Ok. Maybe I’m going crazy. I know I used Hilton’s points pooling feature shortly after it launched, and it worked just fine. There was no difficulty transferring Hilton points. I pooled points with my in-laws, and later did a second transaction to send them some back after a new card bonus hit my account. But this was a couple years ago now.
Fast forward to today, where I’ve been trying off-and-on for a month to combine my wife’s points with mine. I used (what I thought) was the same process: request to pool, link is sent, other person clicks through the link, and then initiates the transfer.
But it hasn’t worked. And I’ve tried at least four times.
My Difficulty Transferring Hilton Points Via Pooling
The first time I tried to pool points, I was in a rush. I tried to initiate the transfer from my phone, which was a bit difficult with multiple logins and emails I had to navigate. I’d hoped the transfer would happen swiftly, as I potentially needed the points for a stay the following day. They never showed up, so I ended up using Radisson points to book a different hotel.
Belatedly, I realized that the transfer never processed. It was for a fairly small amount, like 30,000 Hilton points. I decided to work through the process again, trying to transfer all the points from one account to the other. Maybe the first time it was simply a glitch?
A few days later, there was still no points movement. I turned to my friends with Miles to Memories, asking if they were aware of any issues with pooling or transferring Hilton points. It was suggested that I use a different email than the one on my wife’s account. This seemed odd, but I was willing to give it a try. Sure enough, I was able to send a pooling invite to another of my email’s and then just log in through that link.
But this didn’t help. Still no points. We were going on two weeks since the first time I tried. I gave it one more shot, this time noting down the transaction ID in the process.
Reaching Out By Email and Phone
The back end of the Hilton points transfer system is powered by Points.com, so I resorted to emailing them. There is no phone number to call. They responded a little over 24 hours later, instructing me to call Hilton.
After spending 15 minutes with a Hilton rep at the Diamond Desk, I was able to open a customer service case with Hilton to see if they can process the transfer. I’m glad I’d saved the transaction number, as this was one of the things that she wanted, plus all the account info and when I’d initiated the transfer. Let’s hope Hilton gets back to me and that they are able to resolve the issue.
Have any of you ever had this much difficulty transferring Hilton points?
Had multiple issues trying to do family points pooling. After multiple raised cases, multiple emails and calls – a few months later the issue was resolved… It was horrible. It seems that points.com have a system where it blacklists your account and transactions are not going through. There is no visibility of this process whatsoever on the Hilton side and all they can do is open a case with points.com. Hilton outsourced their points system to external vendor and now everyone is at the mercy of points.com and their horrible system that so often triggers false positives and leaves Hiltons… Read more »
Man…I hope that isn’t the case here. That sounds awful. I need to wait and see with Hilton says.
Welcome to the Club! 🙂 I had a similar experience last year. Seems like Hilton hasn’t fixed anything yet. https://travelupdate.com/my-bizarre-experience-while-transferring-hilton-points/
Interesting. They never debited from my wife’ account, so nothing seems to have processed in my case. This would have me irate if they got stuck between accounts.
I just did it last night. Started in her account (we did pooling before but I didn’t bother here) and chose the bottom right option- I think it’s transfer to another person’s account.
It doesn’t show them moving until they officially go but about 22 hours later they just showed up in my account and we both received emails. Pretty painless, and I actually did it in December too.
That’s a good data point. It just doesn’t match my experience here. My guess is that I’m flagged for something.
I’m trying to resolve my same issue for more than six months without success. Very frustrating. Please update the post whenever you get this resolved for you.
Still haven’t, but will post an update when I do.
Finally after a dozen email exchanges on the ticket created with Honors member services, I was able to transfer my points to my spouse using hilton.com. I did nothing different from before, but everything worked immediately. I did not try pooling yet.