Amex to Hilton transfers now come with a 30% bonus (1 month only)

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It’s the start of a new month so it’s time to look out for new deals, and the first one that we’ve noticed appeared early yesterday morning in our American Express accounts. For the next month, you can now get a 30% bonus on Amex points conversions to Hilton Honors, but is this a deal you should be considering?

Amex to Hilton transfer headline terms & conditions

• Get 30% more Hilton Honors Points when you transfer Membership Rewards® points through 9/30/2024.
• Enrollment in Hilton Honors is required.
• American Express is not responsible for availability of accommodations, or any other rewards in the Hilton Honors program.
• Guest rooms are subject to availability. Check award accommodation availability before transferring points by visiting HiltonHonors.com or by calling 1-800-HHONORS.
• Once you have transferred Membership Rewards® points, they cannot be transferred back to your Membership Rewards account and become subject to the Terms and Conditions of the Hilton Honors program, found at HiltonHonors.com/Terms .
• Transfer enough points into your Hilton Honors account to redeem for your award accommodations or top up your Hilton Honors account
• Transfers are normally immediate, but please allow up to 24 hours for the transfer to be completed.
• Please note that no booking can be made until the Hilton Honors points are credited to your Hilton Honors account.
• Taxes, fees, charges and surcharges may apply.
• All redemption bookings are subject to the terms and conditions of the Hilton Honors program

Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page within your Amex online account.

Is this a good deal?

I’ve been targeted for a 30% transfer bonus, but it could be that others are seeing different bonus levels in their accounts – Amex sometimes likes to make these transfer promotions targeted.

For the purpose of this discussion, I shall be assuming that the 30% bonus that I’m seeing in my account is the best bonus available.

Amex Membership Rewards points ordinarily transfer over to Hilton in the ratio of 1,000 : 2,000 so, under the terms of this transfer bonuses, the transfer ratio is now 1,000 : 2,600.

I value Hilton Honors points at 0.4 cents each while I value Amex Membership Rewards at 1.5 cents each and based on those valuations (yours may differ), this is what American Express is offering me: 1,500 cents : 1,040 cents

That doesn’t look promising, does it? And it’s not.

You will find it very hard to find a example of in which transferring Amex points to Hilton is a good idea.

Allow me to demonstrate.

By doing my best to find a Hilton property at which a point redemption is very good value (i.e. this isn’t a randomly chosen night) I found that an entry-level room at the London Hilton on Park Lane can be booked for $863 or 80,000 points.

By using points instead of cash, a Hilton Honors member could get ~1.08 cents of value out of each Hilton point on this stay and as they’re only really worth around 0.4 cents each, that’s a fantastic return (you may be able to buy them for 0.5 cents each right now).

If you wanted to generate those 80,000 points from Amex Membership Rewards, you would need to employ 62,000 Amex points while the 30% bonus is on offer.

Based on our valuation of Amex points at 1.5 cents/point (which most people will find conservative), those points are worth $930.

Why would you effectively pay $930 for a room you could buy for $863?

Don’t forget, this isn’t a randomly chosen night. I’ve tried very hard to find an example where the cash rate is high and the number of points needed for a booking is relatively low, and yet the number still don’t stack up.

Here’s another example.

In May next year, the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills can be booked for no less than $1,150 (including taxes and fees):

On most nights, that same room can be booked for 120,000 points:

By using points instead of cash, a Hilton Honors member could get ~0.96 cents of value out of each Hilton point, and most people would agree that this would be an excellent use of points.

If you wanted to generate those 120,000 points from Amex Membership Rewards, you would need to employ 93,000 Amex points while the 30% bonus is on offer and based on our valuation of Amex points at 1.5 cents/point, those points are worth $1,395.

That’s not looking like a good deal is it?

Ok, sure. If you find yourself a situation where you absolutely have to stay at a particular Hilton property when cash rates are high, when your Hilton account is empty and when you would prefer not to buy points in a sale, converting Amex points to Hilton points may make sense.

But outside of niche situations (like the one above) or on rare occasions when Hilton’s 5th night free benefit makes the numbers more attractive, converting Amex points to Hilton points when the transfer bonus is set at 30% seems to make very little sense.

Bottom Line

While the transfer bonus is set at 30%, most people will find that converting Amex points to Hilton points will make little sense and while there will be exceptions to this, you’ll probably find that buying points (when they’re being sold for 0.5 cents each) will offer better value than an Amex conversion.

Check the latest price for Hilton points here.