Bilt Rewards has added Hilton Honors as a transfer partner. Just like with their addition of Marriott as a transfer partner in the fall, it doesn’t add much to the program.
It’s not that Hilton Honors points aren’t valuable, it’s that everything at Hilton is inflated by a factor of three or four – on both the earning and the redemption side – and that balances out fine except when transferring points 1:1. (Bilt requires a 2,000 point minimum transfer for base members, and 1,000 points for elites.)
- First transfers from Bilt to Hilton through June 8th receive 1,000 bonus Hilton points. That’s worth about $4, and doesn’t make up for 1:1 simply not being a worthwhile transfer ratio to Hilton.
Crockfords, Las Vegas
Bilt points now transfer to all of the major U.S.-based hotel programs, something that no other current offers. Their transfer partners are:
- Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Turkish Miles & Smiles, United Airlines MileagePlus, Avianca LifeMiles
- oneworld: American AAdvantage (ending in June), Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
- SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue
- Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles
- Hotels: Hyatt, IHG Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors
You can also use Bilt points at 1.25 cents apiece towards travel through their (Expedia-powered) portal, redeem for rent, Amazon purchases, and merchandise.
Not every addition to Bilt is super valuable. I love Alaska Airlines transfers and the coming option to earn 3 points per dollar on rent for a 3% fee. I love that I’ll get a free BLADE airport helicopter transfer and Air France KLM Gold with my Bilt Platinum status.
But just like when they added Amazon as a redemption partner, some members somewhere may find value in the offering it does not take away value from the program.
In fact, just like members using their points for rent at 55 basis points (just over half a cent in value apiece) it’s great for us that other people do it and we do not.
- What matters for Bilt are their overall redemption costs
- The more people who redeem for rent, Amazon, and Hilton points the lower Bilt’s costs are overall – and the less of a burden on their P&L – the more they can contribute towards funding of transfer bonuses and fund transfers to Hyatt.
Conrad Bora Bora Nui
Ultimately a single Hilton point is worth a little bit less than a Marriott point and even incrementally less than an IHG point.
- That doesn’t mean Hilton has a worse program, just that each hotel program has a different ‘scale’ for their points. Many Hyatt redemptions are ‘expensive’ but generally take fewer points. When all transfers are 1:1, Hyatt is the only one of Bilt’s hotel transfer partners you should consider.
- Hilton’s elite program is weak (no guaranteed late check-out, hotels have no obligation to upgrade to suites, and even the vaunted breakfast benefit has been devalued in the States) and its earning is heavily reliant on promotions. One Hilton point is just not worth enough to make this useful.
- Still, it’s an option that doesn’t appear to take anything away from the program. So congratulations to all involved!
There’s one more option with Bilt points. I hope it’s one that readers of this site never use, but everyone else is free to burn their Bilt currency at low value if they choose to do so.
So, if I’m reading this correctly, you’re saying only the Hyatt loyalty program is worth investing in? I have almost a million points with Hilton, a negligible 150,000 with Marriott, and an even less important 21,000 with Hyatt. I product changed my Brilliant to the standard Marriott card with Amex. I’m thinking of getting rid of the Aspire and Hilton Business, especially after reading this post. I don’t have the WoH, because I have a harder time finding properties to stay for where my travels take me, but again, if I’m reding this right, it sounds like your guidance would be to invest in that program more because the points stretch farther. Thanks for your insights!
Cahn’t make this stuff up…
If the one making the following claim is a “thought leader” as claimed, then the whole genre he is a “thought leader” in or of is doomed.
Gary — Your claim that
0.4 cent/Hilton point < 0.6 cent/Marriott point
or
0.4 cent/Hilton point < 0.5 cent/IHG point
is not only baseless, but it also reflects a staggering ignorance of kindergarten-level math. Try to figure out why that is, but the hint is in the bolded words.
In the real world, all the major hotel points currencies are worth exactly the same. That won’t change no matter how often you point to your valuations or anyone else’s because it is clear that you and everyone in travel blogosphere do not know the first thing about hotel points currencies despite spilling gallons of cyber-ink writing about them daily for years.
