Hilton Honors rewards program guide

Daily room cleaning, a cold Coca-Cola after unpacking, room service late at night after a long day — these luxuries at hotels are what make the experience so beloved. After all, there’s nothing quite like getting pampered at a hotel, miles away from home. One mainstay of the top hotel brands is Hilton Hotels, one of the world’s oldest and largest hotel brands thanks to its over 7,000 properties worldwide.

Since the Hilton Hotel network includes properties in numerous locations around the globe, joining the Hilton Honors program and earning Hilton Honors points might be an item worth putting on your itinerary, especially for superfans of the brand.

What is Hilton Honors?

Hilton Honors is the loyalty program of Hilton Worldwide, a multinational hotel company that offers a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts, ranging from mid-level brands such as Hampton Inn to the luxurious Conrad and Waldorf Astoria hotels.

Hilton Honors gives you several ways to earn points that you can redeem for free nights at Hilton Hotels, including earning points through travel credit card spending.

Thanks to Hilton’s massive hotel network, your travel options with the Hilton Honors program are immense. But the program’s points are inflated and won’t take you as far as many of its competitors.

There are other upsides to the Hilton Honors program, however, including its elite benefits. Read on to see if the Hilton Honors can take you where you want to go.

Hilton Honors program overview

How to earn Hilton Honors points

Have you ever browsed through Hilton’s listings of hotels in faraway lands, only to discover that the luxury hotel room of your dreams costs more than $500 a night? Don’t despair. Those fancy suites aren’t just for royalty. Award stays are the way to go.

It may feel daunting or straight-up impossible to earn enough points to stay at an overwater villa in the Maldives, for example, which averages more than $1,000 a night, or to visit the $500-per-night Waldorf Astoria Ras Al Khaimah, located in the United Arab Emirates about an hour north of Dubai. The Hilton Honors loyalty program, however, offers a large number of options for rapidly amassing enough points to cover a night or two at a luxury resort.

Here is a look at the top ways to quickly earn Hilton Honors points. Depending on your lifestyle, there’s sure to be an option that suits your spending habits.

Earn an introductory bonus

Hilton credit cards all include introductory bonuses designed to encourage new cardholders to charge a certain number of dollars within a designated number of months. Depending on the redemption you choose, these points can be enough to cover a week-long vacation, making introductory bonuses one of the fastest ways to earn your next luxury stay.

Earn bonus points on credit card spending

Each dollar you charge on a Hilton Honors credit card will earn you points toward a future stay. These cards offer additional points for purchases in bonus categories, such as Hilton hotel bookings, meals at restaurants and more. Depending on your spending habits, you can earn free hotel stays quickly by charging your monthly expenses to your Hilton credit card.

Earn points on Hilton Hotel stays

As a Hilton Honors loyalty program member, you earn 10 points for every dollar you spend on most hotel stays in the Hilton hotel portfolio. You’ll also earn points on incidental spending, such as parking, spa services or beverages from the minibar, at all Hilton brands. These points are awarded in addition to the points you earn with a Hilton Honors branded credit card. It adds up quickly.

If you qualify for an elite member tier, you could bump up your earn rate for stays even more. Silver members earn 12X points, Gold members get 18X points and Diamond members receive 20X points.

Earn dining rewards

One of the fastest ways to multiply your hotel points is by participating in the Hilton Honors Dining program. The program is free, and you don’t even have to be a Hilton rewards credit card holder to participate. Once you link a debit card or credit card to a Hilton Honors Dining account, you will earn bonus points whenever you make a purchase using that card at a participating bar, club or restaurant.

Depending on your status in the dining program, you can earn up to 8 points per dollar you spend. These points are earned in addition to any other rewards you may be collecting from your Hilton Honors credit card and can quickly boost your progress toward an epic hotel stay.

Rent a car with one of Hilton’s car rental partners

Hilton also has a number of partnerships with car rental companies, so you can earn points even outside the hotel during your next vacation. Book a car rental from the following rental companies and present your Hilton Honors member number at the time of reservation to earn Hilton Honors points:

Ride with Lyft

Thanks to a partnership between Hilton Honors and Lyft, members can earn 3X points spent on qualifying Lyft rides. (Note: Shared rides only earn 2X points.) To take advantage of this perk, you’ll need to link your Lyft and Hilton Honors accounts by visiting this link.

Points are automatically added to your Hilton Honors balance after every ride you take, making it easy to rack up rewards with the rideshare service.

