Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Hilton launches its May – July promotion, ‘Double Your HHonors’

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A couple of days ago I covered the new Starwood promotion for May to July.  Hilton HHonors has also launched its own promotion for the same period, and it is not dramatically different.

It is called ‘Double Your HHonors’.  You can find full details of the promotion, and register, here.

However, do not register without thinking first, as the promotion requires you to make a choice.

Under ‘Double Your HHonors’, you can choose either:

double Hilton HHonors base points

or

double airline miles

You must select one option, and it cannot be changed later.

If you choose double points and set your Hilton earning preferences to ‘Points and Points’, you will be earning 25 base points per $1 spent.  This is before any elite bonus.

If you choose double miles and set your Hilton earning preference to ‘Points and Miles’, you be earning 10 base points per $1 plus 2 airline miles per $1.

If you choose ‘double miles’ and later switch to taking ‘Points and Points’ then you will just receive the standard 15 points per $1.  If you choose ‘double points’ and later switch to taking ‘Points and Miles’ then you will receive 20 base points per $1 and 1 airline mile.  I hope that is clear!

I tend to value Hilton HHonors points at £3 per 1,000 and airline miles at 0.75p (both very conservative numbers).  On that basis, taking ‘double points’ would earn me (25 x 300/1000 =) 7.5p per $1 spent.  Taking ‘double miles’ would earn me 4.5p per $1 spent.

It’s not that simple though

Hilton is running a generous Avios promotion at the moment which I wrote about here.  You will earn 1,500 bonus Avios on your first stay before the end of July, and 2,000 bonus Avios on your second stay.

This will probably swing the maths towards taking the Avios points and setting your Hilton account to ‘Points and Miles’.  It is almost certainly the best thing to do if you have only two one-night Hilton stays before the end of July.  If you have lots of expensive Hilton stays, ‘Points and Points’ may still work out better.  You need to do the maths before you register.

Beware excluded hotels

There are a whopping 600 hotels which have chosen not to take part in this promotion.  However, the vast majority are in the US.  The only UK non-participant in the Doubletree in Aberdeen, bizarrely.  This compares positively to the new Starwood promotion which excludes virtually all of their UK hotels!

The promotion runs until July 31st.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards

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.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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 and they come with generous sign-up bonuses. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with:

and for small business owners:

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.)

Category

Hilton Honors

Comments (30)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Anon says:
    30 Apr30 April 07:35

    If your looking at maximising collection of HH pts then for a single 4 night stay, I assume that Points + Points is the the way to go.

    eg room rate =£65.= $104 / night

    Points & Points
    4 x $104 x 25 = 10400 HH pts

    Points & Miles
    4 x $104 x 10 = 4160 HH pts + 832 miles/avios

    • Rob says:
      30 Apr30 April 08:21

      Yes, that seems correct … except that you would also get the 1,500 Avios bonus on top if your stay was within the qualifying period. That might swing it.

      • Alan says:
        30 Apr30 April 10:19

        Hilton are never famed for their amazing IT – I’ve just had 1500 Avios post despite being on points+points!!

  • Pol says:
    30 Apr30 April 07:55

    Is this for new bookings only? I have 2 stays booked in Las Vegas before the end of July, will it apply to these?

  • Anon says:
    30 Apr30 April 08:05

    All other promos have worked as long as you register prior to your previously booked stay. 🙂

  • Geoggy says:
    30 Apr30 April 08:21

    Even as an accountant this has me confused.

    I have a 3 night pre paid stay coming up at Hilton in the period, and a 7 nighter from the Avios half price sale at the Conrad Algarve.

    My HH balance is only 7k, and I have about 150k avios

    What would net me best bang for my buck? I’m thinking points and points right?

    • Mrtibbs1999 says:
      30 Apr30 April 08:28

      Your algarve stay is non qualifying. Your choice will depend on the cost of the 3 nighter

  • Geoggy says:
    30 Apr30 April 08:42

    386 euros

    • Geoggy says:
      30 Apr30 April 08:52

      think i’ve got it.

      So about 13,300 HH points or 5320 HH and 1064 avios + 1500

      I’m HH silver so it owuld be 15% extra HH so 13,965 HH for option 1 and 6118 HH for Option 2

      I think I mights as well take the Avios as I don’t stay at Hilton since my Amex Plat gold status lapsed and the points points option would take my overall HH balance to about 20k which is nowhere near a decent redemption

  • Geoggy says:
    30 Apr30 April 09:02

    After all that I really wished i had checked te excluded hotel list as the Hilton Hague is on it. Bah!

  • Alan says:
    30 Apr30 April 09:16

    Ron, I’d still pick points+points – remember you can still opt to earn as points+miles to get the good promos, you don’t have to be on p+p to get the bonus points.

  • Keith Jenner says:
    30 Apr30 April 10:35

    I think you can still mix and match this a bit.

    From looking at the offer details, you still get double base points even if you have your preferences set to points and miles. I also can’t see any reason why this deal is not combinable with the bonus Avios one.

    Therefore, I don’t see why you can’t register for both, and have your preferences set to points and miles for two stays during the period and then change it to points and points for the rest.

    That way, you should get 20 points and 1 mile per dollar plus 3,500 Avios for two stays, and 25 points per dollar for the rest.

    Or am I missing something?

    • Alan says:
      30 Apr30 April 12:57

      Nope, you’re quite right – see my post up thread 🙂 You may not even have to change to earning miles to get the bonus Avios either, both a friend and myself have received it on p+p stays.

      • Keith Jenner says:
        30 Apr30 April 14:08

        Thanks for confirming.

        It would actually be a bit of a pain if they give you the miles anyway. I have four stays booked in the next month, and the first one is in a Hampton Inn, so I would only get 600 Avios for that night.

        I suppose if I don’t sign up for the extra Avios offer until after that first stay then it will avoid them giving me the lower rate.

        • Alan says:
          30 Apr30 April 14:13

          If you potentially have a stay going ‘spare’ then I’d sign up for the bonus Avios offer and keep your stay as points+points and see if you receive the bonus anyway! As I say on the two examples so far this seems to have worked, although definitely not guaranteed so I’d only do it if you had spare low-cost stays you could use.

          Personally once Hilton stopped offering fixed miles I lost any interest in using that option, apart from these occasional bonuses. Points+points certainly keeps things simpler, although it’s a lot less lucrative! I do remember a fun Route 66 trip in a mix of Hampton, HGI, Hilton and Waldorfs where I ended up changing my earning preference after every stay! (whichever preference is in effect at 23:59 central time on the day of check-out is that one that applies to the stay). Beware though if you have multiple airlines in your preferences that the one marked as preferred at the time of making the booking tends to ‘stick’ to the reservation even if you subsequently change your preferred scheme – the best idea if there’s a special promo on is to double-confirm at check-in and check-out that they have the correct FF# listed for the booking.

          • Keith Jenner says:
            30 Apr30 April 14:30

            I’m with you on just using p+p since they got rid of fixed miles. Much easier. I only have my BAEC account on there so there’s no problem with that.

            My issue however is that my four upcoming stays are in a Hampton, followed by three Doubletrees. As the Hampton comes first, I would only get 2,500 Avios in total if they credit me the miles for that (as Hamptons only earn 500 Avios for the first stay). If I wait until I’ve stayed there before accepting the offer then I’ll get 3,500 Avios for all Doubletree stays.

            I will change to points and miles for the first two Doubletrees (they are on consecutive days). If I didn’t change and they didn’t award the Avios then I may miss out on the 2,000 for the second stay as I don’t have anything else planned at the moment.

            By changing to points and miles, I will lose out on about £3 of points value by my reckoning, but it’s better to do that than risk missing the 2,000 Avios, which I value at £20.

          • Alan says:
            30 Apr30 April 14:36

            Ahh – OK good point then on lower bonus Avios – in that case I agree it’s worth holding off signing up for the promo to make sure you don’t mistakenly get the less credit!

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