American Express Improves Transfer Ratio for Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors

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This past summer, American Express inked an exclusive credit card agreement with Hilton Honors that changed up the Hilton co-branded credit card landscape and resulted in new American Express Hilton cards that will be coming out this month. Now it seems like American Express and Hilton are taking their relationship one step further and changing the transfer ratio for American Express Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors.

The new transfer ratio

In the past, the transfer ratio between American Express Membership Rewards and Hilton Honors was 1.5 Hilton points for every 1 Membership Reward. This was not a very compelling ratio but now the ratio will be 2 Hilton points for every 1 Membership Rewards point transferred.

Unfortunately, this still doesn’t pose a very strong value proposition. If you value Membership Rewards at 1.8 cents per point and Hilton Honors at .5 cents per point, you’re still losing value when you convert your Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors. While that drop is not quite as bad as it once was, it’s still not as competitive as say, transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt.

But it won’t always be so bad. I recently redeemed Hilton Honors points at about .8 cents per point. In that case, I would be converting Membership Rewards to 1.6 cents worth of Hilton point per Membership Reward, which would not be a bad way to use Membership Rewards at all.

One thing to look forward to is a future bonus transfer promotion. American Express typically offers temporary bonuses when transferring points to Hilton and now that the ratio is more favorable, these bonuses may make more sense to jump on. Imagine a 33% bonus in the example above — that would be fantastic value.

Overall, transferring Membership Rewards to Hilton still probably only makes sense when trying to top off for award redemptions on in those cases where you can really cash in on value. In fact, transferring points to hotel partners rarely makes economic sense unless you’re topping off for an award or transferring to a program like Hyatt or for a Hotel + Air package with Marriott. Still, I’ll take program improvements anywhere I can find them at this point and this at least has some potential.

H/T: TPG

Get 1,000 Free Marriott Points (Act by 8pm EDT Today!)

Marriott has an ongoing promotion where you can earn Marriott points by simply connecting your social media accounts. The promotion is called #RewardsPoints. You get points for just connecting your social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) to Marriott and by following them and then can earn additional points by answering random trivia on social media.

Today, you can earn another quick 1,000 Marriott points by answering what year the first NFL Pro Bowl was held. You need to respond by 8pm EDT! 

You can easily answer this question and earn 1,000 points by tweeting:

“@MarriottRewards 1951 #RewardsPoints”

If you haven’t signed up for the promotion and linked your accounts you can do that right here. 

Hyatt Makes Elite Status Easier to Obtain with Award Nights

One thing that Hyatt has done differently from other major hotel programs like Hilton, Marriott, and SPG is that they have not allowed free nights to count towards elite status. So, for example, when you burn 20,000 Hyatt points for a stay, that stay would not count towards elite status. This was a major bummer with Hyatt since they were the one outlier who didn’t allow this and because Hyatt requires 60 nights for its top tier Globalist status, which is not an easy feat for many people.

The new changes to World of Hyatt

However, Hyatt just announced that beginning on January 1, 2018, Hyatt will allow free nights to count towards elite status.

This applies to all free nights, which covers:

  • Nights booked with points,
  • Free night certificates from the Hyatt Credit Card,
  • Free nights from reaching elite levels (Explorist and Globalist), and
  • Free nights from staying at five different Hyatt brands (available to earn twice).

In addition, they are extending the validity dates for the following free night awards so that you can use them up to 180 days from issuance (up from 120 days):

  • Free night in a Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel or resort when you stay 30 qualifying nights or earn 50,000 Base Points in a calendar year
  • Free night in a Category 1-7 Hyatt hotel or resort when you stay 60 qualifying nights or earn 100,000 Base Points in a calendar year

I’m not a huge Hyatt loyalist so these changes don’t do much for me. I find it much easier to obtain top-tier status with Marriott/SPG/Hilton than I do with Hyatt and the limited footprint of Hyatt makes it a lot tougher to find properties at times. I’m also not very crazy about their mid-tier elite levels. Discoverist, which comes with the Chase Hyatt Card, doesn’t do you much good (changes are supposedly on the way for the card) and Explorist doesn’t guarantee club lounge access (beyond 4 times) like you can get with Marriott Gold or even Hilton Gold (the difference is often a matter of getting a free breakfast or not).

I do really like the four suite confirmed upgrades that come with Globalist status, however. Being able to confirm a suite upgrade at the time of reservation is a major plus in my book. And Hyatt has some great all-inclusive properties like the Hyatt Ziva and Zilara which can be a great use of points in places like the Caribbean.

Overall, these are obviously positive changes for the World of Hyatt program but they don’t exactly help Hyatt differentiate itself from the other programs since they already offered these “new” benefits.

Register for The New 2018 Hilton Honors Promotion

Yesterday, I wrote about both the new SPG Great Weeks, Great Weekends promotion and the new Marriott MegaBonus and now Hilton Honors has announced its new promotion for the first quarter of 2018.

The promotion

The new Hilton Honors promotion is called “Points Unlimited” and is launching January 1, 2018, and running through April 30, 2018. Points Unlimited will give Hilton Honors members 2,000 Bonus Points per stay, plus an additional 10,000 Bonus Points on every five stays.