Repeat after me, for the very last time:
0.50 cent/Hilton point = 1.52 cents/Hyatt point= 0.53 cent/IHG point = 0.68 cent/Marriott point = 0.36 cent/Radisson (America) point
The equality sign between the values is for real, and, BTW, those are the most accurate values of hotel points currencies that you will find anywhere.
Either accept that reality or take the challenge right here now and prove to everyone, once and for all, why
We will be waiting for your proof with bated breath.
Gary you appear to have a bias towards Hyatt. While I agree with you that domestically Hilton does not offer great value to elites I would totally disagree when it comes to their International properties. I have had nothing but success as a diamond member staying overseas at Hilton and Conrad properties. I have always been upgraded to the concierge /business level floor. I have been upgraded to suites the majority of the time and I have always received free breakfast, which is generally a buffet breakfast and or sit down table service. The Value I have gotten from staying at Hilton properties overseas Far exceeds what I pay yearly to remain a diamond member
That is what the “thought leader” is indeed claiming, based on his complete misunderstanding of the first thing about hotel points currencies, despite writing about them daily for years. The degree of ignorance is truly staggering…
You see, unlike Word of Hyatt, whose members are offered the weakest points earn rate of any program and runs almost no promotions that would enable members to earn enough points to afford award stays, members of Hilton, IHG and, to a lesser extent, Marriott loyalty programs do not need to waste transferable currencies — e.g., Chase UR points that are best spent on securing premium cabin airline tickets on some of the world’s best airlines — on award stays because the latter programs make it super easy for members to earn loads of their points to redeem for free nights at their respective hotels. Me. I transfer my UR points to Singapore Airlines to book business-class seats on SQ22 and SQ23, the world longest RT flights between JFK and SIN. IMHO, it is nothing short of heretical to transfer, e.g., UR points to the points currency of any hotel loyalty program. That WoH members have to resort to such transfers to be able to afford award stays emphatically stresses what a truly weak program WoH is.
That is the reality. The model of earning transferable points on non-Hyatt cards without members ever setting foot in Hyatt hotels is highly flawed and reminiscent of the model that contributed to the demise of SPG. The only reason Hyatt may survive is that their “aspirational” awards are more affordable than were SPG’s and Hyatt does not make the transfer of their points to airline miles as favorable as did SPG. As a result, the “bleeding” WoH points and revenue is not as severe as was the “bleeding” of SPG points (and revenue) to airline miles that contributed to the demise of the latter. It is not at all by accident that one of Marriott’s first acts after acquiring Starwood was to cripple the transfer of their points to airline miles…
That is another myth, fabricated by travel bloggers based on self-serving standards.
Hyatt has barely 800 locations in the US compared to about 5,900 Hilton locations, 4,200 or 71% of which offer free breakfast to all guests. If, e.g., free breakfast is your thing, then that makes Hilton the much more rewarding hotel loyalty program domestically than Hyatt because what good is a hotel program if it does not have enough to locations where its members can to go and enjoy its benefits?
My elite status recognition in the US as a HH Diamond, but especially now as a LT Diamond, has always been competitive with that of top elites of any other program based on my experiences. It is time to let your own experiences dictate the value of the various hotel and airline loyalty programs to you rather than to let self-anointed “travel gurus” gaslight you into doubting your own experiences. As I have been systematically showing, many of the claimed advantages or disadvantages of various programs are simply made up to make make priograms that travel bloggers patronize seem better than they are in reality. Trust your own experiences, as, believe me, the grass is not greener on the other side as claimed!
For the *&^ thousandth time to DCS- many of us do not get our points from spending at a hotel (as in work-paid business stays), we get them from credits cards and transfers. You always go on and on about the earn rate at hotels but to many of us that’s irrelevant- our earn is from spending on everything, and HH cards do not win there. Also most stays I’ve seen in the US have the point rate very much tied to the cash rate, at 0.4 cents/point, maybe 0.45 when including taxes.
Interesting that after all these years of criticizing the top bloggers you still don’t have your own blog- afraid to see if anyone would actually go to it?
