How To Combine Hilton Honors Points
One thing that most hotel loyalty programs are way better at versus their airlines counterparts is points pooling. They allow you to combine points from different people's hotel loyalty accounts so that you can pool points for a bigger award booking. I recently had to do just that with the Hilton Honors program thanks to our newly booked lie flat flights to Hawaii. Thanks for the award alert Derrick! Because of that I figured it would be a great time to create a guide on how to combine Hilton Honors points between accounts. The really cool thing is you can do it with ANYONE! It isn't limited to spouses or significant others. Another great thing is that it can all be done online, making Hilton one of the best, if not best, programs for points pooling.
Updated 4/27/24: I just used this again yesterday to book the beautiful looking new Conrad Orlando for my parents. It worked seamlessly once again and is one of the best perks of the Hilton Honors program.
What Is Points Pooling?
Points pooling, or combining points, is when a loyalty program lets you move points from one person's accounts to another to book an award. I say that but you don't actually need to book an award with the points after combining them, that is just the intent of offering it. Sometimes a program will limit this to spouses, or only family members etc., and other times it allows you to do it with any other loyalty program member. Thankfully the Hilton Honors program allows the latter. That is great for splitting the cost of a trip with a friend, giving a gift or combining the power of your points to unlock luxury stays.
How To Combine Hilton Honors Points: Step By Step Instructions
Here are the step by step instructions on how to pool your Hilton Honors points with someone else.
Step 1:
Go to the points pooling webpage on Hilton's site. You can find at the bottom of their site when logged in or just go HERE. You will want to access the site with the account you want the points to be transferred to. Hilton may send you an email to verify your account a few times during this process. They seem to be anxious about people's points being moved around fraudulently (understandably so).
Step 2:
Once you get logged in and verify your account you will be taken to the pool your points page. It allows you to add the name and email of any Hilton member. You can even send it out to up to 10 members at one time. The interesting thing is the email doesn't have to match the account's email to work. I find this convenient a, but also a bit scary. How do I know this? Because my wife and I have the same email on both of our Hilton Honors accounts and it causes problems each time I try to send the pooling email. So, instead, I send the request to a different email address we have access to.
Once you plug in the info the person will be sent an email saying that you want to pool points.
Step 3:
The person that you would like to pool points with will receive the email within a few seconds. It will ask them to click a link if they would like to pool points with you. Have them click this to complete the points pooling.
Step 4:
Once they log in, and verify their account, they will be asked how many points they would like to transfer. Hilton makes it easy with a drop down bar that lists every option available. The points must be transferred in chunks of 1,000 points. We went ahead and transferred 67,000 of the 67,710 points (or the maximum available to us).
Step 5:
The combination of Hilton Honors points should go through in a minute or so. The person looking to get the points will receive an email telling them the points are now in their account. In the past, I have had it error or not go through a few times. After a day or two I just submit the transfer again and then it usually works fine.
What Are The Rules / Limitations Of The Program?
While the combining Hilton Honors points is easy, and very generous, it does come with some rules and limitations. Here they are from the Amex website:
Hilton Honors Members can transfer Hilton Honors Points to another Hilton Honors Member through Points Pooling or 1-to-1 transfer in increments of 1,000 Points and up to 500,000 Points. Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to sending no more than five hundred thousand (500,000) Points and receiving two million (2,000,000) Points via Points Pooling or Transfers combined per calendar year.
Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to making six (6) transfers to other member accounts and six (6) Hilton Points Pooling transactions per calendar year. Invitations to join a Points Pool is not considered transactional. Transactions refer to the transfer of Points to another member account either through 1-to-1 account transfers or through Points Pooling.
The limitations on points probably won't be a problem for most people. The 6 transfer limitations, however, should be noted. It is best to do your transfers in big chunks versus whenever you earn a few points.
Combine Hilton Honors Points: ToP Thoughts
Hopefully this guide on how to combine Hilton Honors points is useful to all of you. I know that it is one of my favorite perks of the program and makes earning Hilton points that much easier. At least in a two person household that is. If your significant other grabs that massive Hilton Honors Business card offer right now it is essentially the same as you grabbing it yourself, and vice versa. Now if we could just get all airlines to do the same thing.