Additional details:

  • Members must first register at HiltonHonors.com/PointsUnlimited prior to completing a stay within the Promotion Period
  • Members also earn 10,000 Bonus Points every five stays, regardless of tier with no limit on the number of Points you can earn
  • Promotion Stay Period runs January 1 – April 30, 2018
  • Offer available at over 5,000 hotels worldwide
  • No minimum stay requirements, no cap on the Points earned
  • Here’s a link to the FAQ

Earning potential

Here are a few examples to show the number of Bonus Points you can earn per stay with this promotion (not including Base Points earned):

  • 1 stay = 2,000 Bonus Points
  • 2 stays = 4,000 Bonus Points
  • 5 stays = 20,000 Bonus Points
  • 6 stays = 22,000 Bonus Points
  • 10 stays = 40,000 Bonus Points

At .4 cents per point, a normal Hilton Honors member will typically receive about a 6% return on a Hilton stay after earning 10X the points per dollar spent plus 5X the points per dollar spent for signing up for points + points.

The extra 2,000 Hilton Honors points from this promotion are worth about $8 so for a $200 stay you’d be netting an additional 4% return for a total return of 10%. The extra 5,000 Hilton Honors points are worth about $20 which is nice but requires a total of 5 stays to net that value so that’s an average of 1,000 extra Hilton points per stay or $4 per stay. So these are *decent* returns but nothing exceptional.

Keep in mind that you can supplement your earnings further by booking through the Hilton Honors app to get 500 more points for each completed stay through December 31, 2017. You need to register for this promotion here to be eligible for the bonus.

Final word

Overall, this is not the most lucrative Hilton promotion as others have offered double the points per night or triple the points for Diamond members on stays for returns as high as 16%. It’s worth noting that the percentages in returned value are higher for the Marriott and SPG promos though the nice thing about this promotion is unlike the Marriott or SPG promos, you can start earning extra points with your first stay. So in that respect, this promo might work about better for people with infrequent hotel stays.

Marriott’s New 2018 Promotion [You Might Need to Read This]

I wrote earlier about SPG’s new promotion for 2018 but Marriott also just announced its new “MegaBonus” promotion for 2018. You can register for the promotion using this link right here.

Issues with enrolling in the promotion

Note that many people are having issues signing up for this promotion.

When they attempt to sign-up they see a message which states the following:

A Note About This Promotion

We’re sorry, but there was an error in directing you to this promotion.

The reason for this error could be:

  • You’re trying to access a miles promotion and are a points-earner, or vice versa
  • You are not eligible for this promotion
  • This promotion has expired

This has led a lot of people to believe that this promotion is targeted but this is not the case.

I checked with Marriott and they told me that people are having issues probably because of some technical issue that hasn’t been resolved yet. If this happens to you then in order to register, all you need to do is call Marriott and request to be enrolled in the MegaBonus promotion. You can call: 1-801-468-4000.

The actual promotion, much like the SPG promotion is pretty lackluster. For stays between January 16 and April 15 you’ll earn the following points:

  • 2000 bonus points per stay starting with your second stay
  • 1000 additional points for stays that include a weekend night (Friday or Saturday, but Thursday or Friday in the Middle East)
  • Bonus points earnings will have a cap of 50,000

Comparison with the SPG Promotion

This is how the new Marriott promotion compares with the SPG promotion.

  • If you spend $300 on your second hotel stay with Marriott including a weekend night, you’d earn 3,000 base points (with no status) plus 3,000 bonus points for a total of 6,000 Marriott points which comes out to $48 (at a rate of .8 cents per point) for a 16% return. 
  • If you spend $300 on your second hotel stay with SPG including a weekend night, you’d earn 600 base points (with no status) x 2 for 1,200 points plus 500 bonus points for a total of 1,700 SPG points which comes out to $40.80 (at a rate of 2.4 cents per point) for a 13.6% return. 

Final word

Obviously, the higher you go with your spend, the better the return will be for SPG compared to Marriott since the SPG bonus points are tied to how much you’re spending while Marriott offers a flat 2,000 points. SPG also does not place a cap on their promotion. Overall, both of these promotions leave a little to be desired but you should probably enroll in them anyways to take advantage of the earnings.

New 2018 SPG Promo Announced, Sign-up Now!

Starwood just announced its first promotion for 2018: Great Weeks, Great Weekends. Registration is open now at this link and the promotion will allow you to: 

  • Earn double Starpoints beginning on their second stay within the earning period at SPG hotels and resorts participating in the Promotion.
  • Earn an additional 500 bonus Starpoints beginning on their second stay if their qualifying stay includes a Friday or Saturday night (Thursday or Friday night in the Middle East).

This is not the most lucrative promotion I’ve seen from SPG considering that some have offered triple the points on stays in the past. It also is a bummer that you’ll have to wait until your second stay to begin earning double the SPG points. But some bonus points are better than no bonus points so I’ll take what I can get.

