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Amex has launched a new targeted transfer bonus offer for cardholders looking to convert their Membership Rewards points over to Hilton Honor points. This offer runs to the middle of July and a little strangely, looks like it’s not meant to start until 1 July even though it’s ive right now (just like the Virgin Flying Club transfer bonus that we wrote about earlier).
Amex to Hilton transfer headline terms & conditions
- Get 20% to 30% more Hilton Honors Points when you convert Membership Rewards® points.
- You must be enrolled in Hilton Honors to participate in this offer.
- For a Rewards Account to be eligible, all Card accounts linked to the enrollee’s Rewards Account must not be canceled, past due or have a returned payment outstanding at the time of both point redemption and point fulfillment.
- American Express is not responsible for availability, accommodations, or any other rewards in the Hilton Honors program.
- Once you have transferred Membership Rewards® points, they become subject to the Terms and Conditions of the Hilton Honors program and cannot be transferred back to your Rewards Account.
- Minimum transfers of 1,000 Membership Rewards points are required.
Also, here are the terms showing that this promo isn’t, apparently, meant to be live until 1 July.
Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page within your Amex online account.
Is this a good deal?
As you may have seen in the image above, our accounts have been targeted for a 20% transfer bonus, but there’s a 30% bonus out there as well and it could be that some people haven’t been targeted at all – Amex sometimes likes to make these transfer promotions targeted.
For the purpose of this discussion, I shall be assuming that the 30% bonus that we know is out there 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.
We value Hilton Honors points at 0.4 cents each while we value Amex Membership Rewards at 1.5 cents each and based on those valuations (yours may differ), this is what American Express is offering with its 30% bonus: 1,500 cents —> 1,040 cents
That doesn’t look promising, does it? And it’s not.
You will find it hard to find a example where transferring Amex points to Hilton is a good idea.
By doing our best to find a Hilton property at which a point redemption is very good value (i.e. this isn’t a randomly chosen night) we found that an entry-level room at the Trafalgar St. James London (Curio Collection) can be booked for $671 or 95,000 points.
By using points instead of cash, a Hilton Honors member could get at least ~0.7 cents of value out of each Hilton point on this stay (more if you would otherwise book a flexible rate) and as they’re only really worth around 0.4 cents each, that’s quite a good return (you may be able to buy Hilton Points for 0.5 cents each right now).
If you wanted to generate those 95,000 points from Amex Membership Rewards, you would need to employ 74,000 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 $1,110.
Why would you effectively pay $1,110 for a room you could buy for $671?
Don’t forget, this isn’t a randomly chosen night. We have tried very hard to find an example where the cash rate is relatively high and the number of points needed for a booking is relatively low, and yet the numbers still don’t stack up.
Here’s another example.
On this particular date in August, for example, the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills can be booked for no less than $1,117 or 120,000 points.
By using points instead of cash, a Hilton Honors member could get at least ~0.93 cents of value out of each Hilton point on this booking, and if we’re comparing like with like (because that cash rate is non-refundable and award bookings are flexible), you could say that you’re really getting ~1.14 cents of value out of each Hilton point (using the semi-flex rate of $1,363).
Most people would agree that under normal circumstances (where we value Hilton points at 0.4 cents each) this would be an excellent use of points.
Unfortunately, If you wanted to generate the 120,000 points needed to make this booking from Amex Membership Rewards, you would need to convert 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.
Even while the transfer bonus is on you’re being asked to use $1,395 of Amex Points to make a booking costing between $1,117 and $1,363 and I think we can all agree that this isn’t be best of ideas.
Yes, if you search very, very hard, you will probably find some outlying examples of bookings where you may be able to save a little money using this transfer bonus, but these outliers aren’t easy to find and I would be surprised if the savings were truly worthwhile.
Bottom Line
While the transfer bonus is set at 30%, most people will find that converting Amex points to Hilton points will not unlock any significant savings and while there will be a few 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.
