Guava
Feb 23, 08, 3:22 am
I confess I don't know much about the Hilton points program and I know even less about BMI. Would you be kind enough to explain? I have a SPG Amex but am starting to wonder if it's the best card to use. I don't stay in many hotels (maybe 5-10 nights/year) so most of my points come from credit card spend.
This is a very good question I got from a PM but I thought it would be beneficial to many others to outline this intricate and unique hotel-airline relationship from the perspective of a U.S. based member. The purpose of this thread is to serve as a searchable reference for posterity and also a place where people can add their views/perspective on, in my views, one of the best frequent flyer and guest gem out there, yet often overlooked.
Hilton HHonors Double Dip
Earn 10 HHonors Base points per eligible U.S. dollar spent + 1,000 BMI miles per night (up to a maximum of 3,000 miles per stay). Note, HHonors Silver, Gold and Diamond members get a bonus on the number of Base points earned per stay at 15%, 25% and 50% respectively.
References:
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/points/earningmiles.do
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/points/doubledipping.do
BMI (British Midlands), Star Alliance
UK's second largest airline and a member of Star Alliance. Its frequent flyer program is a fairly unique design in both its accrual and redemption.
Redemption:
- Redeemable on all Star Alliance carriers (including United, U.S. Airways and Air Canada), in all classes of service (Economy, Business and First)
- One way award at half of roundtrip mileage cost on all Star Alliance flights
- Cash/Miles award on all redemptions in all classes of service, which generally reduce the mileage required for an award, including one-ways, by about 50%
Accrual:
- Earn up to 3,000 miles per stay with its hotel partners, including all Hilton brands
- Earn 200% on most business class fares and 300% on most first class fares
- Minimum flight mileage per sector is 600 miles or 800 miles, if flown on BMI
Reference: http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/reward-schemes/diamond-club/diamond-club-.aspx
What does Hilton HHonors + BMI = ?
It is by far the quickest way to free award flights for any of the existing major hotel programs out there, more so than SPG, Marriott, Hyatt or you name it. In virtually every other hotel programs, you have to choose between hotel points and airline miles. Even for those people who never uses hotel points for anything aside from converting them to miles, unless you are the type of travelers who spend $1000 per night in a hotel but stay very few nights over a year, you will almost always end up with more miles with Hilton + BMI. You also have the option of converting HHonors points to airlines miles but it's not a very good idea in most cases.
Generally speaking, I would advise against converting HHonors points to miles as they tend to be more valuable staying as hotel points because HHonors does not have a very rewarding points to miles system like SPG, Hyatt or even Marriott has. The upside is, HHonors does not need to because of this BMI double dip. Let's illustrate the situation with an example pitching a HHonors Gold member vs. a SPG Gold member, each spending $200 / night and 12 nights / year.
HHonors Gold Member would earn:
$200 X 10 base points = 2,000 HHonors points
Gold VIP Bonus = 25% = 500 Honors points
BMI miles earned: 1,000 miles
X 12 nights = 30,000 HHonors points + 12,000 BMI miles
SPG Gold Member would earn:
$200 X 2 base points = 400 Starpoints
Elite Bonus = 200 Starpoints
X 12 nights = 7,200 Starpoints
The contrast can't be more obvious. At 7,200 Starpoints, your best bet is to use it for a category 3 free night award with SPG. If you must use it to fly, all you can get at this point is a one-way interisland flight with Hawaiian Airlines in coach at best and you have to forfeit your free hotel night. Now, let's look at the Hilton member. He earned 12,000 BMI miles, which is about half way through for a one-way U.S. - Europe Int'l First Class award on Lufthansa or Swiss, United or even Singapore Airlines! No kidding at all. But more practically speaking, it's good for a one way business class ticket within USA, Canada or to Central America (Mexico, Costa Rica and etc.) or a one-way ticket from North America to South America (Brazil / Argentina) in economy and you still keep your free hotel night which is redeemable up to category 4 at Hilton brands.
What if I save my points and wait?