Buy Hilton Honors points

You can also buy Hilton Honors points, but this option should generally be considered a last resort because the cost is quite high.

We value Hilton points at 0.6 cents apiece, but Hilton sells them for 1 cent each. There’s not much value in purchasing points outright unless there’s a redemption you want that requires just a few more points. In this case, if you can’t transfer points from other partners, buying points is an option. You can purchase up to 80,000 points in a year. Remember to use your Hilton Honors co-branded credit card for additional earnings on the points purchase.

How to redeem Hilton Honors points

Once you’ve earned all the points you can handle, it’s time for the fun part. The Hilton loyalty program gives you a variety of options for redeeming Hilton Honors points, but by far your best option is redeeming points for Hilton hotel nights.

If you don’t redeem your points for standard room nights or Points & Money Rewards, you’re probably not getting a good value. If you want to stretch your points, you’re best off searching in the lower redemption tiers and using your fifth-night-free award to tack on extra nights to your rewards stays.

Besides that, finding good values for your points mostly comes down to flexibility and patience. And since the points required for a specific location fluctuate over time, it’s good to check in advance and have a variety of options, including times and locations, for using your points.

Below, we detail the best ways to spend Hilton Honors points.

Hilton Honors redemption options

Here is a table summarizing all the redemption options the chain offers Hilton Honors members.

Using Hilton Honors points for standard room nights

If you want to get the most out of your Hilton points, your best choice is to redeem them for standard room nights. As you can see from our redemption chart above, the value of a standard room night hovers around 0.5 cents per point. However, since Hilton doesn’t use a fixed redemption chart, but rather dynamic pricing, the value of your points varies depending on the level of the hotel that you book, time of year, location and how far in advance you book.

You can use Hilton’s Points Explorer tool to get an estimate of how much your reward night will cost in points and compare it to the cash price to estimate point value.

Hilton Points & Money Rewards

Hilton allows you to use points and cash to book standard rooms at some properties. It’s great for when you don’t have enough points to cover the entire stay, but the availability of the rooms depends on the hotel and time of stay.

This method gives you some great values for your points — around 0.5 cents on average and possibly higher. Not only can you shave money off the cost of the room, but you can reduce taxes and resort fees when you use this option.

Hilton’s fifth-night-free benefit

Hilton’s fifth-night-free award is a great way to stretch your points even farther. Hilton offers a free fifth night on any rewards stay of five nights or longer. If you book your rewards in five-night increments, every fifth night will be given to you free of charge.

This benefit is available to all Silver elite members, which you can qualify for by opening a Hilton credit card or accumulating at least four stays or ten nights in a year. It’s also open to Hilton Honors base members at select hotel properties.

Transferring Hilton Honors points to a travel partner

Hilton has a list of more than 35 travel partners that you can transfer points to. As you can see from our sample list below, transferring Hilton points is a terrible value — points transfer to most of its partners in 1,000-point increments at a 10:1 ratio. Because of this, it’s best to avoid this option.

Other redemption options

You can also redeem your points for a range of other options, though you might not receive as much value for many of them.

You can use your points to bid for experiences, such as VIP tickets to concerts and sporting events or exclusive tastings. If you’re big on traveling, you can redeem your points for car rentals with Alamo, Enterprise or National; cruise certificates through CruisesOnly.com; on-property hotel amenities such as golf tee times, packages and hotel currency; or to buy items on Amazon.

Be careful with these other options, though. The value for them tends to be low. For instance, your Hilton Honors points will only be worth an average of 0.2 cent each if you use them to buy items on Amazon, pay for a car rental or book a trip through CruisesOnly.com.

You can also donate your Honors points to charities through PointWorthy.com. Again, though, points aren’t worth much here, coming out to an average of 0.25 cents each. You might do more good by holding onto your points and making a cash donation to the charity of your choice instead.

Top Hilton Honors cards to consider

No annual fee	Premium benefits	Business travel
Hilton Honors American Express Card	Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card	Hilton Honors American Express Business Card
7X points on Hilton hotel stays 5X points on eligible purchases at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations 3X points on general purchases Terms apply	12X points on Hilton hotel stays 6X points on U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations 3X points on general purchases Terms apply	12X points on Hilton hotel stays 6X points on select business and travel purchases 3X points on other eligible purchases Terms apply

*Information about the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card has been collected independently by CreditCards.com. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy.