What are Hilton Honors points worth?

You may have spied the latest introductory offer on a Hilton Honors card, and perhaps your gut is telling you that such a large number seems a little too good to be true. In fact, you’re onto something. Hilton Honors points are inflated, so the numbers aren’t quite what they seem.

How much are Hilton Honors points worth? We’ve got the latest Hilton Honors points value — and on the way, we’ll show you how to get the most value out of your Hilton Honors points.

Top Hilton Honors cards

No annual fee	Premium benefits	Business travel
Hilton Honors American Express Card	Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card	The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card
7X points on Hilton hotel stays 5X points on U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations 3X points on general purchases Intro bonus: 70,000 points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months Terms apply	12X points on select Hilton properties 6X points on U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations 3X points on general purchases Intro bonus: 130,000 points plus a Free Night Reward if you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months Terms apply	12X points on Hilton hotel purchases 6X points on select business and travel purchases 3X points on other eligible purchases Intro bonus: 150,000 points plus a Free Night Reward if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months (limited time offer ends 7/19/23) Terms apply

Hilton Honors points value

How much is 1 Hilton Honors point worth? Hilton Honors points aren’t one of the most valuable currencies when compared to others in the universe of rewards programs. According to Bankrate’s 2023 point valuation, Hilton points are worth around 0.6 cents per point — about half the value of the average rewards program point. And though hotel loyalty programs tend to have inflated points (Marriott points, for example, are worth only 0.7 cents each), Hilton is beat out even by most of its industry competitors.

Why is the value of Hilton Honors points so low?

Why are Hilton Honors points worth so little? When we look at the points required for a standard room over a variety of locations and dates and then divide the room rate by the number of required points, the value comes out to 0.5 cents on average — which is even lower than Bankrate’s valuation.

This value applies to standard rooms at most levels (in fact, rooms in the midranges — between 30,000 and 80,000 points per night — tend to be worth even less):

Hilton standard room rewards

Hilton no longer publishes its standard room rewards chart, so some of these point values may have shifted. However, you can use this as a general guide to help you determine how much Hilton Honors points are worth.

As you can see you may be able to find better-than-average value with standard rooms in the 5,000- to 20,000-point range. The 5,000-point room rewards generally have a very good value, but are unfortunately a little hard to find in Hilton’s hotel network.

How to value your Hilton Honors points

We’ve told you how we value Hilton Honors points, but the value of your rewards really is subjective, depending on your goals for your points and how you ultimately end up using them. When trying to figure out how much Hilton Honors points are worth to you, you should keep the following questions in mind:

• How do you want to redeem your points? Do you intend to use them for standard room nights, Points & Money awards or another type of redemption, like an Amazon purchase? (Note that we don’t actually recommend spending your points on Amazon merchandise — the value is very low.)
• What level of hotel do you prefer? Do you want to redeem your points for a couple of nights at a luxury resort, or do you intend to stretch them out on a weeklong stay at a lower-tier hotel?
• Where do you want to travel? The value of Hilton points can vary by country and city (and, unfortunately, more popular destinations tend to return a lower point value).
• When do you want to travel? In general, you can get better point values by booking rooms for the off-season and being more flexible with your travel dates.
• How far in advance do you tend to book? Keep in mind that Hilton Honors doesn’t use a fixed rewards chart, so the required points for a hotel can vary over time. Rooms are likely to be more expensive as you get closer to your travel date (and points for hotels on the lower end tend to fluctuate more than higher-end hotels).

On top of all this, you also need to consider the flexibility of Hilton Honors points — whether you have to worry about blackout dates, points expiring, limited inventory of award nights, few redemption options, etc. — because points aren’t worth anything if the program makes it too hard to redeem them. The good news is, Hilton Honors points are fairly flexible (more on that below).

