British Airways and Hilton HHonors have launched a new promotion that will run from now until April 30th.
Ironically, we don’t yet know what the official Hilton HHonors promotion will be once the current ‘double points’ offer finishes on January 31st. Remember that there will probably be a competing points-based promotion so you will have to choose which way to jump.
Last week I wrote about the Lufthansa / Hilton promotion which offers a steadily increasing miles bonus, culminating in a 400% Miles & More bonus.
The Avios promotion is totally different:
It offers a fixed number of points as the bonus which means that it is a good deal on short cheap stays and a poorer deal on long expensive stays
It only applies to your first two Hilton stays before April 30th. After that, you may want to switch back to earning points or sign up for another mileage promotion from a different airline.
Remember that this promotion will double-up with the ‘£50 cashback on a £250 UK Hilton stay’ promotion currently being run by American Express – details in this article.
The deal is:
You need to register for the promotion at this page
You need to switch your Hilton HHonors earning style from ‘points and points’ (ie 10 base HH points and 5 HH bonus points per $1) to ‘points and miles’
Select ‘British Airways’ as your airline partner
Receive 1,500 bonus Avios (500 at Hampton by Hilton) on top of your base points on your next stay in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Receive 2,000 bonus Avios (600 at Hampton by Hilton) on top of your base points on your second stay in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
For stays outside the UK, Middle East and Africa or at a Hampton by Hilton brand hotel then switching back to ‘points and points’ for that stay is probably better. I value the five bonus Hilton points per $1 higher than I value the base earnings of 1 Avios per $1.
I would expect Virgin Flying Club to launch a version of this promotion as well, so keep an eye out. Even if you take the Avios option, you might want to switch to Virgin for your 3rd and subsequent stays.
Full details and registration can be found here.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to see our latest articles on earning and spending your points and click here to see our list of current Avios promotions.)
About Head for Points
I thought that these offers tend to be stackable?
I would agree, in the past miles offers from an airline have tended to be stackable with a HHonors “double points” quarterly offer.
I had a nightmare getting this promo to credit last year. The first stay posted fine but the second did not. I chased it up and Hilton insisted it had been credited and closed the ticket. I had to reopen it twice before they credited the miles.. However the 2000 showed in my hhonors account but never credited to BA, instead the base miles (116) credited again. I contacted BA who said they have been credited thank you and goodbye.
Never did get them.
Somewhat OT. Having no use for my mum’s VS miles we converted them to Hilton points before the devaluation, now need to use them before they expire!
Has anyone booked a points+cash night with Hilton in someone else’s name? Can’t see how to do it online but T&Cs say you can. Can’t do “I will check in first” because 2 people will be arriving at the same time.
Will the call centre do this over the phone with no hassle and will the hotel know (so that they don’t ask for ID of the account holder who isn’t staying – got caught out by IHG before).
Yes you can, the hotel won’t care. Book for 2 people, put one of the other 2 down as 2nd guest and you are fine. I have done this loads of times for my brother and his family.
Only an issue in countries where they are VERY strict on ID matching the first name, Spain is one of the few problem areas.
Or, of course, buy some Hilton points and keep them active that way.
I am doing a points and cash night next week on my wifes account for the same reason! She has 22k expiring and I got a room for 20k and £50!
Doesn’t your wife have a Hilton Visa card? I thought that stopped points from expiring…
No. I could easily have bought some points for her but I needed the redemption anyway so it seemed sensible. One less account to track in AwardWallet!
By the same token can I book multiple rooms for my girlfriend and her friends but not travel with them at all? How do they react to status in that situation?
Not sure what the Hilton rule is on status covering multiple room bookings, you would need to check the T&C’s. There are two things to look at: a) whether status covers multiple rooms or just the room ‘occupied’ by the booker and b) whether you get points and credit for multiple rooms.
Starwood gives credit for up to 3 rooms per night which is handy for similar promotions.
Is there a reason for less Avios when you stay at Hampton By Hilton?
I booked a night with them as they are an 8 minute walk to the venue we are going to for a wedding and we can leave the car at the hotel and have a few drinks without worrying about driving to the hotel.
This is typical policy. IHG has similar rules (if you earn Avios instead of points) for its cheaper brands. I can only assume they can’t justify the cost of the points on what can be a £50 stay.
It’s £109 stay. So might look for something else.
I am wondering whether it is possible to receive those 3500 bonus Avios (for two bookings/stays) if I make two separate bookings for a room each but with check-in on the same day. Thanks in advance.
No, definitely won’t work. Hotel will merge the bookings and even if it doesn’t the Hilton HHonors system will merge them. You would need to change hotel.
Will I receive the avios offer with the free one night stay hilton voucher (obtained from spending £750 on hilton visa card)? Or does it only count for paid rooms?
You sometimes get points on reward nights. Charging something to your room, even just a beer, is required so there are base points being earned. Sometimes the base points trigger the bonus.
But per Hilton’s T&C award stays don’t earn miles. I had a similar situation last year and the bonus miles were not awarded.
It seems to vary by promo – the Conrad/Waldorf one last year (that seems to have been renewed this year) definitely awarded on redemption stays, I earned about 20k with them! 🙂
Yes, it has been renewed – post in the pipeline.
An award stay won’t work. Incidental spend on an award stay will get you some HHonors points, which may be enough to trigger HHonors ponts related promos, but it won’t trigger any miles. As such, since it’ll post as 0 miles, it won’t trigger miles based promos like this.
I have a few nights already booked at the Hilton at Gatwick at the end of Feb. I’m hoping if I register for the promotion and change my earning style to points & miles with a preference of BA, then this will count even though it has already been booked?
Yes, will be fine up to date of check-in
Just make sure that at check in you show them your BA Exec number and ask them to check its showing on the booking. And then when you get the bill, you should also check that the points have been credited to BA.
promos like this, and others where you can save the offer to your card on the Amex site, can i benefit twice from the offer if i use my card and then my wives card? my card i can do, but i am a supplementary card holder on my wives and if on my wives Amex account i save the offer to the card, the card its saved to is my wives. the number listed, the last 5 digits, is my wives and not mine on here account. Would my card still pick up the offer?
Hope thats clear :S
Hoping to pick your collective brains here:
I have the following stay pattern currently booked:
Feb Conrad St James
March Hampton Liverpool (reward stay)
Later on in March Doubletree Barcelona
Obviously the 1500 Avios should post fine for the Conrad stay…. How can I avoid the Hampton stay triggering a secondary lower bonus as I would be better off with the 2000 Avios at the Doubletree. Stupid question but I assume if I just change my Hampton stay to Points and Points then I can handily skip this stay for the purposes of this promo and then flick back to Avios before I go to Barcelona.
Hope someone can validate my logic! Thanks
Yes, that works. Flip if before check-in and keep it flipped until the stay has posted. There are also some special Conrad bonuses you can claim, details in an article in a day or so.