Buy Hilton Honors Points with 80% bonus through 16 March

Hilton is having a 80% bonus on purchased points from now till 16 March 2018. This allows you to buy points for 0.56 US cents (currently about 0.75 SG cents) each. This is a non-targeted promotion, so anyone regardless of status or stay history will be able to access it. You can buy points via the Hilton website.

You can buy a maximum of 80,000 points per year (before bonus), although if you have family members with legit Hilton accounts it’s a simple enough procedure to transfer points across accounts using the Points Pooling function.

Historically these bonuses have gone up as high as 100%, so if you’re waiting for the best deal you should probably hang in tight. If you’ve got upcoming travel plans already, though, this might be for you.

Possible redemptions

I usually wouldn’t bother buying points for stays at Hilton, but there are some cases where there are potential savings to be had. Here’s an illustration of some possible use cases (exact points redemption cost can vary; am focusing mainly on regional destinations and pricing effective cost in SGD if you redeem using points purchased right now).

Budget

• Hilton Garden Inn Singapore Serangoon (20,000 points; S$150 per night)
• DoubleTree by Hilton Johor Bahru (10,000 points; S$75 per night)
• DoubleTree by Hilton Kuala Lumpur (10,000 points; S$75 per night)

Mid-range

• Conrad Centennial Singapore (80,000 points; S$600 per night)
• Conrad Bali (40,000 points; S$300 per night)
• Conrad Bangkok (40,000 points; S$300 per night)
• Conrad Macao (40,000 points; S$300 per night)

Luxury

• Waldorf Astoria Bangkok – upcoming (64,000 points; S$480 per night)
• Conrad Koh Samui (95,000 points; S$712.50 per night)
• Conrad Tokyo (95,000 points; S$712.50 per night)
• Conrad Maldives Rangali Island (95,000 points; S$712.50 per night)

Of this whole lot I would only consider buying points for the budget options, or perhaps some of the luxury properties (especially with the 5th night free, as detailed below). For most other cases, you can probably get cheaper revenue rates (especially during sales), while at the same time earning additional points as well. Feel free to share other destinations you think are worth buying points for!

Other combos

Hilton 5th night free

If you’re a Silver, Gold or Diamond member, you can get the price of one night discounted off for every 5 nights you redeem. So if you’re looking to stay exactly five nights at a property, you can take the figures above and multiply them by 0.8 – e.g. 76,000 points or S$570 per night at Conrad Maldives; 8,000 points or S$60 per night at DoubleTree KL.

Cashback sites

Unfortunately Shopback doesn’t cover purchase of points, but some international cashback sites such as TopCashback allow you to gain some returns from purchasing of points (2.5% for TopCashback, which can be cashed out as Amazon credits, among other options.)

4mpd cards

Purchases are processed via points.com, which (according to the Milelion Telegram group) codes as online purchases to gain 4mpd on cards such as Citi Rewards, DBS Woman’s World and UOB Visa Signature. Do update if you know of other cards that qualify as well!

Conclusion

I’m personally not so hot about buying Hilton points (even if there’s the full 100% bonus promo going on), but I can see how it makes sense in certain situations, or if you just need some additional points to make your award booking. If you’ve got an urgent use case and can’t wait for the next 100% bonus promo, this is as good a time as any to pull the trigger!