milesmomma

I just posted this plan of attack on my blog and thought I'd share it here. It's not a new concept but just put all the offers together to show a big score of Hilton Honors points if you are needing them.

Here's my plan of attack:
1. Apply for the Amex Hilton Honors - Best offer currently is 60,000 bonus points ($750 minimum spend) No annual fee! (I have already applied & received this card but only received a 50,000 point offer. The current offer is a little better)
2. Apply for two Hawaiian Airlines cards - 35,000 bonus points each, $79 annual fee & $1,000 minimum spend on both.
Bank of Hawaiian Bank of America

Once the 70,000 Hawaiian miles have been deposited into my account, I will then call & have those miles transferred to Hilton Honors points at a 1:2 ration resulting in a total of 140,000 Hilton Honors points from both cards. View the Hilton Honors points transfer partners and ratio here. Members on Flyertalk confirm the easy transfer on this thread. Fellow blogger, Million Mile Secrets, Dariaus confirms he has transferred Hawaiian Airline miles to Hilton Honors points in this recent post.

3. Apply for the Virgin Atlantic American Express from Bank of America.
Offer is for up to 65,000 Virgin Atlantic miles but 50,000 is actually more feasible. Minimum spend is 2,500. Annual fee $95.
20,000 on first use
25,000 after $2,500 minimum spend
5,000 for adding an authorize user
Once the 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles have been deposited in my Virgin Atlantic account, I will then call & have the entire 50,000 miles transferred to Hilton Honors points. This transfer will yield 100,000 Hilton Honors points and add to my big score ensuring a wonderful future vacation for my family.

Summary breakdown of Hilton Honors points after transfers
60,000 - Hilton Honors Amex
140,000 - Hawaiian Airlines Visas
100,000 - Virgin Atlantic American Express
300,000 Total Hilton Honors points earned
Total Cost
$0 - Hilton Honors Amex
$160 - Hawaiian Airlines Visas
$ 95 - Virgin Atlantic American Express
$255

Not FREE Hilton Honors points but about the cost of 1 night. Now I'm off to book my hotels!!! Hope this plan might help you grow your Hilton Honors account too or jump start your account. Need a Hilton Honors account, join here (p.s. - I don't receive any referral bonus on these credit card offers but I always want to share the best ways I know to grow your miles/points accounts and this is a great plan in my opinion)

fandu

Did you apply and got approved for the Bank of America credit cards? Looks like 2 Bofa apps not gonna fly but not sure.

sun_aa

Why not include the Citi Hilton card for an extra 50,000 points?

Converting VS to Hilton might not be the best use of those miles.

stupidzbu

I too would like to know the answer to this...

i wouldn't want it to be like CITI where you get rejected for multiple apps and not a lot of credit pulls.

are you planning on spreading this out over a certain period or just going for an app-o-rama?

jeelele

Here is a sample app-o-rama that includes 3 applications to BofA.

My list is somewhat similar to the list of cards in the app-o-rama in that post except Barclays and Chase Marriott. I totally omitted Barclays and instead applied for an additonal Citi card in the form of ThankYou preferred with 50K bonus TYPs. And in place of Chase Marriott Visa, I applied for Chase Sapphire with 50K Chase UR points.

I love these card bonuses. Unfortunately, I missed out on the AMEX Platinum 100K, AMEX Gold PR 100K and Chase Sapphire 100K because of timing.

So, as you may notice, I have had not problems in getting 3 cards approved at a time from BofA/FIA in the recent past and know several others who have been successful as well.

IkeEsq

People may want to wait to see if the 35K bonus Hawaiian Miles issue gets worked out. Several people in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-offers-3.html thread have reported only getting 25K miles.

As previously noted, if you are really into HHonors points, you should probably also consider the Citi 50K HHonors card ($1500 spend no fee first year).

You can also upgrade your Hilton AmEx to a Surpass for an additional 50K Bonus points after $3000 spend ($75 fee to upgrade, no new credit hit), which also gives you Gold status for your first year.

And of course, if you are into trading Miles for Points, it looks like you can still transfer all of those excess AA miles you accumulated to get to LTG/LTP to HHonors for the bargain rate of 6,000 AA -> 10,000 HH!

