As one of the approximately 66 million members of the Hilton Honors program, you are now able to use your points to purchase products at Amazon.com. The partnership with Amazon.com gives you more choices — think millions of products — and more ways to use Hilton Honors points. You can use Hilton Honors points to pay for an order at Amazon.com in the same way that you would use any credit card — and there is no fee for using your eligible Hilton Honors points at Amazon.com.
Hilton is the first lodging company partner to participate in Shop with Points at Amazon.com.
You Can Now Shop With Hilton Honors Points at Amazon — But…
To use Hilton Honors points to pay for part or all of your purchase, first register for this program by linking your Hilton Honors account to your Amazon.com account — yes, you must have an account with Amazon.com in order to participate — and you need to do this only one time. Once your Hilton Honors account is linked to your Amazon.com account, you will see and be able to use your available Hilton Honors Points at checkout.
Once you are ready to purchase the eligible items you have chosen, simply proceed to checkout through your shopping cart. After you choose Hilton Honors points as your payment method for the purchase, you can spend as many or as few Hilton Honors points as you wish when checking out with the products you want to purchase, as you can use Hilton Honors points to pay for your entire order…
…or use them to pay for only part of your order; and have the remaining balance charged to any other eligible payment method at Amazon.com — such as a credit card or debit card loaded to your Amazon.com account, an Amazon.com Gift Card, or Amazon Pay balance.
Then, review your order and place it once you are satisfied. The Hilton Honors points which are applied to your order will be deducted from your order total and displayed as Rewards Points in the Order Summary.
What Can You Purchase With Hilton Honors Points?
With your Hilton Honors points, you can buy millions of products at Amazon.com; but at this time, you cannot use Hilton Honors points for certain purchases at Amazon.com — including but not limited to:
- Downloads for Amazon Kindle
- Digital music
- Amazon video titles
- Amazon Appstore mobile software application programs
- AmazonFresh items
- Subscribe and Save items
- Prime memberships — with the exception of Prime Gift memberships
- Pre-order items
- Textbook rentals
- Amazon Allowance
- Reload your gift card balance
Please note that currently you may not be able to use a one-click option to purchase products using your points.
Conversion Rate Has Been Announced
According to Aaron Glick — who was the vice president of the Hilton Honors frequent guest loyalty program when this program was first announced — Hilton leveraged its purchasing power with Amazon.com by tapping into its distribution network. This way, you get to take advantage of that purchasing power when it becomes available…
…but the best conversion rate ended up as 500 Hilton Honors points equal one dollar on Amazon.com — which is definitely not the best value for Hilton Honors points.
Why, then, would a member of Hilton Honors would want to take advantage of this option — especially when the value of the redemption of points for merchandise is usually worse than when redeeming them for a stay? Two cogent reasons were cited by Aaron Glick:
- If the point balance is low and the member wants to use points but cannot use them for anything else, there will be options available at Amazon.com; or
- When road warriors are on the road and have a high balance of points in their accounts because they have no time to redeem them for stays, they can always use them in the meantime to purchase gifts for their spouses — increasing the options for using those points.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Shop With Hilton Honors Points at Amazon.com
Shop with Points offers customers the ability to use points earned from Hilton Honors and a variety of other rewards programs for purchases at Amazon.com.
Now that the Shop with Points with Amazon.com program has been officially activated for members of the Hilton Honors frequent guest loyalty program, the revised advantages and disadvantages include:
ADVANTAGES OF SHOP WITH POINTS AT AMAZON.COM
- More options with which to redeem points — in this case, for virtually anything sold at Amazon.com and not confined to a limited number of products which were previously selected
- Additional value to Hilton Honors members with low point balances in their accounts
- There is no fee to use this service
- You may apply any eligible promotional coupons to orders paid using Hilton Honors points
DISADVANTAGES OF SHOP WITH POINTS AT AMAZON.COM
- At 500 Hilton Honors points to one dollar, redemption rates of points are not as good of a value as using them for stays at hotel and resort properties
- Certain products cannot be purchased using Hilton Honors points
- Registration is limited to a maximum of three Hilton Honors membership accounts per customer
- Each Hilton Honors membership account may only be linked to a maximum of three Amazon.com accounts
- Although the Hilton Honors shopping mall will not be active in the United States now that Shop with Points at Amazon.com has been activated, it will remain active in all other countries
- If a Hilton Honors member outside of the United States chooses to use Shop with Points at Amazon.com, that person should keep in mind that he or she will need to pay the shipping fees from the United States to his or her location, as this partnership only applies to Amazon.com and does not apply to other Amazon sites outside of the United States — such as Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.jp
- Points may not currently be combined with other rewards programs to make eligible purchases using Shop with Points at Amazon.com or any other participating platforms
- Rewards from multiple reward programs cannot currently be aggregated for a single order
- You can only use points towards purchases at Amazon.com and not via telephone
Select Terms and Conditions
Certain Hilton Honors membership accounts may not be eligible for registration. Amazon reserves the right to restrict your use of Shop with Points or to deregister your Hilton Honors membership account from your Amazon.com account at any time in its sole discretion — including in cases of suspected misuse or fraud.
To enable you to use Shop with Points to purchase eligible items, Amazon Services LLC and its affiliates may share information that you have provided to Amazon with Hilton and its affiliates and vice versa. This information sharing allows us to link your Amazon.com account to your Hilton Honors membership account and, once registered, Hilton may provide Amazon with information about your Hilton Honors membership account — including your points balance. Amazon may also share information that you have provided to Amazon with Hilton so that Hilton can perform its functions with respect to the Shop with Points program.
The points balance in your Hilton Honors membership account may be reduced to reflect the amount of your purchase at the time of your order; but in some cases, it may not reflect your use of points for pending purchase transactions until the purchase has shipped or otherwise been fulfilled.
Returns are subject to the returns policy at Amazon.com. If Amazon accepts a return for an item you purchased using only points, those points will be credited to your Hilton Honors membership account. If Amazon accepts a return for an item you purchased using points and another payment method, Amazon may — in its sole discretion — credit the return to the other payment method before crediting points to your Hilton Honors membership account.
You may register multiple rewards programs on Amazon; but you cannot combine points from multiple reward programs for your order. However, rewards purchases will be paired with the card associated with the rewards program.
Rewards may also be combined with an Amazon.com gift cards. If you have a gift card or stored value available in your Amazon account, Amazon applies the rewards points that you requested to use and that your rewards provider approved for use, then the gift card or stored value amount, and then any remaining balance to the Credit or Charge Card linked to your registered rewards account.
If you no longer want to use your Hilton Honors Points to Shop with Points at Amazon, you can unlink your account here. You will still be able to use your other cards linked to your Amazon account for transactions on Amazon.com.
Other terms and conditions apply — including those of the Hilton Honors frequent guest loyalty program. You can join as a member of the Hilton Honors frequent guest loyalty program here, free of charge.
Summary
Shop with Points at Amazon.com is the fourth new benefit launched from Hilton Honors this year in addition to Points Pooling, Diamond Status Extension and the Points & Money Rewards hotel reward night slider — all of which were included in this comprehensive look at changes to the Hilton Honors frequent guest loyalty program which were announced back in February of this year.
Plenty of people believe that using your Hilton Honors points to purchase merchandise is not the best value — and they would be correct, as I personally have no intention of spending my Hilton Honors points at Amazon.com — but is the value really significantly any worse overall with Shop with Points at Amazon.com than with the former Hilton Honors shopping mall?
Although it is an option I do not see myself using, I like the idea of having an option available if ever I want or need it — and it is one of the rare times when orphan miles or points actually can be used for something.
Source: Hilton Honors.