Still, when a new hotel promotion is released, I usually ask myself if it’s a promotion that is so lucrative, it’s worth changing hotel plans to take advantage of the promo. In this case, I don’t think that’s the case so I’d rate this as a very average promo for the most part. But I’ll still be signing up just in case my travel plans take to a paid SPG stay in the near future.

Here are some of the key terms and conditions:

  • Members must register online at spg.com/greatweeks by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) March 31, 2018
  • Can earn bonus Starpoints on eligible stays from January 16, 2018 through April 15, 2018
  • The bonus Starpoints will post to the Registered Member’s SPG Account within two (2) to four (4) weeks after the qualifying stay posts
  • Not all properties will participate in this promotion; check here for a list of eligible properties.

Get 1,000 Free Marriott Points (Act by 8pm EDT Today!)

Marriott has an ongoing promotion where you can earn Marriott points by simply connecting your social media accounts. The promotion is called #RewardsPoints. You get points for just connecting your social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) to Marriott and by following them and then can earn additional points by answering random trivia on social media.

Today, you can earn another quick 1,000 Marriott points by answering what year the current instant-replay system began. You need to respond by 8pm EDT! 

You can easily answer this question and earn 1,000 points by tweeting:

“@MarriottRewards 1999 #RewardsPoints”

If you haven’t signed up for the promotion and linked your accounts you can do that right here. 

Get 1,000 Free Marriott Points (Act by 8pm EDT Today!)

Marriott has an ongoing promotion where you can earn Marriott points by simply connecting your social media accounts. The promotion is called #RewardsPoints. You get points for just connecting your social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) to Marriott and by following them and then can earn additional points by answering random trivia on social media.

Today, you can earn another quick 1,000 Marriott points by answering from what yard line the extra point ball is snapped. You need to respond by 8pm EDT! 

You can easily answer this question and earn 1,000 points by tweeting:

“@MarriottRewards 15 yard line #RewardsPoints”

If you haven’t signed up for the promotion and linked your accounts you can do that right here. 

Get 1,000 Free Marriott Points (Act by 8pm EDT Today!)

Marriott has an ongoing promotion where you can earn Marriott points by simply connecting your social media accounts. The promotion is called #RewardsPoints. You get points for just connecting your social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) to Marriott and by following them and then can earn additional points by answering random trivia on social media.

Today, you can earn another quick 1,000 Marriott points by answeringHow wide is an NFL football field, in feet. You need to respond by 8pm EDT! 

You can easily answer this question and earn 1,000 points by tweeting:

“@MarriottRewards 160 #RewardsPoints”

If you haven’t signed up for the promotion and linked your accounts you can do that right here. 

JAL Adds Huge Surcharges to Emirates Awards

Booking Emirates premium cabins used to be one of the most lucrative redemption possibilities with Alaska miles. That is until awards prices were devalued (overnight) to the point of some awards jumping up 100% in price. Since then, one of the most economic ways to book Emirates has been to book them through partner airline, JAL (Japan Airlines).

JAL Award chart

JAL uses a distance-based award chart for Emirates awards that you can see below. To get from Dubai (DXB) to New York (JFK), it’s a 6,849 mile flight so a first class ticket would cost 100,000 JAL miles.

100,000 miles sounds expensive but consider that Alaska would require 150,000 miles for a one way trip.

If you transferred American Express Membership Rewards to Emirates you would be looking at 136,250 miles plus $509 in fees.

So 100,000 JAL miles for a one way first class trip from Dubai to New York wasn’t so bad compared the competition, especially because you didn’t have to deal with high fees or surcharges. In fact, the maximum surcharges for a roundtrip from the US to Dubai were capped at a low $78.

Unfortunately, that will no longer be the case (at least for routes to and from the US).

JAL is now stating that the fees for a roundtrip from New York to Dubai will be a maximum of $1,716.09. That’s a drastic swing that completely changes the value of using JAL miles on Emirates.

Is Amex the way to go now?

While these fees are much higher now, Emirates premium awards might be easier to obtain via American Express Membership Rewards.

For example, a roundtrip from New York (JFK) to Dubai (DBX) would cost 217,500 Emirates miles + $1,392 in total fees. At 13,698 miles roundtrip, this redemption on JAL would cost you 135,000 miles plus up to $1,716 in fees. So with JAL it’s roughly $350 more in fees but still 82,000 miles cheaper.

But you also have to consider that JAL is only a transfer partner of SPG so earning JAL miles can prove to be difficult compared to the many different ways you can rack up Membership Rewards.

I’d be willing to argue that for non-frequent flyers, earning 217,500 Membership Rewards might be easier than earning 135,000 JAL miles in some instances, especially if you’re limited to personal credit cards or are over 5/24 and can’t earn Marriott points to convert to SPG. Since you’d also be saving $350 and be entitled to chauffeur service on Emirates, using Amex Membership Rewards to build up an Emirates balance makes much more sense than it did a couple of years ago.

Final word

Overall this is a major blow to Emirates awards which have already been made tougher with the last Alaska devaluation. Now, many more people will be forced to pay a large chunk of change to enjoy these premium cabins.

H/T: OMAAT 

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