If you’re a Hilton Honors reward member, you now have a new reason to hold onto your points. You can now use them to pay for items through Amazon. Not everything is available to be used with your points, like digital content. But most everything else. All you need to do is sign in to your Amazon Account, and then click “Shop with Points”. From there you select “Hilton Honors”. It’s that simple. If you have specific questions about the program or your account, you can go to Amazon’s Shop with Points Page to get more detail.
When you are making your purchase, you will see an option to choose the amount of points you want to use. When your order is placed, the points applied will be deducted from the order total and displayed as “Rewards Points”. You can also click on “changed” under the Payment method option to use any available points. According to Amazon’s FAQ page, 500 Hilton Points will equal one dollar on Amazon.com. There are a ton of products available to be purchased through Amazon using points.
Like I mentioned earlier, however, you can’t use the points for Amazon Kindle downloads, digital music, Amazon video titles, Amazon Appstore apps, AmazonFresh items, Subscribe and Save items, Prime Memberships (unless they’re a gift), pre-order items, texbook rentals, or to reload gift cards. Which kind of makes it feel like there isn’t a lot to purchase. But there is. The rule of thumb is that the item has to be tangible.
A draw back to using your points is that you might not be able to use the one-click checkout option in order to complete your purchases. But will that deter you? I mean, yes one-click checkout is amazing, but this option won’t take that much more of your time. And it will allow you to save some money by using some of your points. That is, if you want to use them. Let’s put this into perspective for a moment. You can earn between 10 and 15 points for every US dollar spent on your room. A hotel room can range in terms of price, but let’s say that it costs $150/night. Based on that, you will get 4500 points for two nights in a hotel. Saving you $9 per purchase.
I’m not going to get into the “elite” membership option with Hilton, so let’s say that you get about $9 every time you stay in a hotel for two nights. Is that worth it? I’m not suggesting that you should stay in a hotel JUST to get the points. If you are staying in hotels because you’re travelling a lot, then of course, this makes sense. Because you’re not spending the money with Amazon, you’re spending it with Hilton. So the deal is between Hilton and Amazon. But in the grand scheme of things is $9 going to make a difference when it comes to your purchases?
This rewards program seems like it’s pretty good. It doesn’t seem too good to be true, but it doesn’t seem bad either. I’m always a bit skeptical with these kinds of things as there always seem to be stipulations or exceptions. (And there are when it comes to how many points you earn per night etc.) Overall, however, it seems like a good program. Is this something that you would use?