More vapor ware from Bilt the overhyped program
Cool, but too many block quotes. Simpler is better…
You are barking up the wrong tree. I am perfectly fine with people playing the miles/points game using whatever strategy works for them. What I do is shoot dead bogus dogma promulgated by self-anointed “travel gurus” like, for example, their preferred program being “best” because Chase or Bilt points transfer more favorably to its points, while Hilton is lacking because such transfers are unfavorable. Well, the story is not quite what self-anointed “travel gurus” claim it to be. Since a Hilton is worth exactly the same as any other hotel points, then transfers of UR or Bilt points to Hilton points cannot possibly be less favorable because a Hilton point worth less! Do you get that?
But you are wrong! I do have my own blog that many here have been to The only thing is that, as gainfully employed Ivy League medical university professor, I do not need it to earn my living, and it is a lot more fun to debunk bogus claims.
DCS (Dumb, Childish, Stupid?) –
Your diatribes boil down to something simple that Gary has acknowledged repeatedly. If you earn and burn purely within the ecosystem of a hotel’s program, then Hilton and Hyatt are on equal.
The problem is that’s not how the real world works. People earn points outside hotel ecosystems. Then they’re faced with the fact Hyatt charges 10,000 points per night while Hilton charges 50,000 points per night for a comparable hotel.
So, no, it’s wildly misleading to say Hilton points are worth the same. It’s just not how the world works.
The Ivy League is a sports association. In any case the prestige of the Ivies confers to the undergraduate level as a whole, not to graduate programs. A professor of computer science at Harvard is a schmuck compared to a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley.
You forgot to mention you’re 60 years old and unmarried. I don’t enjoy being so blunt but it’s relevant. Why can’t you find a woman despite your PhD and high status profession? Could it be that you’re turning off women with your fanciful, impractical views?
Let’s make a deal. I live in Manhattan as well. (Although Roosevelt Island doesn’t really count, and you know that.) I’ll buy you a drink at any Hyatt hotel bar of your choice in this city. I’ll also take photos of you that you can use on your online dating profile. In return, you must state in your prompt that you love staying in Hyatt hotels. You’ll probably meet the love of your life within 2 weeks. I’ll be best man at your wedding and we can create a slideshow of your internet comments and laugh about how foolish you used to be until you met me.
I’m sure Gary would accept an invitation to this wedding as well. His wedding gift for you will be a set of Legos, paying homage to your fondness of the HTML blockquote.
Please let me know the Hyatt hotel of your choice.
Well, you can get lost because not only did you not have to introduce yourself frivolously as above, the rest of your post is just as frivolous and as wrong, especially when quoting anything that@Gary has acknowledged.
There is a basic structure to the way, at the least hotel loyalty game, which I have modeled extensively, is played: one spends real money, one earns points and then one spends the points earned to redeem free hotel stays. The basic premise is that members will earn points based on their status within the program. That basic premise is what each program uses to assign a value to its points so that it is worth the same as the competition’s point — it must achieve a return on the $ of 16%.. Included in that basic framework are bonus points that members earn from each program’s co-branded CC. Armed with the preceding, the “face” value of each hotel loyalty program, as assigned internally, can be calculated exactly. Then, there is the “icing on the case”, i.e., points from global or targeted promos or other sources of spending, whose primarily effect is to decrease the costs of awards. If you take all of that into account. World of Hyatt is even less rewarding than the competition.
I have modeled hotel loyalty points extensively and the only determinant of the “face” values of hotel points currencies is the the base earn rate of top elite members, and I can prove it. The only thing is that I have no interest in engaging you further because much of your comment is frivolous and of no scientific interest to me. Knowing the final result of the modeling, I know for sure that the premise of your comment is all wrong. Then including the personal stuff about where I live…and about …dating? Too psychotic for me.
Goodbye.
Hyatt is not generous with elite bonuses on earning for hotel stay spend.
That is utterly irrelevant to the point that the scales for each currency are different. Hilton awards more points and redemptions cost more points. So doing 1:1 transfers from Bilt to Hilton is low value, but much higher valie to Hyatt.
Unless you rent Bilt is a yawn.
The challenge was for you to prove the basis for resurrecting the utterly bogus claim that
on which much of your thesis about the “supremacy” of transfers of Bilt points to Hyatt points rests, when the only reason such transfers are necessary for Hyatt but not for the other programs is precisely because
, in addition to offering almost no promos.
To try to gaslight the masses into thinking that one of a program’s primary limitations is actually a major strength is quite something…