Great Hilton Point Earnings Over the Next 3 Months

While we stick to military related topics for the most part, we do point out when great deals are to be had.  This one in particular is probably of interest to military members as we spend a lot more time in Hiltons, Marriotts, and IHGs than Starwood and Hyatt which seem to be frequent flyer blogger favorites.  Hard to find those last two that are within per diem most times.

I have had several email offers of bonuses for Hilton lately.  Combined, they make quite a return on investment.

First, Hilton is offering double points if you register here.  You could optionally choose double miles, but I would argue that points are more valuable and a couple of free nights at a good hotel is certainly equal in cost to a free flight.  This deal runs 1 Mar – 31 May.

Next, if you have the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card, they are bumping up their typical 10 points per dollar to 13 points per dollar.  See the bonus offer here.  This is a great card to have as it also gives you Hhonors Gold meaning free internet and breakfast, plus a couple of free nights when you sign up and another free night if you spend $10,000 annually.  This easily makes the $95 annual fee worth it.  This bonus also runs until 31 May.  There is a cap of 5,000 bonus points, but you’d have to be spending an awful lot on Hiltons to exceed that threshold ($1,667).

Then there is the American Express Offer for $50 back for a $250 spend.  This runs until 5 April.  If I don’t have the opportunity to use this on a stay, I will try buying a $250 Hilton gift card, which should meet the conditions (it doesn’t say ‘stay’, it says ‘spend’).  If you don’t already know how to get American Express Offers, see Jen’s Deals We Like blog post on them.

So now is the time to stay with Hilton and really rack up the points.  Normally, most properties give you 10 points/$.  Hilton is famous for giving you both their points and miles from a variety of airline programs per dollar.  However, you can also elect to receive 50% more points in  lieu of the airline miles.  I recommend this as a better value than the small number of miles that you would get.  The wide variety of Hilton-affiliated credit cards can earn you anywhere from 6-12 point/$.  I have a couple of Hilton cards, but try to use the Reserve version which is 10 pts./$.  So let’s say 25 points/ $ normally.

Maximizing the next few months, you can earn:

10 x 2 = 20 points/ $ for the hotel cost

5 points/ $ bonus in lieu of miles

13 points/ $ for using the Hilton HHonors Reserve card

2.5 points/ $ as a HHonors Gold member bonus which comes with the card.

So that totals to an incredible 40.5 points/$ until June!  So if you spent $1000 in hotel stays, that equals approximately 40,000 points.  That is enough points to redeem for 8 Category 1 nights or up to 1 night at a Category 8 hotel.  That’s about a 50-80% return on investment!

I’ve already booked a couple of nights at the Hilton in Waikiki over the Memorial Day weekend for a mileage run/ vacation for the wife and myself.