PETERPNYC

So my 385 k AA would give me 640K Hilton so instead of 4 J TATL flights I would get what ?

The presidential suite for 2 nights in Zimbabwe ?

drbobguy

I've come to the same conclusion with the Hhonors program and have started to apply for these cards. Two things:

1.) You're right that it doesn't make much sense to transfer useful airline miles to Hhonors points, which most consider worth 0.6cpm or less. But for many of us (those who live on the East Coast) HA miles aren't very valuable. And the 1:2 transfer rate retains the value of the points at about 1.0 cpm to two 0.5cpm points, so this is an alright transfer. Virgin points are potentially more valuable, depending on your flying habits, but the 1:2 transfer VA:HH is still an alright ransfer.

2.) For this reason and the fact that there are two HA airlines card offers at 35,000 plus two Hhonors cards available (Citi and Amex) with no fees and the Virgin Atlantic card, this is a pretty good opportunity to consolidate points from five sign up bonuses into a single travel program, which is a somewhat rare occurrence. This makes it conceivable to accrue 350,000 Hhonors points (for all five cards), which while not an amazing amount for hotel redemptions in big cities, is still pretty good considering you don't need to forfeit miles in more valuable programs (UA, AA, US, even DL) to accomplish it.

I don't know the HHonors program well but 350,000 points still seems to get you a week at some top hotels in major cities. And since there aren't many great airline card signups at the moment this seems like a good strategy to consolidate points into a hotel program. A mini app-o-rama for five cards that results in 350,000 Hhonors points is pretty good in my opinion!

Paulchili

If I were you, I'd take a good look at this:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...hh-points.html

before you jump. It seems that there are many unhappy people Hilton way at the moment. May not be the right time to put all your eggs into the Hilton basket.

IkeEsq

Precisely. Empty the minibar on your way out and you may not notice that you are in Y on the return!

As noted by others, not sure that I would dump a ton of points into HH nowadays from other programs. I've been predominantly HH for the past 20 years, and getting 150K+ HH per year and Gold status based solely on AmEx HHonors spend has not been difficult. Normally it covered my modest travel needs. Now? Not so sure. We'll see how Europe turns out next summer before I decide if I should dump them for SPG, Hyatt, or someone else.

jeelele

I mainly accrue Hawaiian Miles for Virgin Atlantic flights. To me, it is a fantastic use of HA miles. And I have usually found good availability without any fuel surcharge which makes it an awesome deal. More information in this post.

Also, I had no problem in getting the 35K x2 HA miles from their credit cards for my recent round of applications. I used the links in this post for card applications.

sdsearch

Also, at this moment, http://redeemaamiles.points.com still works for transferring AA miles to HH points. If you have plenty of AA miles, you could transfer (up to 90K per transfer, 150k per year) before it goes away. See this thread for more about the supposed (but not quite yet) demise of AA-to-HH transfers:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ug-2011-a.html

Then, replenish your AA miles with two to three (three if two personal and one business) Citi AA card apps "at the same time" once it's been at least 18 months since you last applied for an AA card, to replenish them.

Viewed out-of-context (ie, assuming it's the only Citi app you've ever done), an AA app for 50k gets you more HH points than an HH app for 50k, because AA:HH (while it works) transfers at 6:10 (AA:HH).

However, it's unknown when the above link might stop working (for HH), and that's why it seems a good plan if you have plenty of AA miles and can replenish them later, but not necessarily as good a plan if you have to wait for the AA card bonuses to hit (especially given that most AA card apps now require a signficant spend which you may not be able to do instantly, especially when Citi often issues your first statement only days after you've activated your card!).

leonard016

2nd that!

If Hilton can't sort this out, collecting Hilton points through signups, especially in an AOR style won't be so attractive.

milesmomma

Thanks for posting your feedback here. I was going to post some other threads because I have done my research on this plan and I know it will work. My only hesitation has been the money for the fees ($255). I really like my miles/points FREE. But this is a great value if you need the points now.

milesmomma

Thanks for the reminder about the upgrade. I would only add that consider when you will be traveling and actually need to use the Gold Status. I myself am holding off on this option know that I don't need to use my points & status for awhile. Just wanted to toss that in there!