Issued finding best way to use MR'S for hotels

[Anonymous]

At this point my fiance and I have plenty of Delta, and AA points, and will have 100k min MR'S. By the time we travel(6-9 months)
Obviously MR'S don't give good value spent on amex travel.
I was thinking of transferring some points to Hilton1-2. I understand the value would be 1.2 or so since valued at . 6cpp.
But 1.2 is better than any hotels on amex travel plus I could get the 0 fee Hilton card by then. That would add value since 4th or 5th night is free.
I'm doing research, and I'm sure I've got a ton more to do. I'm just wondering if ppl have success with a Hilton card and or transferring MR'S To Hilton.

[dogmeat]

So, I've done this.  Amex Aspire is my daily driver with Amex No-fee for gas/groceries.  I'm all-in on Hilton, because I don't travel that much, and as such it really doesn't make sense for me to spread points across multiple rewards programs.  I got some MR from an ED signup bonus, and xfer'd them to Hilton (during a targeted XX% partner transfer promotion, might have been 50% but I forget now). 

Hilton points at .6cpp is just a tiny bit rich for me, but it's close.  I use .55cpp. There are basically two ways I can justify that valuation:

1) You stay in a lot of ~$120/nt (probably weekend) nights in BFE towns across the nation where most of the "motels" in town are independently run and the best hotel is a Hampton Inn.  You can occasionally snag these for 20k points/night (or less).  At 25k points/night you're back to .5cpp or under.

2) You save up enough points to do the 5th night free promotion when paying with points.   For a 60k/night resort, that'd be 300k points you need to save up, and you'll get 60K refunded.  If you're paying 60k points a night it needs to cover a rate of near $300/night, or you may not be getting the value you expect.  The 20% refund on points for the free night is your vig above and beyond the $/points conversion.  That is, if you spend 60k points for a $300/night room, you're getting .5cpp * 1.20 = .6cpp as you expect.  Note that I don't believe you actually need a Hilton card for this, you just need Silver status (which you do get for free with the no-annual-fee card).

There may be other great value redemption opportunities at super ritzy hotels on exotic islands, I've just never had the opportunity.  

Additionally, Aspire may make sense for you if:

1) You make at least 1 Hilton resort stay per year (using Aspire's $250 resort credit).

2) You're willing to do new version of the Delta GC song&dance to get the $250 airline credit.

3) Can use the annual Free Night award (like, who can't)

It also helps if you

4) Enjoy free breakfast (for 2) at Hilton and value the benefit.

5) Consider Diamond parking a nice benefit.

6) Appreciate the uncommon but sometimes very nice upgrades.

[MrDisco99]

Transferring to Hilton will get you far better value than using the points on their useless portal.

Transfer partners are really the only way to get decent value from MR points.  Airline transfer partners are the only way to get excellent value.

[wasCB14]

In addition to elite status perks, keep in mind frequent guests can be pickier about when they redeem points so may be able to get better values than infrequent guests.

I mostly use points for flights, but would sooner cash out to Schwab than transfer to Hilton.

[Anonymous]

I transferred MR points to Hilton when they were giving 30 percent bonus. I wouldn't do it at the base rated of two Hilton points vs 1 MR point.  Rather just use the MR points for gift cards.  If you want to get the best benefit out of hotel either get a hotel card directly or get a Citi Thank You card.  The Premier has a decent sign up bonus and you can stay at just about any hotel with the points.  If you want Hilton points get a couple of Hilton cards.  Easy to get 150k points from each.  Get one for you and then refer your fiance and you get referral bonus (20k) + 150k sign up bonsus.  Then you have 320k Hilton points.  

[Anonymous]

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@MrDisco99 wrote:

Transferring to Hilton will get you far better value than using the points on their useless portal.

Transfer partners are really the only way to get decent value from MR points.  Airline transfer partners are the only way to get excellent value.

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You can get 1 CPP with gift cards. That is what I usually do.  Other than when they have bonuses for transfer partners the gift cards work out better for me. 

[Anonymous]

I definitely think I will be getting hey Hilton card in maybe a couple of months. Maybe a biz card(need to garden)
Plus I just received a sign-up bonus for the Citi Rewards card. Therefore I wouldn't be able to receive another one in the citi thank you family for 24 months. I have almost 30,000 points with Citi Rewards but those points when redeemed for travel are basically 1 CCP. With my card...
If I could go back in time I would have picked up one of the citi thank you cards with an annual fee instead of getting both the Citi rewards, and Citi aadvantage card. (But first year no annual fee.) But I don't regret it.
For now it looks like my best bet would be get one of the Hilton cards.
My fiance who had a 641 credit score was referred by me for the Delta card. I got 10k MR'S.. I am not quite sure how American Express works with credit scores that low(when it comes to getting a second card). I will definitely be referring her in the future and hopefully she will have pre-approvals.I will try to get her a regular card not a co-branded card so she can refer me to any card. Right now I am limited to Delta cards from her. I'll most likely either cancel or downgrade her Delta card after the annual fee unless they offer a great retention. I will probably keep my Citi aadvantage card open due to the 1/24 months SUB. Then see if that card is still working for me. I know that is quite far down the road but for those reasons I will most likely get a hotel card after doing a lot of research. Thank you guys so much for any information you have given or will give. I really cannot thank this site enough. Not only have you giving me resources 2 go from no credit to exceptional I have gotten a free vacation out of it already.

[wasCB14]

I looked at my Hilton emails for the first time in a while to see the price of buying points on sale. I was going to point out that points could ususally be purchased quite cheaply, making MR transfers dubious.

...only to discover that despite continuously having Hilton Gold via Amex Platinum, my HH points (only about 5k) nonetheless expired Sept 1st. Last stay was around May 2018

Oh well. I don't think I could have done anything with them. Could I have moved them to an airline for like 1k miles or something?

[Anonymous]

It is robbery to use points on Amex.travel... I understand they make a killing if you do and that does not seem right to me. They are definitely taking advantage of people who do not do their homework which I guess in a way is fair. But I could not imagine using points through Amex travel.
So far I have redeemed about 30,000 MR'S, my plan was to continue with MR'S. When my fiance was approved for the Delta Gold we could not resist and both got 50k. I got mine the next month with the citi aadvantage of course.
So for now my plan will be stick with MR'S until I figure out my hotel card situation