wannafly,
here is another way of bumping up your HHonors balance: sign up with mypoints (www.mypoints.com) and you'll get a number of bonus points for a variety of web surfing activities (usually 5 to 10 points). If you'd like to know more about this program, there are endless threads about its merits and especially its flaws under the Buzz forum (and more recently the S.P.A.M. forum), starting from at least a year ago.
Anyway, every time you accrue 1000 points, you can transfer them electronically to HHonors at a 1-to-1 rate (and the transfer happens very quickly). This could help you build up your balance more quickly, especially if you have a joint account with your husband and he joins Mypoints as well.
Good luck.