LatinPass and Time
 

I have calculated how much time it takes to transact a simple transfer of miles from LatinPass to HiltonHHonors. Since LP requires that these transactions be conducted monthly, in order to transfer 500,000 miles @ 30,000 per month, it would take a total of 17 months elapsed time and slightly over 15 hours of actual, and sometimes frustrating, labor. The “personal labor costs” are arguably greater than the price of the original tickets.

A MONTHLY TIME STUDY OF A LATIN PASS TRANSFER:

Fax to LP office, requesting transfer of LP miles 5 minutes
Follow up with Latin Pass 3 minutes
Call to Hilton regarding missing transfer 15 minutes
Re-fax to Latin Pass, re-requesting transfer 5 minutes
Checking Hilton site to see if points posted 12 minutes
Reading about rules changes 8 minutes
Complaining about rules changes on FT 15 minutes

TOTAL: 53 MINUTES

Total time to transfer 500,000 miles = 17 months X 53, or 15.02 hours.

Of course some months will be better, some worse, but these numbers appear to me to perhaps even be conservative.


The Hilton transfer protocol appears to be fairly standard, but the time needed to cash in for tickets is much more varied. However, the time needed to burn a million miles on tickets could be astronomical.