Sure you can, but saving it will not earn you any interest nor will you change its long term value. Let's say our Starwood Gold member has now cumulated 6 times his original total and now has 7,200 X 6 = 43,200 Starpoints. Finally, something more meaningful. He can now go for a 5 night award at a Category 4 hotel. Or he can convert 40K of those into 50K Air France Flying Blue miles and fly Air France First Class from U.S. to anywhere in Europe one-way Int'l First Class, which is pretty good value considering I have a similar ticket from LAX to ATH via CDG that is selling at $12,000 and the flight is now oversold in First Class because Air France only has between 4~8 First Class seats per flight in their new Int'l First and the airline does not give its partners access to its First Class award so you can use AF's own miles for a First class redemption.
On the other hand, the HHonors Gold member in our example would have earned 180,000 HHonors points + 72,000 BMI miles. What does that mean you may ask? It means, the HH points are good for 8 nights at a Category 4 Hilton or 7 nights at a Category 5 Hilton or 6 nights at a Category 6 Hilton. Most of Hilton properties in NYC are Category 5 and 6. So you can get 6~7 nights in NYC easily with these Hilton points whereas with just over 40,000 SPG point, it may be good enough for only 1~2 nights at one of those several NYC SPG Category 6 hotels which costs between 20K~25K a night. Such a stark contrast, isn't it? And that's not all. With 72,000 BMI miles, it's good enough for a RTW (Round the World) in Business class or several roundtrip Int'l First Class tickets from U.S. to Europe or South America. Here is a sample RTW itinerary in Business Class: LAX-JFK (UA), JFK-FRA (SQ), FRA-ATH (LH), IST-FRA (LH), FRA-NRT (NH), NRT-ICN (NH), ICN-LAX (OZ). Alternatively, you can do LAX-FRA-FCO-ZRH-LAX in First Class with Lufthansa and Swiss for only 50K BMI miles, and you still have 22K miles left to fly Business or First class within North America and Central America or several Business class tickets within Europe.
So the answer is clear, even if you "wait" and save your points, the contrast only get starker with time.
But what if don't fly that much or stay in hotels that often and I earn most of my hotel points through credit cards?
Much of the recent grief over hotel point inflation has to do with credit cards. Note Hyatt has remained relatively intact over the past several years because its one of the few major hotel programs without a co-brand credit card. Obviously, people who earn most or tons of points off credit cards don't always travel that much, so the above analysis does not necessarily apply to them. SPG AMEX remains one of the most, if not the most popular U.S. based credit card not because its hotel points are necessarily a great value but because its point to mile conversion is very robust and versatile. You can earn up to 1.25 mile per $USD spent which beats most other U.S. based credit card excluding special purchases such as buying co-brand airline tickets, "everyday purchases" and etc. Whereas the cost of hotel awards with SPG has skyrocketed in the past 2~3 years, its point to mile system is largely intact, though no one knows how long that will last either.
It's becoming pretty clear to many people that using Starpoints for hotels is generally a bad value when the common metric of $ / point is used. By the same metric, people often come to the conclusion that converting points to miles yield them better value if they use it for First/Business class tickets. That's true but how many would actually fork $25,000 to buy a Transatlantic RT ticket in First Class on Air France or Lufthansa? There are lots of super rich people on FT, but to assume this is true to many people on an overall average of FT is not a realistic assumption. Even then, rich people want to save money too, if they can pay for the same thing for much lesser money, they will try too. Therefore, the $ / point metric is a flawed way to measure benefits received or actual savings made by a person when hotel points are used for airline tickets vs. hotel stays. The $ / point metric is however much more realistic when measured for savings realized at hotels because you are more likely to actually fork money for the hotel stays if not using points than you are vs. outrageous First/Business class airline tickets.
Unfortunately, for HHonors, for all its greatness, its point to mile system, after its most recent program inflation, is no longer an attractive option for most HHonors members. If we subscribe to the assumption that most members want a good mileage earning CC, then would Hilton HHonors AMEX be a possible alternative to SPG AMEX? Let's assume a member spends $50,000 a year of which none is hotel related and 30% of which are deemed as "everyday purchases" such as groceries, restaurants, telecom, gas, pharmacies.
