When do your Hilton Honors points expire? How can you stop it?

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I receive occasional emails from readers asking ‘How can I stop my Hilton Honors points from expiring?’ or ‘When do my Hilton Honors points expire?’. This series looks at the major hotel loyalty programmes and shows you how to keep valuable points intact.

If you need to refer to this article in the future, there is a link to it on our ‘Hotel Offers’ page in the Hilton Honors section. This also includes details of current Hilton Honors promotions.

About Hilton Honors

Hilton Honors is the hotel loyalty scheme for a wide variety of hotel brands including Canopy, Conrad, Curio, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, Hampton, Hilton, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites and Waldorf Astoria.

When do Hilton Honors points expire?

According to the Hilton Honors terms and conditions here (clause 13):

“Members who do not have eligible activity as defined in a. – d. below in any 12 consecutive month period may be removed from the Program and are subject to forfeiture of all accumulated points. At the discretion of Hilton Honors, such Members may be permitted to remain in the Program and removed after five years of inactivity.

To keep accumulated Hilton Honors Points, the Member must take one of the following actions within a 12 consecutive month period:

a. stay at a hotel within the Hilton portfolio pursuant to the terms herein
b. earn Hilton Honors Points through any third party source of Hilton Honors Point accumulation, including a Hilton co-branded credit card, pursuant to its terms
c. purchase Hilton Honors Points; or
d. donate points through The Hilton Honors Giving Back Program”

What are my options to ‘earn Hilton Honors Points through any third party source”?

The key point is that YOU DO NOT NEED TO STAY AT A HOTEL TO KEEP YOUR POINTS ALIVE. You simply need to have some earning activity go through your account.

There are various ways of achieving this:

Earning points (for UK readers):

Transfer American Express Membership Rewards points into Hilton Honors. The minimum transfer is just 200 points which is worth 400 Hilton points.

Transfer points from Virgin Atlantic Flying Club into Hilton Honors. The minimum transfer is 10,000 Virgin miles which is worth 15,000 Hilton points.

Buy any quantity of Hilton Honors points

Credit an Alamo, Enterprise or National car rental to your account

Buy a Priority Pass for airport lounge access to earn 4,000 – 10,000 points

Earn points when using your mobile abroad via One SimCard

There is no longer a dedicated Hilton Honors credit card. However there are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from other UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Hilton Honors points.

Spending Hilton Honors points:

Booking and cancelling a redemption room to create movement on your account does NOT count as activity under the terms above. Under the rules I quoted above there is only one spending option which keeps your points alive:

Donate points to charity via The Hilton Honors Giving Back Program. The minimum transfer is a steep 10,000 points.

Transfer Hilton Honors points:

There is another alternative and one which I have used in the past. You can transfer Hilton Honors points out of your account to someone else for FREE – the form is here.

You can also pool your points with a friend for FREE. This allows you to move them out of your account before they expire. Details of points pooling are here.

It is slightly trickier to keep Hilton Honors points alive than with some other chains because you cannot simply book and immediately cancel a redemption night. That said, preserving your points is still a relatively easy thing to do, especially if you have some Amex Membership Rewards points. The best news is that you don’t need to do a hotel stay unnecessarily.

If the worst comes to the worst and your points are lost, Hilton Honors has been known to reinstate them if you call. This will usually require you to make a number of stays over the next few months – the points are not put back without some activity on your part.

How to be notified of upcoming miles and points expiry dates

If you want to track the expiry dates of all of your miles and points, I recommend signing up to AwardWallet for free. It keeps all of your points balances, including non-travel loyalty schemes, in one place and updates them automatically. If you pay for the premium version ($30 per year) it also tracks your all expiry dates and emails you when points are about to expire. On the free plan, you can track the expiry date for three loyalty schemes of your choice.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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 Gold and MeliaRewards Gold status. We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel 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 American Express Gold (20,000 bonus points), the American Express Rewards Credit Card (5,000 bonus points) and – for small business owners – American Express Business Gold (20,000 bonus points) and Business Platinum (40,000 bonus points).

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.)