New Sale: Buy Hilton Points With A 100% Bonus

Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published. For more details please see the advertising disclosure found at the bottom of every page. 

Hilton has now launched a new points sale in which it’s offering a 100% bonus to Hilton Honors members who buy a minimum of 10,000 points. With this being the best bonus we generally see Hilton offering when it’s selling its currency this is the promotion in which to buy Honors points if you need to top up an account.

Headline Terms & Conditions

Here are the important parts from the Terms and Conditions which you’ll find in full at the bottom of the “purchase points” page after you log in:

• The 100% Points bonus with a minimum purchase threshold campaign is available for purchases made between September 10, 2019, at 12:01am ET and October 22, 2019, at 11:59pm ET.
• Through October 22, 2019 members may purchase a maximum of 160,000 points per calendar year.
• All purchases are non-refundable.
• Offer cannot be combined with any other offer.
• Points will be posted to the recipients Hilton Honors account within 24 hours of the completed transaction.
• Price includes all applicable fees.
• GST/HST will be charged to Canadian residents.
• Points purchased are final and not refundable and are applicable towards all Honors Terms and Conditions.
• Points purchased do not count towards elite tier qualification.
• Purchased points do not count towards Honors status upgrades.
• Points.com and Hilton Honors reserve the right to terminate bonus promotions at any time.
• All purchases must be made through the Purchase page on HiltonHonors.com

The Math

Hilton doesn’t vary the cost/point within each of its bonus tiers so, as long as an Honors member buys at least 10,000 points in this promotion, he/she will be buying points at the best available rate.

Here’s what the costs look like in this promotion:

• • • Buy 1,000 to 10,000 points at 1.00 cent each
    • Buy 10,000 to 160,000 points at 0.50 cents each

160,000 is an unusually high annual purchase limit for Hilton to offer (which is why the t&cs say that this limit will only be in place through to the end of this promotion) and buying the full 160,000 point allowance costs $1,600…..

…and will net you 320,000 points after the bonus is added in.

320,000 points at a cost of $1,600 equates to 0.5 cents/point.

Should You Hilton Points At 0.5 Cents Each?

As mentioned earlier, 0.5 cents/point is the cheapest rate at which we usually see Hilton points being sold so if this offer doesn’t work for you (which it may not) there isn’t another offer that we’ve seen that’s going to improve things for you.

If you’re planning on buying points just to sit on them with a hope of finding a use for them in the future you should know that this is a fundamentally bad idea (the points may lose considerable value before you get around to finding a use for them)…but there’s definitely value to be had here if you know what you’re doing.

Let’s take the Conrad New York Downtown as an example.

On a midweek night in June the cheapest room at this property can cost well over $600 per night…

…which the cheapest rate eventually costing almost $700 once the taxes have been added on.

The exact same room can also be booked for 80,000 points for the exact same dates.

In the sale that Hilton is running right now the 80,000 points needed to book this room would cost $400 which, if applied to this reservation, would save a guest almost $300 on the best available cash rate.

You may also be able to pair this sale with your Hilton Honors status to get yet better deals.

If you have Hilton Honors Elite status you get the fifth night free on all award stays of 5 nights or more and this leads to another example of where this sale can be useful.

A five-night stay at the Conrad London St James’ in May next year can cost £400/~$488 per night or 80,000 points/night :

The full 5-night stay will cost £2,003.10/~$2,444 when you pay with cash…..

…and 320,000 points if you pay with points.

320,000 points purchased in this sale will cost $1,600 representing a saving of over $840 for the stay.

Link to purchase Hilton Points

Bottom Line

Please bear in mind that the hotels I’ve discussed above are just examples so there may be cheaper properties available on the same nights in the same locations that suit you just as well….but that doesn’t make the deals I’ve highlighted bad.

I suggest the following:

• • 1. Work out what you’d like to do with any points you plan to buy, where you’d like to visit and when
    2. Perform similar calculations to the ones I’ve shown above.

If the math works then buying points in this promotion is probably a good idea (go for it), if not then you should move on.

If you only need a few more thousand points (to add to your existing Hilton Honors points balance) for an award you’ve been looking to book then paying a little more for the points than you would otherwise be happy to pay would also be ok….just don’t go crazy.

You can access the latest Hilton Points Promotion via this link.