SPG AMEX = 50,000 SPG points = about 60,000 airline miles
HHonors AMEX = 35,000 X 3 + 15,000 X 5 = 180,000 HH points = 18,000 ~ 27,000 airline miles
Clearly, SPG AMEX is a much more powerful CC in terms of generating airline miles, more than twice, if not almost 3 times more efficient than HHonors AMEX. But if a member operates under the assumption that sometimes the hotel points should be used for hotel stays, then the two are comparable for mid-range price hotels. However, with the recent changes to the SPG, most of its high end properties have been priced so far out of the reasonable ranges costing anywhere from 50K to 140K points per night that it just does not make any sense to use points on hotels anymore. Put it this way, if you want to spend a few days in any of the major cities such as NYC, London, Paris, Rome or Tokyo or some exotic tropical spots, SPG points have become very poor value to the point it makes you wonder what's the point of pricing your best rewards so far out of reasonable range? For instance, you can buy a room or "bungalow" as they call it in Bora Bora for about $400~$500 a night whereas SPG will ask you between 60K~70K points for the redemption. Suffice to say, not many people are willing to waste points in this fashion.
As far as being able to use it for hotel stays is concerned, the Hilton program is definitely gaining on SPG, especially among high end properties and high price city hotels and exotic resorts. Overall, the Hilton AMEX and by extend, HHonors lacks the versatility that SPG has with the point to mile conversion capability. This flexibility is obviously greatly valued by many people. For those who never use SPG points for hotel stays, this remains the best U.S. based credit card for most people unless you have a very specific preference for a particular airline or that you spending patterns are so unique that it would make sense to consider some of those who offer 2 miles per $ on specific purchases if they comprise a big chunk of your spending. Because there is not an efficient way for North American consumers to earn BMI miles through CC, the best way to earn BMI miles for a U.S. based traveler is through flying and staying at hotels. If you are a frequent traveler like many people are on FT, I would argue that the HHonors- BMI combination is an almost unbeatable team especially when you consider the frequency which Hilton throws out double/triple point earning opportunities. What has changed is the ability to stay in hotel with the SPG AMEX and that's a question that each individual needs to figure out what best fits their needs and wants.
This is a very good question I got from a PM but I thought it would be beneficial to many others to outline this intricate and unique hotel-airline relationship from the perspective of a U.S. based member. The purpose of this thread is to serve as a searchable reference for posterity and also a place where people can add their views/perspective on, in my views, one of the best frequent flyer and guest gem out there, yet often overlooked.
Hilton HHonors Double Dip
Earn 10 HHonors Base points per eligible U.S. dollar spent + 1,000 BMI miles per night (up to a maximum of 3,000 miles per stay). Note, HHonors Silver, Gold and Diamond members get a bonus on the number of Base points earned per stay at 15%, 25% and 50% respectively.
References:
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/points/earningmiles.do
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/points/doubledipping.do
BMI (British Midlands), Star Alliance
UK's second largest airline and a member of Star Alliance. Its frequent flyer program is a fairly unique design in both its accrual and redemption.
Redemption:
- Redeemable on all Star Alliance carriers (including United, U.S. Airways and Air Canada), in all classes of service (Economy, Business and First)
- One way award at half of roundtrip mileage cost on all Star Alliance flights
- Cash/Miles award on all redemptions in all classes of service, which generally reduce the mileage required for an award, including one-ways, by about 50%
Accrual:
- Earn up to 3,000 miles per stay with its hotel partners, including all Hilton brands
- Earn 200% on most business class fares and 300% on most first class fares
- Minimum flight mileage per sector is 600 miles or 800 miles, if flown on BMI
Reference: http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/reward-schemes/diamond-club/diamond-club-.aspx
What does Hilton HHonors + BMI = ?
It is by far the quickest way to free award flights for any of the existing major hotel programs out there, more so than SPG, Marriott, Hyatt or you name it. In virtually every other hotel programs, you have to choose between hotel points and airline miles. Even for those people who never uses hotel points for anything aside from converting them to miles, unless you are the type of travelers who spend $1000 per night in a hotel but stay very few nights over a year, you will almost always end up with more miles with Hilton + BMI. You also have the option of converting HHonors points to airlines miles but it's not a very good idea in most cases.
