diver858

I typically stay at Hilton properties for biz travel, earn Diamond status most every year, always looking for deals to accumulate more Hhonors points.

Thanks to this forum, we have converted most of our credit cards to Chase - CSP, Freedom for persnal use, Ink Plus fo biz.

Just realized that it is possible to exchange 1.5k Amtrak Rewards for 10k Hhonors Points, and URs can be converted directly to Amtrak Rewards in 1k increments. Our goal is to get at least $0.02 value per UR point (biz class travel to Europe; short haul AS Mexico flights via Avios conversions; cheap hotel stays via Priority Club conversion Point Stretchers). If my math is correct, this is equivalent to $0.003 per Hhonors point, which translates to a substanital discount for higher end Hilton properties.

Does anyone have any experience with such transactions? Is it as simple as stated above, or am I missing something; seems a bit too good to be true.

amolkold

1.5k UR -> 1.5k AGR

In order to transfer AGR -> HHonors, you need:

AGR Select or Select Plus status (up to 50K Amtrak points)
-OR-
Chase AGR Mastercard with >$200 spent on Amtrak during a calendar year (up to 25K Amtrak points)

AGR transfers to HHonors at 1:2 ratio.

1.5K Chase UR would only be 3K HHonors.

WHere are you getting 10K?

diver858

http://hhonors3.hilton.com/en/earn-u...ail/index.html
MILES FOR POINTS PARTNERS
AMTRAK

Exchange 1,500 Amtrak Guest Rewards Points for 10,000 HHonors Points.

Call +1-800-307-5000

amolkold

I think that's a typo, because on the Amtrak site, it says 5000 AGR for 10K HHonors.

azepine00

yep 10K HH -> 1.5K but not in the other direction

sdsearch

Garbage site. Don't believe it. It also says you can convert 5000 Mexicana to 10000 HHonors. Except to try to find Mexicana airlines today (it went under about a year ago!).

But why transfer in, when you can churn this card:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nors-visa.html

for 50k a pop (typically two at a time possible, and several times a year at that!), with only $1500 spend required for each 50k bonus.

Isn't 50k bonus HHonors points for $1500 spend way better than (whatever spend is required for 1.5k UR points) to only 10k???

diver858

Churn of Chase CSP, Ink, Freedom + checking account results in a MUCH better return (25k + 25k UR pts), there is a limit to the number of credit cards I am comfortable owning...

URs can be converted 1:1 for HA miles, which can be converted 2:1 to HH points, so a CSP or Ink churn yields 100k HH pts.

diver858

It looked too good to be true, which is why I asked.

PresskittJon

Oh the horror!

Dangjr213

Wait how does one transfer to HA?

Frenchie Flyer

I think if you check the HA rules on transfers, you'll find that transferred in miles cannot be transferred out. So if you earn HA miles, then you can transfer except for HA Visa earned miles...then yes you can transfer to HH.

philemer

HA is not a UR transfer partner. And, see the post above.

sdsearch

The point you missed is that (with a good creidt history/score, and with the ability to do the minimum spend fast enough) you can churn Citi HHoonros Visa cards two every 65 days.

You can't churn Chase cards anywhere near that fast, can you?

And, as pointed out in philemer's post above, you can't convert UR to HA anyway.

So it doesn't matter how much you can churn Chase cards (though I still doubt it's as fast as the Citi HHonors Visa), if there's no way to transfer UR at good value to HA. All the ways you thought could work seem to not work! Where are you getting the list of what you can transfer UR to, that has so many mistakes on it?

Basically, as I understand it, UR does not transfer to any program that doesn't use a Chase card, and it doesn't even transfer to every program that uses a Chase card (only a subset of them). But Hawaiian doesn't use a Chase card, so I don't need any list to know that UR doesn't transfer to Hawaiian.

diver858

I am humbled by your aggressive approach to churn.

sdsearch

I'm stating what's possible. I'm not aware of anying doing it repetitvely at quite that rate. However, I do know of several people getting 50k x 2 HHonors points several times a year (for a total of 300k, maybe 400k bonuses) by chruning 2 of those Citi Hilon HHonors Visa cards every few months (but not quite as fast as every 65 days).

The point is, even if you only do it once or twice a year (for 2 cards each time), that's still faster than you can churn UR cards, and it still nets you 100k to 200k HHonors points a year.

(Churn frequencies aren't all or nothing. Just because you don't want to churn as fast as every 65 days doesn't mean you have to wait as long with Citi was you do with Chase.)

Furhtermore, there's another important point to be made: Your churn, however fast or slow, of Citi HHHonors Visa cards is at Citi, not Chase. So it has little to no effect (if slow, then presumably no effect) on your ability to also occaisonally churn UR cards. And it then frees you UR points for other uses. Seems like a win win to me. But only you can decide how much you want HHonors points vs other stuff...