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Hilton / Amex ‘£50 cashback on £250 booking’ offer is back, covering UK and European hotels

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American Express and Hilton Hotels have brought back their generous ‘£50 cashback for spending £250’ promotion.

It is restricted to the first 10,000 American Express cardholders to register their card.  To see if you are targetted, you need to log in to the Amex website and click on the ‘Offers’ tab on the online statement for ALL of your cards.

I got it on my Platinum card but not my BA Premium Plus card or, perhaps unsurprisingly, my SPG card.

Hilton Paris Opera lobby

This offer will NOT work with any MBNA, Lloyds or Barclays-issued Amex.  However, keep an eye on the Amex Connect offers site – if it appears there you can take part.  The Amex Connect site appears to be dying off, to be honest, as Amex prepares to pull the plug on its licensed cards business.

The Hilton cashback rules are relatively simple:

You must register your card number in advance (there is a cap of 10,000 registrations)

Valid for stays until 30th November

Minimum spend of £250 in one transaction

Valid only at UK and European hotels. It includes all brands – Hilton, Hampton, Doubletree, Conrad and Waldorf-Astoria.  European countries taking part are Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.

This would work perfectly well in conjunction with the current Hilton ‘double points’ promotion which I wrote about here.

PS.  The relatively new Hilton Paris Opera, pictured above, is included in the offer and will be reviewed on Head for Points later this month.

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. 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

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, Hilton Honors

Comments (69)

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

  • harry says:
    8 Sep8 September 16:06

    always loads of vouchers around for Laithwaite’s eg
    LINK30 – £30 off Orders Over £74.99

    just google them

    you might want to avoid signing up for the Discovery Club/ Winebank as then you need to cancel the direct debit afterwards – not in itself a problem but some people don’t like the hassle

  • Dave R says:
    8 Sep8 September 16:40

    Slightly OT. Does anyone know if a Hilton free night voucher can be used by someone other than the card holder? (I can’t apply for a Hilton card as I already have another Barclaycard but my wife could. I have Hilton Diamond status though so would like to make the booking)

    • Rob says:
      8 Sep8 September 18:42

      Apparently so – as you have to call to make the booking it is straightforward for them to do. I have been told you can book normal reward nights for others by phone as well (not possible online) but no experience of this.

      • Will says:
        8 Sep8 September 19:07

        I’ve booked reward nights for others, then just emailed the hotel direct to let them know the names of the guests checking in.

        They even honoured my diamond status but YMMV.

  • harry says:
    8 Sep8 September 17:12

    Another O/T just thought of another way to bring forward spend on my BMI Diamond Club Visa, bit obvious

    I’m prepaying 2x £500 on school lunches for 2 of my kids – their schools run cashless school lunch systems

    39 weeks = 195 days, x £2.30 = £448.50 – so they should have a bit left over at the end of the school year

    Ker-ching 1000 Avios 🙂

    • Genghis says:
      8 Sep8 September 17:25

      Poor ROI IMO and tying up money that doesn’t yet have to be paid. I’ve prepaid when need to meet sign up bonus etc (e.g. £750 on Hilton or £2k on Amex) but the return has always been better than 1%. Perhaps sign up to virgin white, prepay the circa £1k then get 10,500 virgin miles?

      • harry says:
        8 Sep8 September 17:54

        I guess you’re right – actually I just found out my daughter’s system charges 1.6% fee on top so I’m not doing that

        but in my son’s case, I have to pay that £500 anyway and it is another chore out of the way once a month for the rest of the year so I think I’ll go ahead

      • Mr Dee says:
        8 Sep8 September 18:28

        Agree on the ROI being not that good unless you have maxed out all other sign up bonuses as 2.5p/avios is still a good return on a visa/mastercard spend especially if you also have maxed out any current account offerings that offer interest more than 1.25% interest and your money is making less than 2.5% but now thinking is getting a bit over the top.

        • harry says:
          8 Sep8 September 18:35

          yep but my thinking is: the system won’t take Amex/ there’s no fee for Visa or MC/ I have to pay for his school lunches anyway so I might as well get some points out of it/ it’s a pain to have to remember to top up his school a/c every few weeks & this way I can avoid the hassle

          • Mr Dee says:
            8 Sep8 September 19:00

            Good point if I had the card I would be prepaying everything to get the extra points locked in now 🙂

          • Genghis says:
            8 Sep8 September 19:40

            My wife is doing Virgin white for the 10k sign up (just used for sign up bonus) and i’m doing Virgin black (perhaps just for one year as there is the £140 cost) for the 25k sign up and then ongoing non-Amex expenditure at 1 mile per £. With the sign ups on £4K spend, much better than putting through so much on the DC IMO and gets us set up for the non-DC era.

    • harry says:
      8 Sep8 September 19:56

      thanks I’ll give it a try & see if I get the Amex success email

    • barnaby100 says:
      8 Sep8 September 23:29

      Dont forget it is university tuition payment time. I pay the £9000 by amex with no fees and friends report that they do similar at other unis.

  • Ryan says:
    8 Sep8 September 17:36

    Hi all, not sure if Amex know what Hotel you have stayed in. Would this work on hotels not on the list? Example Sydney Australia? Surely if it bills at Hilton, it would work no?

    • mark2 says:
      8 Sep8 September 17:59

      It shows on statement with location so they must have different merchant codes

    • Rob says:
      8 Sep8 September 18:40

      No, because Amex will have programmed its system to recognise the exact name that appears on the statement.

  • Dan says:
    8 Sep8 September 17:39

    Any chance that buying Points under the 50% discount offer would trigger the £50 offer too? Was thinking of buying some anyway so might be worth a try?

  • harry says:
    8 Sep8 September 18:20

    O/T La Compagnie have reduced 1-way tickets out of/ into Luton to £349 if you can travel before 24th September

    • Genghis says:
      8 Sep8 September 18:26

      Can I smell a fire (sale)?

      • harry says:
        8 Sep8 September 18:32

        should be safe enough esp if you use a credit card

        they obviously want 100% seats filled

        • Genghis says:
          8 Sep8 September 18:37

          True. If I bought one of their fully flexible tickets and have now firmed up my travel plans id be rebooking

  • Westers says:
    8 Sep8 September 19:39

    Do Amex FHR always settle the total bill at check out? Looking at the WA Caledonian in Edinburgh and the room is £229 obviously food and drink will send that above £250 but don’t want to get there and they have already charged the room rate to the card

    • Nick says:
      8 Sep8 September 22:17

      Keep an eye on the points and money that pops up now and then for the WA Caledonian as it works out a good deal especially if you have status. The breakfast is excellent too. Views of the castle from certain rooms are nice too especially as it’s lit up in the evening.

  • lee says:
    8 Sep8 September 22:40

    for the IHG accelerate deal can someone please confirm the holiday inn and the holiday inn express are classed as different brands as it I need to stay at 2 of there ihg Hotel brands .

    thanks in advance

    • David says:
      9 Sep9 September 00:03

      Yes they are two different brands.

      The ones to watch out for are Holiday Inn Garden Court (if any oft house are still not rebranded) – gets classed as a HI.

      And in North America you get the HI Suites and HIX Suites branded versions which get counted as the HI or HIX respectively.

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