Generally speaking, I would advise against converting HHonors points to miles as they tend to be more valuable staying as hotel points because HHonors does not have a very rewarding points to miles system like SPG, Hyatt or even Marriott has. The upside is, HHonors does not need to because of this BMI double dip. Let's illustrate the situation with an example pitching a HHonors Gold member vs. a SPG Gold member, each spending $200 / night and 12 nights / year.
HHonors Gold Member would earn:
$200 X 10 base points = 2,000 HHonors points
Gold VIP Bonus = 25% = 500 Honors points
BMI miles earned: 1,000 miles
X 12 nights = 30,000 HHonors points + 12,000 BMI miles
SPG Gold Member would earn:
$200 X 2 base points = 400 Starpoints
Elite Bonus = 200 Starpoints
X 12 nights = 7,200 Starpoints
The contrast can't be more obvious. At 7,200 Starpoints, your best bet is to use it for a category 3 free night award with SPG. If you must use it to fly, all you can get at this point is a one-way interisland flight with Hawaiian Airlines in coach at best and you have to forfeit your free hotel night. Now, let's look at the Hilton member. He earned 12,000 BMI miles, which is about half way through for a one-way U.S. - Europe Int'l First Class award on Lufthansa or Swiss, United or even Singapore Airlines! No kidding at all. But more practically speaking, it's good for a one way business class ticket within USA, Canada or to Central America (Mexico, Costa Rica and etc.) or a one-way ticket from North America to South America (Brazil / Argentina) in economy and you still keep your free hotel night which is redeemable up to category 4 at Hilton brands.
What if I save my points and wait?
Sure you can, but saving it will not earn you any interest nor will you change its long term value. Let's say our Starwood Gold member has now cumulated 6 times his original total and now has 7,200 X 6 = 43,200 Starpoints. Finally, something more meaningful. He can now go for a 5 night award at a Category 4 hotel. Or he can convert 40K of those into 50K Air France Flying Blue miles and fly Air France First Class from U.S. to anywhere in Europe one-way Int'l First Class, which is pretty good value considering I have a similar ticket from LAX to ATH via CDG that is selling at $12,000 and the flight is now oversold in First Class because Air France only has between 4~8 First Class seats per flight in their new Int'l First and the airline does not give its partners access to its First Class award so you can use AF's own miles for a First class redemption.
On the other hand, the HHonors Gold member in our example would have earned 180,000 HHonors points + 72,000 BMI miles. What does that mean you may ask? It means, the HH points are good for 8 nights at a Category 4 Hilton or 7 nights at a Category 5 Hilton or 6 nights at a Category 6 Hilton. Most of Hilton properties in NYC are Category 5 and 6. So you can get 6~7 nights in NYC easily with these Hilton points whereas with just over 40,000 SPG point, it may be good enough for only 1~2 nights at one of those several NYC SPG Category 6 hotels which costs between 20K~25K a night. Such a stark contrast, isn't it? And that's not all. With 72,000 BMI miles, it's good enough for a RTW (Round the World) in Business class or several roundtrip Int'l First Class tickets from U.S. to Europe or South America. Here is a sample RTW itinerary in Business Class: LAX-JFK (UA), JFK-FRA (SQ), FRA-ATH (LH), IST-FRA (LH), FRA-NRT (NH), NRT-ICN (NH), ICN-LAX (OZ). Alternatively, you can do LAX-FRA-FCO-ZRH-LAX in First Class with Lufthansa and Swiss for only 50K BMI miles, and you still have 22K miles left to fly Business or First class within North America and Central America or several Business class tickets within Europe.
So the answer is clear, even if you "wait" and save your points, the contrast only get starker with time.
But what if don't fly that much or stay in hotels that often and I earn most of my hotel points through credit cards?
