The Complete Guide To Hilton Honors: Earn And Redeem Points & Benefits

American Express (Amex) issues three personal Hilton Honors credit cards and one small business card. Using these co-branded cards for your everyday purchases is a quick and easy way to stack up on Hilton points.

*Select business purchases include at gas stations and restaurants, and on wireless telephone services, shipping, flights and car rentals.

**Terms Apply

Bear in mind, you can only earn the welcome bonus on each Amex personal or business card once in your lifetime.

The simplest way to earn points is by staying at an Hilton brands hotel. The number of points you’ll get depends on the brand and your elite status:

In order to earn points, you must book directly with Hilton. Using an online travel agency (Expedia, Priceline, etc.) or a bank travel portal (Chase Ultimate Rewards®, etc.) won’t get you IHG points or elite benefits.

Pool your points with up to 10 other people for award stays. This is a great option if you’re going on vacation with the extended family or a group of friends.

Points pooling is free to use. You can transfer a minimum of 1,000 Hilton points at a time and up to 500,000 points in a calendar year. Each Hilton Honors member can receive a maximum of two million Hilton points every year.

Sign into your account for more information.

Link a debit or credit card to Hilton Honors Dining to earn bonus points every time you eat out at a participating restaurant.

There’s no minimum spend required. Plus, you’ll earn on tax and tips.

Through the Hilton Honors Event Planner Program, earn 1x Hilton points on qualifying events at participating Hilton hotels.

There’s no minimum spend required, and you can earn up to 100,000 Hilton points per event.

Because Hilton Honors is an Amex Membership Rewards transfer partner, you can move your Membership Rewards points to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio. Keep an eye out for promotions that offer bonuses for your transfer.

This isn’t the best way to “earn” points, because you can often get better value with other transfer partners. But it is a decent solution if you’re just shy of an award stay.

Earn points with Hilton travel partners: Alamo, Enterprise, National, Cruises Only, Priority Pass and Lyft.

Car rentals. Get 500 Hilton points every time you rent a car from Alamo, Enterprise or National. Receive an additional 500 points for each day of your rental, for a maximum of 5,000 points.

Cruises. Earn up to 50,000 Hilton points when you book through Cruises Only’s Hilton partner site. The number of points you’ll receive depends on the length of your cruise.

Lounge access. Get up to 10,000 Hilton points when you purchase a membership with Priority Pass. The number of points you’ll receive depends on which plan you choose.

Rideshare. Earn up to 3x Hilton points on Lyft rides.

If you’re short of a redemption, you can purchase the Hilton points you need – up to 80,000 points every calendar year at a rate of $0.01 per point.

Every once in a while, Hilton will do a promotion for as low as $0.005 each point. Log into your account to see the current promotions and cost for buying points.

Hilton Honors award pricing depends on brand, location, time of the year and demand. With that said, an award night will cost between 5,000 points to 95,000 points for a standard room.

You should expect to have a higher required number of points for your award stay if you tend to travel to popular destinations at peak times of the year.

In general, you’ll find better award rates if you book more than 90 days before your stay and with the following brands:

• Embassy Suites
• Hampton by Hilton
• Home2 Suites

Hilton honors gives you the option to pay with both points and cash if you don’t have enough points for an award nigh. You can decide how many points you want to use, starting at 5,000 points and in 1,000-point increments.

Depending on where you want to stay, using Points & Money might be a cheaper option than purchasing the points you need. Keep in mind, your Points & Money selection is set in stone. There’s no way to cancel and get a partial cash refund.

Being a big company in the travel industry, Hilton has numerous travel partners including:

In most cases, 10,000 Hilton points will get you 1,000 airline miles. As you can guess, this is not the best use for your Hilton points. You’re much better off redeeming your rewards towards award stays.

Besides Hilton experiences, I wouldn’t recommend using your Hilton points for any of the other redemption options below. You’ll get far less value than the average $0.006 per Hilton point.

*Actual point value is subject to change but the redemption value for these other options are likely to always be less than the average value for Hilton Honors points in general.