American Express launches a 30% Hilton Honors transfer bonus from Membership Rewards

American Express has launched a 30% transfer bonus when you move your Membership Rewards points into Hilton Honors points by 3rd November.

Let’s see if this is enough to move the needle or not.

Which American Express cards offer Membership Rewards points?

The key cards we cover which offer Membership Rewards points, at a rate of 1 point per £1 spent, are:

What is the transfer bonus?

The standard transfer rate from Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors is 1:2.

Under this promotion, it is 1 to 2.6. This means that you are getting 30% more Hilton Honors points than you would usually get.

What are the terms and conditions?

Here is the small print from the Membership Rewards website:

“Minimum transfer is 200 Membership Rewards points and maximum transfer of 499,950 points. Points need to be transferred in increments of 50 points. Redeem for this exclusive offer from 12:00pm GMT on 03 October 2022 to 11:59pm on 03 November 2022. Points will be transferred to your Hilton Honors account within 5 working days. Please allow up to eight weeks for the additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points to be awarded. Hilton Honors Bonus Points do not count towards elite tier qualification.”

Looking at this, it appears that the offer is open to everyone. It shows on the American Express website before you have logged in.

Is it worth transferring?

In general, with any bonus, 30% should not be a game changer for you.

50%, probably. 100%, definitely. However, 30% shouldn’t be enough to persuade you to do something that you wouldn’t otherwise have done.

This is because your estimate of the value you will get from the points is always going to an educated guess, and you could easily be 30% off.

My standard valuations of hotel points for the three schemes that are Amex partners are:

• Hilton Honors – 0.33p (I explain why here)
• Marriott Bonvoy – 0.5p
• Radisson Rewards – 0.33p

You can easily do a lot better and a lot worse than these numbers, but this is the cut off at which I am happy to spend points rather than pay cash.

Translating these to the standard Membership Rewards transfer rates, we get:

• Hilton Honors: 1 Amex point = 2 Hilton points so 1 Amex point = 0.66p

• Marriott Bonvoy: 1 Amex point = 1.5 Marriott points so 1 Amex point = 0.75p

• Radisson Rewards: 1 Amex points = 3 Radisson points so 1 Amex point = 1p

If you adjust the Hilton Honors figure to reflect the 30% bonus, the value jump from 0.66p to 0.86p per Amex point.

This is still poorer than a Radisson Rewards transfer. For most people, it is also poorer than a transfer into Avios or another frequent flyer programme at 1:1. Most HfP readers would value an Avios as 1p+.

Don’t forget Nectar …..

Remember that you get a GUARANTEED 0.8p per American Express Membership Rewards point if you convert them to Nectar via Avios:

• 1 Membership Rewards point = 1 Avios
• 1 Avios = 1.6 Nectar points

1.6 Nectar points gets you, at 0.5p per point, 0.8p to spend at Sainsbury’s, Argos and eBay.

The Amex to Hilton route gets you marginally better value than this but it isn’t a no brainer, unless you are confident you can get outsize value for your Hilton Honors points. That said, given the hotel rates we have seen this Summer, it isn’t necessarily going to be difficult.

Is this cheaper than buying points?

Hilton has launched a new ‘buy points’ bonus today, letting you purchase points for 0.5 cents (0.44p) each.

Instead of using 1 American Express point to get 2.6 Hilton Honors points, you could buy 2.6 Hilton Honors points for 1.3 cents (1.15p) via this link.

Since getting 1.15p per Amex point is tricky, even with airline miles, I think it is better to take advantage of this transfer deal than buy Hilton Honors points, even with the current 100% ‘buy points’ bonus.

Conclusion

It’s always good to see American Express transfer bonuses.

If you tend to convert your Membership Rewards points to Hilton anyway, this is an offer to jump on. It may offer value for other people too, but you should have a specific high value redemption in mind first.

I’m not sure if I will jump or not. My Hilton Honors balance is now under 5,000 points after a redemption blitz over the Summer. Realistically I have no way of building it back up without a transfer, and it is highly likely that I will be somewhere at some point where a Hilton Honors redemption is the best option available. I need to decide if its worth transferring, say, 80,000 Amex points to get me back to a balance of around 200,000 Hilton points – enough for two nights in a decent hotel when I need one.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.