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Get a 50% bonus on American Express transfers to Hilton Honors – but is it worth it?

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American Express emailed a lot of HfP readers yesterday with an attractive transfer bonus.

Between 21st November and 21st December, they will receive a 50% bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to Hilton Honors.  The rate increases from 1:2 to 1:3.

This is very good.  I value a Hilton Honors point at 0.33p.  Because you can use Hilton points to part-pay cash bookings at roughly this level, even if you can’t get a standard redemption room, there is a floor beyond which the value won’t fall.

With the transfer bonus, you are getting around 1p per Amex Membership Rewards point.  This is as good as it gets, and puts Hilton Honors transfers on a par with Radisson Rewards (usually 1:3 with a similar 0.33p per point value) and frequent flyer mile transfers (assuming 1p per mile of value).

The bad news is that the offer appears to be targeted.  I didn’t get it (I have transferred to Hilton Honors before) and neither did my wife (no previous Hilton transfers).  I have done a speculative 200 point transfer and will report back, but if you didn’t get the email you should assume that you are not getting the bonus.

If you DID get the email then it is well worth considering.  It isn’t a knockout deal – as I said, it simply moves Hilton onto equal footing with Radisson and the airlines – but it is also as good as you’ll see for an Amex redemption.


How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards

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.

American Express Platinum card Amex

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.)

Comments (245)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Jonathan says:

    Bit late to the Curve\Amex but i think top-ups are a bit old school noughties tech. Surely back to back transations are much more modern, dynamic and flexible.

    Whilst i could afford to stick £20k on the Curve just in case i want to splash out 1) Given the tardiness of thier support, i dont trust Curve with £20k of my money and 2) there will be times you are over\under your limit so reconciling your actual purchase receipts with your Amex bill becomes hard work.

    I like the Amex thing as it brings real choice to everyday spending…… but it seems cumbersome and inconvenient from what i read on the blog.

    • RakishDriver says:

      Not to mention expensive.

    • Mark2 says:

      The idea is not to leave large amounts of money on there but rather to do the ‘back to back’ mandraulically as required. The blog says ‘With our optional auto top-up feature to come in the open Beta version, the payment experience with Amex on Curve will be seamless for our customers’ so this is a temporary inconvenience.
      I am more interested in Rob’s suggestion that the limits would be greatly increased, but no mention of that yet,

  • BluehorizonUK says:

    Amex £25 off £40 spend is back on (you need to use at least 5p in points for this to work). Sold and Dispatched by Amazon ONLY

    AMEX25OFFSWP

      • Lee says:

        Rob’s code AMEX25SWP doesn’t work, this one does, missing OFF
        Used both AMEX16SWP and AMEX25OFFSWP today, £40 saved

        • Shoestring says:

          £125 saved here 🙂

        • Lee says:

          Harry, did you used on different accounts?

        • Shoestring says:

          @Lee – different family a/cs, same Amex card

          Still got one to go but my wife’s away & holds the secret to that one.

          It’s odd, I can see that this code got very hot 12 hrs ago on the deals site but then was expired as so many people got knocked back. However, still working great. As suggested, I used 10p worth of MR points (not my usual 1p) – no idea if that helped. It *IS* a different code to the HFP £25 off £40 that I couldn’t use.

      • Lee says:

        There was glitch this morning, code works while you don’t even need AMEX rewards part pay.

    • Shoestring says:

      yep working on my a/c

      • Shoestring says:

        Just used it 5x – wasn’t working for me when it got mentioned earlier but working fine now.

    • SimonW says:

      Thankyou for this. Saved 25 quid on a Christmas present !

  • iamfugly says:

    Off O/T: sorry to go on a tangent here but I am new to the Revolut card and just wanted to ask a simple question. Am I correct in understanding I can use it similar to Curve. Except instead of linking a reward Mastercard/Visa, I simply use said reward card to load up the Revolut prepay first? Although a faff of having to preload, I assume this will avoid the constant issues I encounter with Curve’s daily/monthly/annual spending limits.
    Many thanks

    • Peter K says:

      Almost didn’t reply due to your username but, curve and revolut work differently.
      Like you said, you need to prepay money into revolut. Then you have two options:
      1) use the card abroad like a normal card and revolut sets the fx rate on the day to convert from your balance (much worse at the weekend)
      2) change the money to the currency you want in advance to ‘lock in’ the rate on that day (again, don’t convert on a weekend). Then use the card like normal.

      • Sandgrounder says:

        Revolut has more bank account type features too- you set up individual accounts in supported currencies, and can swap between them at 0% commission (during the week), can send /receive transfers in that currency, and for euro and sterling you have a proper account number you can use for free SEPA/faster payments transfers in and out. You can also pay euro direct debits.

      • iamfugly says:

        Hi Peter K, thanks for your reply. I was actually planning on using the Revolut card on Sterling transactions in the UK as I am close to maxing out my 2nd Curve card and am finding the whole reapply and building up a spend history with Curve rather tedious. The whole point of using the card was for the debit card functionality which I guess Revolut will provide without the pain of a spend limit.

        • Alan says:

          Although Revolut does have a topup limit and will ask for bank statements, payslips etc…

  • s879 says:

    OT but Hilton related. Transferred Virgin to Hilton almost 2 weeks ago but they haven’t hit my Hilton account yet. Previously it’s taken about a week. Are others experiencing the same? Miles left Virgin account pretty much same day.

    • Peter K says:

      Not transferred from Virgin but from E-rewards. It is taking longer than usual for that, for two different Hilton accounts.

    • Genghis says:

      Requested transfer 10 Nov. Posted 21 Nov.

  • Crafty says:

    OT: Marriott/SPG redemptions. Trying to do a multi night redemption at a Sheraton. No matter the combination of nights it tells me “Sorry, this hotel is not accepting redemptions”. Yet same dates work when booking single nights. So I have booked all 5 nights as singles, and intend to contact Marriott to get the bookings linked up and get the points back for my 5th night free! All very odd and hopefully not cynical… can anyone shed any light?

    • mr dee says:

      I have seen this with Marriott/SPG properties when trying to book a 5 night stay as well several times, there must be some sort of extra space requirement to allow the free night (in their system anyway)

  • Martin says:

    Rob – Regarding 50% Hilton Honors transfers, the fine print on my offer email says “Minimum transfer is 1,000 Membership Rewards points”
    Not sure 200 points would work then…
    I only had the email but the transfer page still says 1:2

    • Rob says:

      I think we’ve agreed it is now targeted.

      • Ruben Pritchard says:

        I called Amex about the 3:1 conversion offer and they said that it was actually an offer that you had to save to your card to get it, with a limited number of slots.
        There is no information within the targeted email to imply that it was an offer you had to save to your card.
        Did anyone actually see this offer on their card?

  • Alex W says:

    I transferred 200 MRs and only got 400 honors 😞

    • Alan says:

      I thought it was min 1k transfer and up to 90 days for bonus though, even if eligible? (I didn’t receive email so haven’t tried)

  • Murray says:

    Hi all, slightly off topic but I’m new to points collecting, and wondering about the referral bonus for the Amex gold rewards card. I got my card in the summer and have just referred my wife for the card – she’s been approved and now has hers. Can she add me as her supplementary cardholder to help her reach the spending bonus, or would that invalidate it as I already hold an Amex? Thanks!

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.