Hilton’s new ‘points pooling’ feature is now live

Hilton Honors has now launched the latest of the new features that were promised during the scheme relaunch in February – points pooling.

See here at hilton.com for details.

This is, very simply, a way of allowing up to 10 people to transfer their points to you without charge. 

Whilst you have always been able to pay to transfer points to someone else, the fee meant it rarely made sense.

In theory, pooling is designed to allow groups of family or friends to merge their points in order to do a joint redemption.  The example Hilton is using is pooling points to redeem for a suite which may be a better deal than two people individually redeeming for standard rooms.

In reality, there are no restrictions on how pooled points can be used.  You can use them for anything, even a non-room redemption such as airline miles, or indeed not use them at all in the short term.

This has a few implications:

there is no excuse any longer for having your Hilton points expire – you can just move them to a family member

it is worth badgering family or friends who may be doing a one-off Hilton stay to sign up to the programme, because they can transfer their points to you afterwards

this is a partial solution to the problem of Hilton only allowing you to earn points from two rooms per stay – if you need 3+ rooms, you can now book the rest in the name of someone else and then pool those points with your own afterwards

it presumably lets you get around the cap on the number of Hilton points you can buy each year, as you can buy via a friend or family member and then pool those points with yours

it lets you transfer points from a member without status to a member with status, in order to receive status benefits when booking redemption nights

You can transfer a minimum of 1,000 points into a pool with an annual maximum of 500,000 points, across no more than six transactions.  The total amount of points that you can receive via pooling is 2,000,000 per year.

Overall, I can only see positive benefits from points pooling.   You can find out more on this special page of hilton.com here.

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How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (April 2024)

There are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Hilton Honors Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and MeliaRewards Gold status.  We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

Did you know that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are a great way of earning Hilton Honors points? Two Virgin Points can be converted into three Hilton Honors points. The Virgin Atlantic cards are the only Visa or Mastercard products in the UK which can indirectly earn Hilton Honors points. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with:

• American Express Gold (20,000 bonus Amex points)
• American Express Rewards Credit Card (10,000 bonus Amex points)

and for small business owners:

• American Express Business Gold (20,000 bonus Amex points)
• American Express Business Platinum (40,000 bonus Amex points)

The conversion rate from American Express to Hilton points is 1:2.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Hilton Honors points. 

(Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)