mia

ThankYou does not allow points which are due to expire within 90 days to be transferred to another ThankYou account. It's possible that their system is also applying this rule to Points Exchange transactions, and the points were deducted from another bucket. This is probably not their intention, but it may prove difficult to explain and have corrected.

likry2000

Thanks mia. I just thought I'd test it out since it's new. Seems it is a no go with the expiring points. Too bad.

lkar

As noted above, I was able to transfer expiring points. Mrs. Lkar had about 400 TY points in an account. I closed a citi premier, but just befor I did, I transfered 3650 to Mrs. Lkar. They were set to expire in February. I transfered 4k from Mrs. Lkar's account to Hilton without a problem. The vast majority of those points were set to expire. Moreover, the 50 points in Mrs. Lkar's account are not set to expire, so it took the expiring bucket first.

There might be an issue here with why the points are set to expire (e.g., that they were xfered in v. account closure). Also, maybe it worked for me because my transfer combined expiring and regular points.

Thunderroad

Good question. I'd be curious about this as well.

happyvoid

what's so valuable about hilton points? can they only be used at hotels?

yoyo

This along with MR transfer promotions... Now I really regret transferring 150K AA miles to HH early last year before the link went dead.

flyinghigh2011

hmmmm would prob be better redemption for airlines with the 1.33 UNLESS using for hilton in a place like bora bora? thoughts?

likry2000

My expiring points did not transfer to Hilton. I just now bought an Amazon gift card to take care of those. I have never received transferred points into my Thankyou account. They were points from using the shopping portal that were expiring. I also just applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and as soon as I receive that the rest of my points are being transferred to Hilton or spent and I am closing the Citi Premier card.

lkar

Agree. You need to be getting .67 cents per point for your Hilton redemption to make it worth transferring instead of buying airfare with the points. Perhaps even more since airline tickets bought with TY points earn equity and flown miles, while award stays do not earn Hilton points.

But I don't think it needs to be Bora Bora to make sense. I am looking at a stay at the Times Square Doubletree in July. Four nights, on an AXON award, is 140,000 points. The hotel's rate for those nights is $449. Comparable lodging in the Times Square area at another hotel is running about $379 for my dates -- although I'm not sure I would really call it "comparable" at all. I like the suite, which has a separate room, and I also get free breakfast because I have status. But let's call "comparable" $400 per night.

With NY tax, that's $1836 for a 4-night stay. If I paid for the room and used my citi card with 10 hilton points per dollar, and chose double dipping as my earning preference, I would earn about 42,000 points for the stay. So, my total cost to use points instead of cash is 140,000 points for the reward, plus 42,000 points foregone, or 182,000 points to save $1836. So, basically, I'm getting 1.01 cents per Hilton point or 2.02 cents per TY point of value.

I guess I would break it down even further and say that by not putting $1836 of spend on my citi card, I'm $1836 further away from the $10,000 threshold for a free weekend night. I value a free weekend night as worth about 40,000 points, so about 18 percent of 40,000 points is another 7200 Hilton points that I'm foregoing. Even so, I'm still well into the .97 cents per Hilton point and 1.94 cents per TY point territory.

On an AXON award, $350 per night including tax seems to be about the breaking point.

Maybe having expiring and non-expiring points in there (or later expiring points) helped me. I guess maybe it depends on why the points are set to expire?

mia

If the transfer rate from TY to HH is 1:1.5, wouldn't $0.01 per HH mean $0.015 per TYP?

lkar

Holy cow. I just did a whole analysis assuming the transfer rate was 1:2. I am sleep deprived. Well, I'll leave it up for the methodology, since I think often people forget about points foregone when they do their calculations, and with Hilton, that's a big number since points earnings with the 10x card and elite status are significant.

But, of course, you're right. Without redoing all the math, it looks like the breakeven is much closer to my original $400 example -- maybe a touch below, or around $390 per night on an AXON. Of course, taxes play a huge role. The higher the occupancy tax a city has, the more you save by using points -- both because you don't have to pay tax on reward redemptions and also because you don't earn points on the tax component of the charge when you pay cash. So, NY may be a bit unfair, since the tax is 14.75 percent. $400 seems like a good yardstick.

Happy

I think I would just go by the transfer ratio of 1 TYP = 1.5 HHonor pt, or the reverse ratio for the calculation purpose only, that 1 HHonor = 0.67 TYP (1/1,5) to figure out the "value" of a transfer for meeting a specific purpose.

It goes without saying that this only works in high value HHonor redemption and yes, it does not need to be Bora Bora - just need to be in expensive locale, NYC or European Capitals or Hong Kong, Singapore and the like.

jeelele

2 TYPs give 3 HH points. Thus, 3 HH points are worth $0.0266 (2 TYPs) and each HH is worth $0.0088.

mia

TYP are worth $0.0133 each. If your account is eligible to use Points Exchange (to Hilton) it is also eligible for the $0.0133 airfare redemption rate.

Happy

You omitted an important 0. It is 0.0067, and it is a COST.

I think it is a misnomer to say each HHonor pt is worth 0.0067.

I prefer to view it as each HHonor pt costs 0.0067 to acquire because of the 0.0133 worth of each TYP.

So in essence with this transfer ratio, you are paying 0.0067 for 1 HHonor pt. That is way too high to pay because in ordinary cases HHonor pt only worth 0.005 in redemption value.

If you need some extra to reach a certain reward level, then it is OK to pay such cost. Otherwise it is a waste of your TYPs.