Citibank has a HHonors points transfer bonus, should you partake?

Citibank, which recently revamped its rewards portal, is having a transfer promotion for Hilton HHonors from now till Jan 17th.

Limited Time Offer: Enjoy 2 Hilton HHonors™ Points for each Citi PremierMile you transfer by January 17th. That is 0.5 Hilton HHonors Points in addition to the base redemption rate of 1 Citi PremierMile to 1.5 Hilton HHonors Points, for a total of 2 Hilton HHonors Points. Each Points Transfer must include a minimum of 1000 Citi PremierMiles.

Limited Time Offer: Enjoy 3 Hilton HHonors™ Points for every 5 ThankYou Points you transfer by January 17th. That is 1 Hilton HHonors Point in addition to the base redemption rate of 5 ThankYou Points to 2 Hilton HHonors Points, for a total of 3 Hilton HHonors Points. Each Points Transfer must include a minimum of 2,500 ThankYou Points.

I’m not a big fan of Hilton after their huge devaluation (although they did have some excellent service recovery after a bad stay in Pune). I believe that the pundits online value Hilton points at around US$0.005.

Remember that 1 Premiermile converts to 1 Krisflyer mile, so worth 2 cents for economy class redemptions, 4-5 for business. 2 HHonors points is worth slightly over 1 Singapore cent. So not a great deal, all things considered.

I’ve recently learned that although you cannot combine Premiermiles and Citi ThankYou points together into 1 redemption (i.e you need to pay 2 separate conversion fees), if you have more than 1 card that earns Citi ThankYou points (eg a Citibank Rewards Visa and a Citibank Rewards Mastercard) you can call customer service and ask them to pool the points together before redemption. Citibank does not, by default, combine points from different cards (unlike DBS and UOB)