Bits: 80%-100% bonus buying Hilton Honors points, Virgin Red adds Eurostar vouchers

News in brief:

Get an 80% to 100% bonus buying Hilton Honors points

Hilton is out of the blocks as the first hotel group to launch a ‘buy points’ deal in 2024. It has launched another offer of an 80% to 100% bonus when you buy points.

The Hilton ‘buy points’ page is here. 

The offer runs to 12th March.

My own personal target is 80%. It appears that most people have 100%. This seems to be a long running piece of market testing to see how it impacts take-up rates.

The cost of 320,000 points – with a 100% bonus – would be £1,317 (the website now quotes in £ for UK residents, at a dodgy FX rate) which is 0.41p per point. The drop in the £/$ exchange rate in recent years has eroded some of the value of these bonuses, with our target valuation for a Hilton Honors points at 0.33p, but as long as you spend them outside the UK it will net off.

Do note that Hilton restricts new members from buying points immediately. The rule is:

“A new Hilton Honors Member may purchase Points 30 days after enrollment if the account reflects activity including a stay (as defined herein) or earning Hilton Honors Points through a Hilton Hilton Honors Marketing Partner. After 90 days of enrollment, a new Member is eligible to purchase Points regardless of their account activity.“

The page to buy points is here if you are interested.

Virgin Red adds Eurostar gift vouchers

We got a very excited press release from Virgin Red on Monday about the fact that Eurostar gift vouchers are now available for Virgin Points via the Virgin Red app.

There is nothing new about this, however. You have been able to redeem Virgin Points for Eurostar vouchers for, I think, as long as HfP has been running, which is 11 years now. That said, until Monday you had to redeem via the Virgin Atlantic website and a lot of people will have been unaware of the option.

Is it a good deal? No, not really.

You’re getting the standard 0.5p per Virgin Point. 2,000 Virgin Red points gets you a £10 Eurostar voucher. You can also redeem for £25, £50 and £100 vouchers.

We would look to get 1p per Virgin Point from a premium cabin flight redemption, so 0.5p doesn’t cut it for us. However, 0.5p is the standard rate for non-flight redemptions on Virgin Red and if you only have a small balance then it is as good a way as any of using them.

Now, if Virgin Points were transferable into Club Eurostar points, that would be interesting ….