Converting AA Miles into Hilton Points

Aug. 12, 2011

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2 min read

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I'm betting that after yesterday's post about getting 150,000 AA miles for free, many of you will be up to your ears in airline miles. With the British Airways Visa 100,000 mile card earlier this year and huge Amex transfer bonuses to Delta and British Airways, it's literally raining airline miles!

But what happens if you need hotel points? Sure there's the Hyatt Visa which gives 2 free nights at any Hyatt in the world, the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex with 25,000 points and the Chase Sapphire Preferred with 50,000 points that transfer to Hyatt, Marriott and Priority Club - but what if that's not enough?

Hotels, especially in Europe with the strong Euro, can put throw a huge budgetary wrench into your vacation plans. Generally, I think we all focus too much on accruing zillions of airline miles and we fall short on hotel points. I know I'm personally airline miles rich and barely scraping by with hotel balances (well that may be a bit dramatic, but you get the point).

Luckily, American allows you to transfer your AA miles into Hilton points at a somewhat favorable ratio. It used to be 1 AA mile = 2 Hilton, but now its 1 AA = 1.67 Hilton. Still, not bad since Hilton free nights start at 7,500 points and go up to 50,000 for their top hotels (specialty resorts can be higher). This means those 150,000 AA miles gained practically for free from the two Citi cards can get you 250,000 Hilton points!

Hilton recently launched direct hotel and car rental booking so it is rumored that this transfer option to Hilton may go away soon. So if you think this ratio could work in your favor, I'd recommend transferring sooner than later. In fact, there's no easy way to get to this transfer page from the AA website, so I really think its days are numbered. Once again the link to transfer is here.

Hat tip to TPG reader Carol!
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