Much of the recent grief over hotel point inflation has to do with credit cards. Note Hyatt has remained relatively intact over the past several years because its one of the few major hotel programs without a co-brand credit card. Obviously, people who earn most or tons of points off credit cards don't always travel that much, so the above analysis does not necessarily apply to them. SPG AMEX remains one of the most, if not the most popular U.S. based credit card not because its hotel points are necessarily a great value but because its point to mile conversion is very robust and versatile. You can earn up to 1.25 mile per $USD spent which beats most other U.S. based credit card excluding special purchases such as buying co-brand airline tickets, "everyday purchases" and etc. Whereas the cost of hotel awards with SPG has skyrocketed in the past 2~3 years, its point to mile system is largely intact, though no one knows how long that will last either.
It's becoming pretty clear to many people that using Starpoints for hotels is generally a bad value when the common metric of $ / point is used. By the same metric, people often come to the conclusion that converting points to miles yield them better value if they use it for First/Business class tickets. That's true but how many would actually fork $25,000 to buy a Transatlantic RT ticket in First Class on Air France or Lufthansa? There are lots of super rich people on FT, but to assume this is true to many people on an overall average of FT is not a realistic assumption. Even then, rich people want to save money too, if they can pay for the same thing for much lesser money, they will try too. Therefore, the $ / point metric is a flawed way to measure benefits received or actual savings made by a person when hotel points are used for airline tickets vs. hotel stays. The $ / point metric is however much more realistic when measured for savings realized at hotels because you are more likely to actually fork money for the hotel stays if not using points than you are vs. outrageous First/Business class airline tickets.
Unfortunately, for HHonors, for all its greatness, its point to mile system, after its most recent program inflation, is no longer an attractive option for most HHonors members. If we subscribe to the assumption that most members want a good mileage earning CC, then would Hilton HHonors AMEX be a possible alternative to SPG AMEX? Let's assume a member spends $50,000 a year of which none is hotel related and 30% of which are deemed as "everyday purchases" such as groceries, restaurants, telecom, gas, pharmacies.
SPG AMEX = 50,000 SPG points = about 60,000 airline miles
HHonors AMEX = 35,000 X 3 + 15,000 X 5 = 180,000 HH points = 18,000 ~ 27,000 airline miles
Clearly, SPG AMEX is a much more powerful CC in terms of generating airline miles, more than twice, if not almost 3 times more efficient than HHonors AMEX. But if a member operates under the assumption that sometimes the hotel points should be used for hotel stays, then the two are comparable for mid-range price hotels. However, with the recent changes to the SPG, most of its high end properties have been priced so far out of the reasonable ranges costing anywhere from 50K to 140K points per night that it just does not make any sense to use points on hotels anymore. Put it this way, if you want to spend a few days in any of the major cities such as NYC, London, Paris, Rome or Tokyo or some exotic tropical spots, SPG points have become very poor value to the point it makes you wonder what's the point of pricing your best rewards so far out of reasonable range? For instance, you can buy a room or "bungalow" as they call it in Bora Bora for about $400~$500 a night whereas SPG will ask you between 60K~70K points for the redemption. Suffice to say, not many people are willing to waste points in this fashion.
As far as being able to use it for hotel stays is concerned, the Hilton program is definitely gaining on SPG, especially among high end properties and high price city hotels and exotic resorts. Overall, the Hilton AMEX and by extend, HHonors lacks the versatility that SPG has with the point to mile conversion capability. This flexibility is obviously greatly valued by many people. For those who never use SPG points for hotel stays, this remains the best U.S. based credit card for most people unless you have a very specific preference for a particular airline or that you spending patterns are so unique that it would make sense to consider some of those who offer 2 miles per $ on specific purchases if they comprise a big chunk of your spending. Because there is not an efficient way for North American consumers to earn BMI miles through CC, the best way to earn BMI miles for a U.S. based traveler is through flying and staying at hotels. If you are a frequent traveler like many people are on FT, I would argue that the HHonors- BMI combination is an almost unbeatable team especially when you consider the frequency which Hilton throws out double/triple point earning opportunities. What has changed is the ability to stay in hotel with the SPG AMEX and that's a question that each individual needs to figure out what best fits their needs and wants.