Six months ago I interviewed the CEO of ThanksAgain the company that gives you points for all of your spending inside of airports. You sign up, register a credit card, and the miles credit automatically.
Right now you earn 100 Hilton HHonors points just for signing up for the ThanksAgain program.
I wrote about this offer two months ago but it’s still available through December 31. And I gave it only the briefest mention before.
I only value Hilton points at 4/10ths of a cent each. So this offer is worth a whopping 40 cents.
However Hilton points expire after an un-generous 12 months of inactivity. Hilton’s terms say,
I know that I haven’t stayed in a Hilton since February (I have two stays this year). I need
If I let it ride for awhile longer, I may wind up transferring points from my Citi Prestige Card to Hilton, or buying points for $10. So thought about that way, a 100 point HHonors offer that’s free and easy saves me 1000 Citi points or $10.
It’s a far cry from the 1000 Delta miles they once offered.
Why don’t you get either the Citi or Amex no fee Hilton card?
Take 2 surveys after you sign up for ThanksAgain and earn an additional 100 points each. That’s 300 points in total for a few minutes work.
With HH members earning loads of points effortlessly, there is no rationale whatsoever for having a complete post on earning just 100 HH points…unless, of course, the real purpose is to peddle the usual canard about how HH points are worthless (JUST 4/10th of a cent!) and that the points expire “after an un-generous 12 months of inactivity.”
Two quick points:
(1) The value of 0.4 cent per point is a REDEMPTION value and not an EARN value, which this offer is. You are not redeeming 100HH points, you are acquiring them. Therefore, all you can say is that in the absence of a devaluation, the 100 HH points would be worth 40 cents whenever they are REDEEMED. On the EARN side, however, 100 HH points could be worth as much as $10. How so? The answer is at the very end of this very post!!! Suppose you were just 100HH points short toward making Diamond on base points, how much would those 100HH points be worth to you? Since the only way to EARN 100 base points is through a paid stay, you would need to do a mattress run and spend $10! So, on the EARN side, points are worth whatever you would have to pay in hard currency to earn them. Further, anyone who knows anything about how to compare loyalty points would know that 0.4 cent PER HH point is worth almost exactly the same as ~2.4 cents PER STARPOINT — i.e., they have the same “buying power.” That’s how Marriott knew — and I knew — that a transfer ratio of 3 MR points to 1 starpoint would give equivalent buying power to points transferred in either direction.. If I get a redemption value of 1 cent per HH point (I got 1.3 cents/HH at Conrad Koh Samui), that’s like getting 6 cents/STARPOINT.
(2) If I can redeem more or less 1M HH points every year, I could say with a straight face that anyone who is too stupid not to spend a few points on, say, a magazine subscription or spend $1 on a no-fee co-brand HH CC in 12 months to keep their points alive definitely deserves to lose them. Expiring points after 12 months seems like a good compromise between giving members a chance to redeem their points and ensuring that the financial liability due to unused points does not tie up too much of the company’s revenue.
As for the 100 HH points offer, thanks but I’ll pass…it’s not even chump change.
G’day!
I just received a notice from AwardWallet this week that my HHonors points will expire next month, so contra DCS, this post was extremely valuable to me. Thanks.
It’s not a day ending in “y” without DCS coming on to rant and rave about all things Hilton…even though 1) no one cares and 2) the post wasn’t even about HH point valuation analysis, elite benefits, etc.
Give it a rest already.
It could also help someone who is just short of a nice round number of points…. earlier this year i spent $30 through the shopping portal just for this reason, if I were aware of this I could have shopped through a more valuable portal. So I also agree this is helpful information
I don’t understand. Where do I connect my Thanks Again and Hilton for the bonus?
Since you can get about 300 points for signing up and doing a couple of surveys, this is a no-brainer.
AFAICT, there’s no tie to Hilton. It’s just one of the programs you can transfer to.
I’m transferring 100 points each to Hilton, Alaska, Southwest.
@Vincente I agree the post was helpful when it first came out as I also split my 300 points to various programs to extend the validity of some of them . That way it became much more valuable to me than buying through a shopping portal just to extend the validity of the points / miles. So to me the value is a minimum $ 20 . LOL
As you get 100 points from Thanks Again, rather than specifically 100 Hilton points, you can actually transfer them elsewhere. For example, into 50 AAdvantage, Alaska Mileage Plan or United Mileage Plus miles.
Again, not going to get you booking a First Class long haul flight any time soon, but a useful way to stop miles expiring.
Agree with the others, this is amazing. Was able to extend expirations on Alaska, Hilton, and United. Thanks Gary as always!
Hilton Hhonors may require more points than others for stay redemptions, but they also frequently have multi-month promotions that offer double points. I’ve taken advantage of those offers twice this year. Now through December, if you make a reservation, you’ll get triple points. With all of those points promotions, I’m probably getting a better deal than I would with other award programs.
I already have a ThanksAgain account with Southwest. Am I eligible to earn these bonus points?
I am glad you found the post useful, but all my points stand. There was no need for misleading statements like, “I only value Hilton points at 4/10ths of a cent each. So this offer is worth a whopping 40 cents”. It’s misleading for the reasons I gave. The same goes for “…an un-generous 12 months of inactivity.”
The now worn out tendency to disparage a program, HHonors, even when it’s clearly standing above all others, is not helpful in my view. I believe that may be why brand-agnostic or “non-partisan” travel blogs, like Loyalty Lobby, that bring information and travel deals to readers, without unnecessary tangents or pushing a blogger’s personal (and often wrong) opinions, rank very high in readers’ surveys…
Call me a “rebel with a cause”: to offer a different view…for “balance” 😉
G’day!
Thank you for sharing this. I haven’t been on the road much lately. Changed jobs and had a baby. This just saved me some headaches as I was able to extend the expiration of my HHonors points, my AA miles, and my partner’s AA miles. Very cool! Heck I might even try the product.
Thanks Gary. Your post caused me to check my HH account only to find that I had points expiring in a month. Got the 100 and transferred it 🙂
Gary, this is great. My HH points were about to expire, and this bump easily helped both my HH and UA points from expiring. Any hints for keeping Marriott points from expiring? I bought some stuff from their Shop My Way site in order to get points, but it’s been months, and the points have never appeared. I don’t think transferring points from Marriott to SPG or vice versa resets the expiration clock either. And, unlike many other points programs, Marriott doesn’t have a dining club to earn a few points.
Thanks for the tip, which is actually even better than what you described. The program has changed in the last year – they no longer award points directly to linked award programs. Now when you enroll you just get 100 “ThanksAgain Points” which can be transferred to a small set of partner loyalty programs at 1:1 or 2:1 ratios, and in amounts as small as 10 points! The only hotel partner is Hilton, but there are 7 airline partners. I used my 100 points to top up both my HHonors account and my husband’s, and I have enough points left to top up 4 airline partners as well. Thanks!
I received 100 pts for signup and 100 pts for a food survey, but I do not see any other survey offer for the 3rd 100 points…am I too late? Is anything else required such as involving the app?
Minimum transfer to Hilton seems to be 10 so you can use these 100 free points to generate later program activity with Hilton or additional activity with the other participating programs.
you can phone in, ask for a survey, they put you through to a promotions line, irrespective of whether you book or not, they put 500 points in your account.
@TIM what is the number ?
i called in though the general number 800 548 8690