sr1n1

Has anyone redeemed HHonors points to buy stuff from their catalog of items? If so, how did you find their conversion?
I recently bought a pair of Parrot Zik wireless headphones. Normally they run for $399 retail. On amazon, sometimes you can find them listed for 349, but nothing below that. I redeemed about 196K points to buy this from their store, shipped directly from Zik. This is inclusive of taxes and shipping. if you consider about I think it wasnt a bad deal and the points value held true to the money value. Any take? Am I a sucker?

jerry a. laska

Do you have any other use of the points? Any vacations or hotel stays planned? If not and you feel like you received a good deal then all is good.

That said, it doesn't seem like a good deal to me and I would not have done it. 196,000 points would have provided me with more value through use as hotel nights.

sr1n1

Thanks for the feedback. Here is my calculation. on an average, it takes 60,000 a night at a decent hilton property per night. If I had to pay, it wouldnt be less than $120 a night. that equates to 180K for $360 if i used the points for redeeming at a hilton property. approximately the same value for about 16-20 K points more. So i thought it wasnt bad. But very happy with the headphones tho'. sad to let go of some points.
Having said that, this year I will accrue around 700K points, which will all be redeemed in Hawaii :-)

BearX220

Floating value is a b*tch. I tend to redeem in London or New York; 50k points to me is worth GBP200 or so, so I would value your 196k stash at up to $1,300 and therefore not use it for headphones.

indufan

I wouldn't have done it but the 60,000 point is way off. It isn't nearly that high. Anyone paying those astronomical rates for room upgrades is silly.

cblaisd

You could stay for 39 nights at the Hampton Inn in Cleburne TX

sethb

Cat 7 is 40,000/night (at discount rates), for hotels that are well over $200 (though I personally won't pay the cash rate). I figure about 1/3 cent/point, so 198,000 points is $666.

Kremmen

I'd go with "yes". In the past I've managed to redeem for an average of over 3c/pt, but HH has devalued over time, so that's no longer a fair value. Looking instead at a couple of Hiltons I've stayed at before, I see one has room rates around 104GBP (USD157) or 30k pts (.523c/pt) while another (that I didn't redeem for, as I didn't consider it worth it) has room rates around 189USD or 40k pts (.473c/pt).

Those are only just above the average of .462c/pt given here. I use 10% above average as a minimum I'd be prepared to redeem for and aim to use points only when I get significantly better value. No way I'd redeem 196k points for under $1000 and I'd still be aiming for closer to $1500.

cblaisd

While my Cleburne example was a bit tongue-in-check (although 39 nights at 5K/night makes for a very good redemption rate when the cost for those nights would be a shade under $3000), a better example (someplace people might actually want to go -- i.e., the Four Corners area, etc.) would be the Category 2 Farmington Hampton Inn. 19 nights at AAA rate = $2413.

The point? It all depends on your situation, but if one has a need for a lower-end property there are indeed plenty of places where you can get far better than your $1500 of value.

(Btw, both of these examples -- especially the Cleburne one -- are situations where if you are are going to pay for a room it makes much better economic sense to purchase the points and then redeem for the room)