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Hilton have reintroduced their very, very competitive 100% bonus on buying points. I recently looked at the possibilities buying points in this sale had opened up, which can be extremely interesting.

The good news is this sale has returned, and is now live until 11 May. As a result, this post not only examines the options, but also allows you to go ahead and take advantage of them immediately, if they work for you.

The Current Sale

Hilton points ordinarily cost a straightforward 1 US dollar cent (0.7 pence) each. That means in a 100% bonus sale such as this, you are paying 0.5 cents or 0.35 pence per point.

To make things a little easier to follow (not least for the subsequent purposes of this article), that’s 5,000 points for £17.50, 10,000 points for £35 etc.

I have had heated arguments with Craig over the actual “value” of a Hilton point. After my attempts at detailed mathematical analysis, but mainly my threats to kidnap beloved family pets, he reluctantly agreed to a 0.5 cent valuation. So you’re buying Hilton points here at a price that will almost certainly give you value on pretty much any use of them. That’s a very good starting point.

However, we can get some serious value from these points purchases…

Introducing the…. “Hilton Mega-Hack”

This 100% bonus offer also gives you the possibility of what I articulately call the “Hilton Mega-Hack”. A trick that combines i) a 100% points purchase bonus ii) a decent Hilton points promotion iii) low cost redemption hotels and iv) the excellent Hilton “5th Night Free” bonus.

As I have previously flagged, there are 21 Hilton hotels globally that cost just 5,000 points a night.

On the face of it, five nights at a 5,000 point hotel costs 25,000 Hilton Honors points. That’s at a cost of £87.50 in the current points sale, so £17.50 a night. Not a bad deal, but we can do way better.

Using the 5th Night Free bonus, you could therefore book 5 nights in one of these hotels for just 20,000 points. That’s at a cost of £70, so £14 a night. But we can also improve on that.

The current Hilton points promo (ending 2 May) gives you 2,000 points back for the stay, plus a further 5,000 for the five nights.

As a result, you’re in fact paying a total of 13,000 points for these five nights. That’s at a cost of £45.50, so a grand total of £9.10 a night.

That is staggeringly good value for a Hilton hotel.

But I don’t want to stay 5 nights!

There’s still a bargain to be had. A one night stay at any of these hotels would cost you just £10.50, as you would pay 5,000 points but get 2,000 points back from the Hilton promo. You obviously would not benefit from the 5th Night Free or the Bonus 5K points here.

Some more realistic alternatives

I fully appreciate that the 21 5K points hotels are unlikely to work for the vast majority of people. However, while that removes the possibility of the “headline” ultra-cheap nightly rate, it still means the overall saving on the stay applies (i.e. the good value points purchase, the 5th Night Free, and the 7K points promo).

For example, the following hotels can be booked at a maximum of just 10,000 Hilton points a night:

• Hilton Garden Inn Tulsa South, Oklahoma
• Hampton Inn & Suites Center, Texas
• Hilton Garden Inn Panama, Ciudad de Panama
• Hilton Kuching, Malaysia
• Doubletree Resort by Hilton Penang, Malaysia
• Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi, Vietnam
• Doubletree by Hilton Agra, India
• Hampton by Hilton Krakow, Poland
• Hilton Garden Inn Istanbul Golden Horn, Turkey

Using the maths above, a five night stay at any of the above could be booked for 33,000 points, or 6,600 points a night. That’s a cost of  just £23.10 a night.

The one night alternative

A one night stay at any of these hotels would cost you just £28, as you would pay 10,000 points but get 2,000 points back from the Hilton promo.

Anything else?

There’s not much more to say. Hopefully this post flags the phenomenal value that you can find on redemptions at Hilton hotels at the low end of the redemption scale, particularly when you can stack offers.

One key point to flag is that to benefit from the 5th Night Free bonus, you do need at least Hilton Silver status. We regularly focus on ways to get status with Hilton, and bear this benefit in mind if you are considering whether you should be pushing for recognition with them.

(Cover photo Hilton Kuching, courtesy of Hilton.com)