Hilton Honors Guide: Stay at 8,000+ hotels globally using PayRewards Points

Hilton Honors is your ticket to stays at higher-end properties like Waldorf Astoria and Conrad through to more pocket-friendly journeys at DoubleTree by Hilton. Of course, there’s also Hilton itself. Best of all, your PayRewards Points can now take you there: and to over 8,000 properties worldwide, by converting your PayRewards Points into Hilton Honors Points.

With no limit to the number of PayRewards Points you can earn or convert to Hilton Honors, you’ll be poised to pounce on some great value travel bookings. Here’s how to make that happen through PayRewards’ newest hotel transfer partner.

Converting your PayRewards Points into Hilton Honors Points

Eyeing off a hotel stay and have PayRewards Points to spend? You can now transfer these to Hilton Honors at a 1.75:1 rate. For instance, do you need 300,000 Hilton Honors Points to book a dream hotel stay? Achieve that goal by converting 525,000 PayRewards Points at that 1.75:1 rate.

You’ll also want to keep your eyes peeled for any bonus offers that may arise from time to time. These could add a nice little boost to your haul of Hilton Honors Points, just by converting PayRewards Points during a promotion period.

Spending Hilton Honors Points on hotel stays

There are two main ways to book hotel stays using your Hilton Honors Points.

• Standard Room Reward: Think of this as the ‘classic reward’ of the hotel sector. Book an entry-level room and pay for the entire reservation using Points.

• ‘Points and Money’ bookings: This option allows you to reserve hotel rooms and redeem Points against the cash asking price, while paying the remaining balance using money.

The value gained per Point between the two options is often quite comparable. ‘Points and Money’ allows you to use smaller balances of Points to unlock real cash savings on your hotel stays, without the need to save up for the full nightly rate before you can book.

Here’s an example from a recent stay at Conrad Hong Kong. On the night of my visit, I could have secured the room outright for 75,000 Hilton Honors Points. There was also the option to pay 19,000 Hilton Honors Points plus $2420 HKD for a Points and Money booking. Alternatively, the equivalent flexible paid rate was $3239 HKD.

By using Points and Money, I paid around 25% of the Points normally required to save roughly 25% on the room cost. With that in mind, it can be a good way to go. But if you have enough Hilton Honors Points to cover the entire Standard Room Reward, even better!

Booking premium rooms with Hilton Honors Points

You can also use Hilton Honors Points to reserve rooms in higher categories as a ‘Premium Room Reward’. But take note, Premium Room Rewards don’t usually provide the same Points-to-dollars value as a Standard Room Reward.

My philosophy is that Premium Room Rewards can be handy when travelling for a special occasion – one where you really want that better room. But perhaps, not for a regular trip where alternatives are available. Here’s why.

On the same night at Conrad Hong Kong (where a Standard Room Reward was 75,000 Points), the lowest cost Premium Room Reward would have set me back 117,000 Hilton Honors Points. That’d be for a King Bed Deluxe Peak View Room otherwise selling for $3505 HKD.

On the cash front, the room was around 8% more expensive than the base room. But when paying with Points, the Premium Room Reward was priced 56% higher than that Standard Room Reward. The numbers speak for themselves.

Be mindful too that if you’re a Hilton Honors Gold or Diamond member, your complimentary upgrade benefit still applies on stays booked using Points. Translation: there’s a reasonable chance that you could book the Standard Room Reward and get something nicer anyway, without spending the higher level of Points. Wink.

Another way to save when spending Hilton Honors Points

Want to squeeze the best possible value from your Hilton Honors Points? Here’s a handy tip. Hilton Honors doesn’t utilise a set exchange rate between Points and dollars from one stay to the next.

On the same night I booked Conrad Hong Kong for 75,000 Hilton Honors Points, Ovolo Central was available for just 50,000 Hilton Honors Points. But its standard paid room rates were almost as pricey as Conrad. In fact, to book Lanson Place Causeway Bay, I’d have paid even more in Points (80,000), where the actual cash room rate was more than 20% cheaper than Conrad.

On the same night still, Hilton Garden Inn Hong Kong Mongkok was selling rooms for around half the price as Conrad. But the asking price in Points was still more than half as much (45,000 Hilton Honors Points, versus 75,000 for Conrad). It also pays to look at the fine print, as you’ll be able to see if only Premium Room Rewards are available.

Again on that same night, Motto by Hilton Hong Kong SoHo was selling its cheapest room for $1,555 HKD. But the same room would cost 87,000 Hilton Honors Points as a Premium Room Reward. That’s more Points than the stay at Conrad, to secure a room selling for much less.

So if there’s more than one hotel where you’re travelling to, consider how the rates compare between Points and cash to get the very best deal.

Converting Hilton Honors Points into frequent flyer points

Hilton Honours points offer the greatest value when redeemed for accommodations. After all, that’s what you’d expect of a hotel loyalty program. But it’s also possible to convert Hilton Honors Points into airline frequent flyer points.

You can do this via the Exchange Points section of the Hilton Honors website. Transfers to most frequent flyer programs take place at a 10:1 rate. Yes, that’s 10 Hilton Honors Points to 1 airline frequent flyer point. You can see why hotel reservations are likely to provide better value.

But this option can be convenient when needing a small points top-up in your frequent flyer account. Perhaps, to help prevent your existing airline points from expiring. Or for those times when you already have most of the points needed to book a flight, where you can’t otherwise earn the difference.

Hilton Honors Points transfer to airlines in blocks of either 4,000, 10,000, 20,000 or 25,000 points, depending on the destination program. In most cases, converting 10,000 Hilton Honors Points delivers 1,000 frequent flyer points or miles. Keep that in mind when converting your PayRewards Points, as direct transfers from PayRewards to the program’s airline partners would generally be a better option if your ‘points goal’ is to fly.

A few final Hilton Honors hints

There’s far more to Hilton Honors than simply transferring your PayRewards Points and booking a hotel stay. Take your Hilton Honors experience to the next level with these handy hacks.

• American Express is your shortcut to Hilton Honors elite status. Certain AMEX cards offer perpetual Hilton Honors status, giving you all the perks without doing any of the work. Have the American Express Explorer Credit Card? Be sure to enrol for complimentary Hilton Honors Silver status. If your wallet wields the AMEX Platinum Card (charge card), sign up for gratis Hilton Honors Gold – or Hilton Honors Diamond, if you have the invitation-only Centurion Card.

• Virgin Australia Velocity status gets you a one-off boost. Velocity Gold members can opt-in for a one-time, one-year benefit of Hilton Honors Gold. For Velocity Platinum members, the same is true of Hilton Honors Diamond.

• ‘Fifth Night Free’ makes that status hustle worth it. If you have Hilton Honors Silver status or higher, you’ll be able to book longer stays for fewer Hilton Honors Points. For every five nights you stay on a single continuous reservation, you’ll burn the Points equivalent to a four-night stay. That’s a 20% saving in Points on your next trip.

• Need more Hilton Honors Points? You can also convert American Express Membership Rewards points into Hilton Honors at a 2:1 rate. (Meanwhile, it’s 1.75:1 from PayRewards).

Written by Chris Chamberlin

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About the author

Chris enjoys making the most of frequent flyer points, which have taken him around the world – usually, at the front of the plane. He’s travelled over 1.5 million miles sampling the best in Business Class and First Class. That’s further than three return trips to the moon! Chris is based at Point Hacks' Melbourne office as News Editor, and shares his experiences via @chris_chamberlin on Instagram. When he’s not travelling, he enjoys tennis, keeping fit, and discovering new gins.