Hilton HHonors - HHonors points -> Magazine subscriptions

See related topic in Milesbuzz. It just dawned on me today (thanks to another FTer) that Milepoint allows miles/points to be swapped for mag subscriptions. No credit card, no co-pay. FREE subscriptions.

The exchange rate is pretty fair when you are talking about air miles. 2200 miles = 1 year of Sports Illustrated (57 issues), which usually costs you $40 or so. They have a pretty solid selection of popular mags and even a couple of national newspapers (the other FT - Financial Times, the WSJ, etc.). It looks like a good place to spend orphaned miles.

But here is the best part: Milepoint considers all points to be created equal! (Among their partners, anyway.) Therefore, 2200 HHonors points has the same buying power as 2200 frequent-flyer miles! No matter how you value an HH point, this is a pretty good deal if you have points to burn.

This won't help you much if you have 2 million points getting devalued on 5/31/03. But if you are redeeming your last ALON or GLONP and have a few thousand left over, you might be better off setting yourself, your family, your local schools/libraries, etc. up with mags than you would be flushing 10K HH for 1500 FF.

from the milepoint FAQ:

What is the conversion rate for Hilton HHonors points?

Every 5 Hilton HHonors points are worth 1 mile - for example: 1000 Hilton HHonors points equals 200 miles (1000/5=200). When we collect your account balance from Hilton, we display the equivalent in miles, and continue to calculate the miles at 2 cents per mile.

EDITED TO CLARIFY: The way I understand it, if you switch HHonors points to cash value, they switch at 5 HH miles for 2 cents. However, as I look at my transaction history, I see that the magazines were redeemed for "HHonors 2200 Points" and "HHonors 1200 Points". Therefore, I don't *think* this will switch to 5x after the fact. That would be pretty deceptive. Furthermore, my account balance is under 10,000 points, which means that one or both requests would get rejected.

[This message has been edited by pinniped (edited 01-15-2003).]

Instead of spending points or miles for magazines, why not just get them for free. Sign up at www.freebizmag.com (http://www.freebizmag.com) I signed up about seven or eight months ago, for free, and they periodically, seems like about once every 2-3 weeks or so, offer me a complimentary year subscription to various magazines, no strings attached, no creidt card info needed, nada. At first they offered me some boring (to me anyway) magaizines mostly related to business, like Worth, Inc., Managed Healthcare Professional, etc. Then they began offering me some more interesting titles like Smart Money, Time, Car and Driver. Lately the magazines they are offering seem to run the gamut, a little of everything, like Sporting News, Esquire, Razor, Photography, Plane & Pilot, Home, etc. It seems like I get about 15-20 different magazines a month now, all for free. Check it out. If you like magazines, stick with freebizmag long enough, and you will be getting so many free magazines, your mailman will hate you. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Edit to add: Almost forgot, they also have been sending me a free subscription to Travel & Leisure http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by hhonorman (edited 01-15-2003).]