'll be prompted to log into their Hilton Honors account and will be directed to the Pool Points page with your name and email address listed as the recipient of the transfer. Select the number of points, and the transfer request is initiated.
We think this is one of the best features released across any award program in recent times and it's great to see Hilton thinking outside the mainstream box. If you have plans to pool your Hilton points we'd love to hear how the process rolls out for you in the comments.
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.
Hi,
for month now im trying to Pool with Friends.
But always when klicking on “pooling your points”, i get the following error message:
We are sorry, Something went wrong with your transaction. Please click here to try again.
Ive tried it now at least 4 time always the same.
Any idear what i could have done wrong?
Thanks for your help!!
Rainer – this happened to my wife and I when we wanted to set it up. I contacted Hilton on Twitter, and they helped me set it up. You could also email Hilton at HiltonHonors@hilton.com
Hi,
I met the same problem too. Could you please share the reason for this issue? HH account’s problem or not?
Anyone know how the points are reflected in Awardwallet after the change? Do they all show up for the pool owner only?
Please contact our support team to figure it out:
https://awardwallet.com/contact
In my opinion, the new point pooling feature is simply the consolation prize for the dynamic pricing.
Agree!
I didn’t know you could pool points.
now you do!
This is definitely something I will think about using in the future. It’s very nice that you can pool with anyone. My family are slowly learning about miles and points but we don’t share an address so other points pooling set ups have never been any benefit to me.
thank you, good post!
A positive addition for Hilton Honors. Good explanation.
This was a welcome change. All loyalty programs should adopt points pooling.
Nice! It’s always tough to figure out how to repay friends that pay for the hotel rooms using points. Now if we pool, it’s more fair!
It is good news to be able to pool the reward points.
The fact that a transfer transaction stop the expiration for both the sender or the recipient is absolutely great. I didn’t know this.
To be clear, pooling points DOES NOT extend expiration.
Alas, I have no friends or family that travel or who are interested in getting points, miles, etc. Oh well. With you all I get plenty of info on upping my balances and easy track them here :O) I think I need new friends ;o)
It’s great when these programmes allow point/miles pooling. I wish more would do the same, as I have so many orphaned miles in various loyalty schemes!
This is a great facilitity to utilise
When you transfer Starwood points you need to share the same address. What about Hilton pooling – do you need same address? Is it possible to transfer points to account of my brother that lives in another country?
You can pool with ANYONE 🙂
Thanks. I was looking for programs that allow points to be pooled or transferred without fees. This is now number 2 on the list, after Jetblue.
Nice new capability from Hilton.
Thanks for the detailed information!
Took advantage of this and moved several thousand points from my wife’s account to mine.
I need Points 😀 – and friends for Points..
Hahah! 🙂
Per usual, the Hilton site was a little glitchy, but my pooling transfer eventually went through. Cleaned out an orphan account, so one less to monitor.
I believe Hyatt also has a pretty easy points transfer policy!
They do, we’ll be covering it shortly!
Love points pooling, thanks Hilton!!
This is great! Thanks for the helpful explanation!
I would love to see others move to more pooling. A big benefit to families with multiple accounts.
Marginal improvement to a loyalty program that is a shell of its former self.
It’s about time they did this!
This looks good if you have relations that travel a lot.
Do I correctly understand that the transfers under the pooling method can only go one way — to the person initiating the pool request? What if several months later, the person who initiated the pool now wants to transfer some points to the person who previously sent her points under the pooling method?
Pat, you could indeed do that. The person wanting to request the points for pooling would send out a pooling request.
More programs should allow points pooling.
We’d certainly love it!
does this also extend the expiration date of the points?
Lorrie, as indicated in this post, we’ve reached out to Hilton and are awaiting a response. Once we have a confirmation, either way, we’ll update the content.
We’ve confirmed with Hilton that pooling does not extend expiration.
Is the expiration on an account basis or a points basis? If my wife’s Hilton account has recent activity but mine does not and I transfer points to her do those points now get her expiration date or will they expire once my account has been inactive for a certain period?
Expiration of points are an all or nothing. As long as there is qualifying activity all points stay alive. If you transfer your points to her account, those points now have her expiration date. This is a great way to keep points alive in an account that would otherwise expire.
Transferring points does not count as a qualifying activity to extend the life of an account/its points, so as long as your wife’s account has activity your points will be safe.
That’s exactly what I was wondering after reading that portion of the post. Thank you for confirming.
This is too bad. So many loop holes on activity between different programs.
I find hilton to be a bit of a challenge since I use it as a secondary program and I usually end up expiring these.
I suppose this is neat, but I’ve never quite wrapped my head around the practical difference between “pooling points” and simply transferring them to one person (usually the head of household with elite status)
Huh? Pooling is a new feature – with no fee.
This is great news. Finally we can share our points with family!
A positive change! I like it.
This is now a great feature of HH accounts. Many people short of HH points have in the past paid for more points to make up totals for a redemption. Now, family members can simply pool points saving lots of money.
So the first question would be: How do i get these points?
I have been able to do this.
A valuable flexibility which add more value to the Hilton Honors.
As a user has pointed out it works very well when you have the status and someone else the points!
which of the 4 credit cards would you recomend starting out with
Seems easy enough! Thx for the article!
Hope more hotel chains can follow this!
Great feature for families.
Very generous! I suppose it’s only Hilton and British Airways have this family&friends pooling – much more simple to use those points or miles for big rewards.
SPG allows you to pool points for members who share the same address.
Love that new promotion! Way to go Hilton!
Great article ! I did receive the email and would be useful to pool points with spouse.
Signing up was super easy and quick! Definitely expands the possibilities of our earned points.
Good info to have in case we need to pool points for a redemption!
This, combined with the new pay for points system, has actually brought a bit of value to Hilton points which have been the least valuable among the major brands for a while now.
Yes but it is very easy to earn
This will very useful for our family!
My wife and I signed up for points pooling, very simple process and the points transfer was instanteneous. She had all the points, however I have status. We transferred her points to my account so hopefully we will be upgraded when using points for stays.
Exactly the same situation I have. Nice way to add perks to points.
thanks Sam for a great article and breaking it down one step at a time.