I Bought Hilton Honors Points That Posted Instantly!

Background:

I saw some standard award availability (120k) for summer 2023 at the Conrad Bora Bora Nui. I’ve wanted to visit Tahiti and Bora Bora for a while now, and thought it would be a good trip for next year. I was a bit short of Hilton Honors points for a 5 night stay, so I decided to see my options. I could have converted from AMEX Membership Rewards, but I didn’t want to deplete my balance there, so I decided to see purchasing points as an option. Thankfully, Hilton currently has a points purchase promotion.

Hilton Honors Points Purchase Promotion:

Hilton generally offers a good amount of points purchase promotions, and the current one is until July 19, 2022. It seems that different members can be targeted for different bonuses (80% bonus points, or 100%). I got the 100% bonus, which goes into effect when you purchase at least 5,000 points and it looks like you can buy up to 160,000 Hilton Honors Points per calendar year before the bonus kicks in.

To purchase points, Hilton Honors charges one cent per point, which includes taxes and fees. If you’re eligible for the 100% bonus, it drops the price to 0.5 cents per Hilton Honors point.

How Quick Do They Post?

This was my main question. I couldn’t afford to wait too long as I didn’t want the award space to disappear. The official wording on the terms and conditions states that:

Points will be posted to the recipients Hilton Honors account within 48 hours of the completed transaction.

That worried me a bit, as I was worried the award space would be gone by then. I then went online to try to find other people’s experiences with buying points on travel forums. There were many different data points shared. It seems that some people got the points to post instantly, while others often waited for a few days. One story I found interesting was that they said by using a credit card that is saved on your Hilton Honors account, they were able to get the points to post instantly.

Wanting the best chances at an instant posting, and willing to take a risk, I followed their advice and used my Hilton AMEX Aspire Card to purchase the points. Not sure if that was a contributing factor, but I did in fact get the points to post instantly to my Hilton Honors account and I quickly went to book my stay at the Conrad Bora Bora.

The room that the standard award books into is the “King Lagoon View Suite”. For cash rates, the room was going for about $1600 USD per night, so I thought it was a good use of Hilton Honors points. The current standard room award rate is 120,000 points per night. I booked for 5 nights, and the 5th night of points stays are free, so it came out to 480,000 points for the stay. Can’t wait for my stay next year!

The Verdict:

I’m lucky that my purchased Hilton Honors points posted to my account instantly as the award I booked was gone the next day. If there’s a specific award that you want to get but you’re short a bit of points, the current possible 100% bonus on purchased points could be a good promotion to top off your Hilton Honors points balance.

Have you purchased Hilton Honors points recently? Did they post instantly? Share your experience below!

Safe travels,

Ty