American Express Membership Rewards has renewed its promotion for U.S.-based card members, offering a 25% bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to Hilton Honors.
This promotion is showing up on U.S. based MR earning card accounts, and the expiration date for the transfer bonus is listed as March 14, 2025.
The ratio of transferring Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors with the bonus right now may make limited sense when thinking about a transfer if you’re looking to book a Hilton hotel on points.
Eligible account types with this promotion would be the Amex Green/Gold/Platinum/Centurion and Everyday cards among others – those that earn Membership Rewards.
If targeted, you can find the transfer option in your online Amex card account under Membership Rewards – Hotel Transfers :
At the same time, American Express is reminding people that point transfers are irrevocable, as I previously wrote here when covering these transfers. So, one should be 100% certain that the points transferred out can be used for something good in the future; the sooner, the better.
Keep in mind that aspirational properties such as the Conrad Rangali, Maldives, or Koh Samui, Thailand, have extremely high point requirements (95,000+ points per night), so you still need quite a few Membership Rewards points per night in order to stay at one of these hotels.
Maybe it’s better to pay cash in some cases, which means comparing retail rates vs points is always the best first step.
If you’re a Hilton loyalist and prefer to collect Hilton points rather than membership rewards, I’d say getting a Hilton co-branded card is a better fit than collecting on most MR earning cards.
American Express has previously offered Hilton transfer bonuses of up to 50% extra, which were available to all members. I don’t think a 25% transfer bonus is particularly good.
Conclusion
Membership Rewards points are usually better utilized by transferring them to an airline program to be used for flight redemptions or, in the worst case, cashed out through the Charles Schwab version of the Amex Platinum to be redeemed for cash value.
Regarding hotel stays, you might sometimes (not always) be better off using your Amex MR points to book directly through Amex Travel, including the Fine Hotels & Resorts program.
To get great value out of this promotion in combination with a Hilton redemption, one should make sure to use the Amex Platinum benefit of upgrading the account to Hilton Gold (if not already Gold/Diamond) and then book five nights with the “5th Night Free” perk. That way, it can somewhat make sense value-wise, but as I mentioned before, for a decent property, you need A LOT of points.
These are the Terms & Conditions for this campaign:
You must be an eligible Membership Rewards® Card Member enrolled in Hilton Honors in order to participate in this offer, visit HiltonHonors.com/join to enroll. American Express is not responsible for availability, accommodations or any other rewards in the Hilton Honors program. If American Express® Rewards Checking and/or American Express® Business Checking are your only Membership Rewards® Products, you are not eligible for this offer at this time. Once you have transferred Membership Rewards points, they become subject to the Terms and Conditions of the Hilton Honors program and cannot be transferred back to your Membership Rewards program account. See Hilton Honors Terms and Conditions for details. This offer is non-transferable and may not be combined with other offers. American Express in its sole discretion reserves the right to alter and or terminate these offers at any time. To be eligible to receive these offers, all Card accounts linked to an enrollee’s Membership Rewards program account must not be canceled, past due or have a return payment at the time of point redemption. Minimum transfer is 1,000 Membership Rewards points.
Redeem for this exclusive offer from 12:00 a.m MT on 2/14/2025 to 11:59 p.m MT on 3/14/2025, to receive 25% additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points. Please allow up to eight weeks for the additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points to be awarded. Hilton Honors Bonus Points do not count towards elite tier qualification.
