Hilton HHonors - citi HHonors Visa / zeroing balance to expedite points?

Just hit $1.5K spend to trigger 50K HHonor pts. on (2) different numbered cards. Got both cards early June. Have travel Aug 16--27, would like to immediately pay off balance of both cards to have 100K pts. available. citi phone rep. said not possible. True or false?

Newbie at this -- link if already covered please. Thanks in advance!

Points generally don't post until your statement cuts, so it's likely that the bonus will not post until the end of the statement period.

Points generally don't post until your statement cuts, so it's likely that the bonus will not post until the end of the statement period.

dw is right. Whether you pay off your balance immediately or not has no bearing on when the bonus points post. The bonus points post after the statement date and sometimes not as fast as the regular points you earn.

Yes, I know what's "normal". Am asking for guidance from anyone who has successful expedited points & how they did it. Regards.

You can try by moving your statement closing date. It worked for me for a different card and worth trying.

You can try by moving your statement closing date. It worked for me for a different card and worth trying.

Same question by same OP already asked and answered in another forum about another Citi card. Citi does not let you move the current statement up AFAIK; they require a one statement cycle delay for statement close changes.

So that could have helped if OP had the card for a couple months and was planning ahead for this, but it's not likely to help at this late stage.

Just hit $1.5K spend to trigger 50K HHonor pts. on (2) different numbered cards. Got both cards early June. Have travel Aug 16--27, would like to immediately pay off balance of both cards to have 100K pts. available. citi phone rep. said not possible.[/COLOR][/B]

Not only that, but the points may not end up in your HHonors account immediately (or at all automatically). On a Citi HHonors Visa card I got last year, where I had put in my correct HHonors number while applying, they still generated a new HHonors number for the card (but didn't tell me ahead of time), and it took quite a few phone calls (after the points showed up on the statement but never showed up at Hilton HHonors) to track down the new HHonors number, and then call up HHonors and get them to merge the accounts (and I don't remember how quick that merging was).

That doesn't always happen, but it certainlhy can (I'm not the only it's happened to).

Having said that: Unlike your almost identical question over in a Citi AA thread, if you don't get the AA miles in time, you can't book the trip with AA miles at all (except maybe a one-way return?). But it sounds like you'll get the HHonors points in time for the latter part of your trip, and HHonors redemption rates being what they are, you're not likely to have 100K cover more than 3 nights most places. Yes, there are occasional Hamptons in small towns that are only 12.5k a night, but unless that's where your whole stay is, you're not likely to even get 8 nights out of it (which would require only 12.5k redemptions). But Aug 16..27 sounds like about 10 or 11 nights needed (depending on how far away it is).

So while you may not have the HHonors points in time for the Aug 16 start, you will hopefully have them in time way before the Aug 27 end of your trip. And, assuming they end up in the right account (or that you can straighten it out on the phone easily from wherever you will be if they don't), keep in mind that you can book HHonors reservations online or over the main HHonors phone as close as minutes before your stay. (I've called from across the street from the hotel, made the reservation, and by the time I walk across the street to the hotel, they have the reservation already. I can't guauarntee it's always quite that quick, but it needn't be very long.)

(That's assuming the hotel has wide open availability, of course. OTOH, for some hotels in some places, it's already too late today to book for between Aug 16 and Aug 17! Gosh, I've run into plenty sold out hotels even in September booking last week in some places!)

You can pay your account early though by using your bank's online bill pay. That's how I do it.

Yes, I know what's "normal". Am asking for guidance from anyone who has successful expedited points & how they did it. Regards.

Not going to happen. I used to work for Citi in cards and they only have capabiltiy to post points at statement close. So unless you can change your statement date, your points won't post early.

Thanks for responses! Asked elsewhere as that was card thread, this is hotel thread. 11 nights, RI-MA-ME. Have 80K PriorClub, 80K Marriott, 2 Marriott vouchers -- may not need Priceline.com!