How to calculate the value of Hilton Honors points

There are varying philosophies on how to value rewards program currencies, but the basic calculation is pretty simple and boils down to the following steps:

1. Pick your desired redemption option.
2. If it’s a free night award: Look at the number of points required for your desired date and location.
3. Then, figure out the cash price you would pay for the same room on that date (use a travel search engine like Priceline or Expedia). You should include fees and taxes, since those aren’t usually charged on award stays, and divide by the number of points required.

Points value = reward value (in dollars) / number of points

The value you come up with will be a rough estimate. A plethora of factors can affect the value of a Hilton rewards night, such as the opportunity cost of the points you could have earned had you paid for the room with cash or a rewards credit card, the lowest possible price you could get by paying for the room in cash on your intended date (which could vary by the minute and depends on how diligent you are about checking rates), the opportunity cost of having to forgo other savings and promotions, the lowest possible price you could get by staying at another hotel in your desired destination city and so on.

However, for a basic comparison of point values across hotel rewards programs, you probably don’t need to make things so complicated.

How flexible are Hilton points?

On the plus side, despite the low value of Hilton points, the hotel chain offers a fair amount of flexibility in redeeming your rewards. Here are the pros and cons of using Hilton Honors points:

Pros

• Hilton points generally don’t expire as long as you earn or spend points every year, which includes making purchases on a co-branded Hilton credit card. Otherwise, Hilton points expire after 24 months of inactivity.
• The Hilton hotel network is huge: It consists of more than 7,000 properties in 122 countries and 19 brands at many price levels, giving you a lot of travel options.
• Rewards, generally, are not restricted — if a standard or premium room is available, you can book it with points (that said, you pay for this flexibility with lower-value points). And if you don’t have enough rewards to cover your stay, you can pay the difference in cash.

Cons

• Though points are transferable — Hilton currently has nearly 30 airline and rail partners — the transfer rate is so low, it’s not worth it.
• You have a few other redemption options besides hotel nights and Points & Money awards, but they’re not often worth it.
• There’s no option to redeem points for cash back in case you want to use your Hilton Honors rewards to put money back in your pocket.
• There’s no fixed rewards chart. Instead, each Hilton property has a range of points, and how many you need can fluctuate between the high and low end of that range at any moment. This means rewards rooms are likely to be more expensive when they’re in high demand.

How to transfer your Hilton Honors points

If you want to transfer your Hilton Honors points, simply log into your Hilton account and select the option to exchange your points for miles. There are two ways to transfer points — you can use your points to get miles from a Hilton transfer partner, or you can use the miles you’ve accumulated in a participating rewards program to get Hilton Honors points.

You can also transfer Hilton Honors points to other Hilton Honors members, either in a 1:1 transfer or by creating a Hilton Honors pool. When creating a pool, you allow everyone in a household or friend group to pool their Hilton Honors points and redeem them for a shared travel experience — which can be an excellent way to bond and build memories.

Hilton Honors transfer partners

Hilton does not currently publish a list of Preferred Travel Partners. After creating a Hilton Honors account, however, we were able to access the following transfer partners:

Are Hilton Honors points worth it?

Despite the inflated points value, collecting Hilton Honors rewards can be a worthwhile endeavor if you are a fan of Hilton hotels and stay there frequently, or if you manage to score a large introductory bonus with a Hilton credit card.

Hilton Honors cards can frequently feature supersized welcome offers, sometimes topping 100,000 points or more (after the required spend is met). If you are flexible with your travel dates, look for hotels in the lower point ranges and combine your points with Hilton’s free fifth-night benefit, you can turn those rewards into at least a seven-night stay.

Bottom line

Hilton Honors may offer a lot of points to new Hilton cardholders, but the value of Hilton Honors points is lower than you might expect. How much is 1 Hilton Honors point worth? Expect to redeem your Hilton Honors points for 0.6 cents per point on average. If you frequently stay at Hilton hotels, the benefits of the Hilton Honors program could outweigh the low point redemption rate — otherwise, you might be able to get better rewards by switching to a different hotel credit card or applying for a top travel credit card.