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Rack Up HHonors Points with No Cost
Right now Hilton is having a sale on HHonors points. In fact, they are giving a 100% bonus on them. As Loyalty Lobby reports, you can purchase up to 80,000 HHonors points for $800 and receive an additional 80,000 points free.
That means that you would be paying 1/2 cent for each point which isn’t a terrible deal. In fact, you could probably save some money at specific properties if you have an upcoming trip. In my opinion it isn’t a good enough deal to buy them speculatively, since at most properties you probably won’t come out ahead.
Citi Card Churning
This deal reminded me though of a way to get quite a few HHonors points if you want them for free. While you can certainly sign up for the Amex HHonors cards, they aren’t immediately churnable. The Citi HHonors Reserve card and its 2 free nights isn’t churnable in that way either.
Citi has received quite a lot of coverage over the past year since they allowed the AAdvantage Executive card to be churned. Since then they have added language disallowing a bonus if you have opened or closed that product within the past 18 months on all of their cards.
The Churnable HHonors Card
While it didn’t get a lot of coverage, the Citi HHonors Visa Signature can be churned in the same way as the Executive card. Citi allows one application every 8 days and two every 65 days, so the HHonors Visa Signature and its 50,000 point bonus can be had that often. It used to be easier, but it is still possible.
Just like with the AAdvantage Executive card, late last year Citi began adding the 18 months bonus language to applications for the HHonors Visa Signature. Thankfully zombie links still exist for older offers on both cards that don’t have this language. People have confirmed on Flyertalk that they are still able to churn this card repeatedly by using the old links.
For more information see the wiki on this Flyertalk thread.
AA miles vs. HHonors
So now that you know that both the AAdvantage Executive and the HHonors Visa Signature can be churned, you are probably wondering why you would choose HHonors points over AAdvantage miles. Well there is one big reason, the HHonors card doesn’t have an annual fee. (AA miles are much more valuable.)
Sure there are ways that people have circumvented the annual fee on the AAdvantage Executive card, but many people aren’t comfortable with them. This is a way to churn with Citi without having to mess around with more advanced tactics.
Other Citi Cards
The point of this post is not to advocate getting the HHonors card, but to let you know the option exists. Right now Citi has a ton of amazing offers that are worth much more than 50,000 HHonors points, but all of those offers aren’t churnable.
For many people it might be more beneficial to purchase HHonors points and apply for different Citi cards. Everyone’s situation is different and for a lot of people that would probably be the right move. Either way you have options, which is always a good thing.
Conclusion
I know this isn’t for everyone, but I thought some people might benefit from knowing about this card. Since I have shifted most of my stays over to Hyatt, I still have way too many HHonors points sitting around from churning this card years ago. For now, I’ll be sitting this one out, although I hope the option sticks around for awhile.
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Hi Shawn,
When I went to this post, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-thankyou-rewards/1641330-citi-hilton-hhonors-visa-50k-60k-read-wiki-choose.html I found 102 pages of info. How do I find just the links you’re talking about?
There is a Wiki at the top which has all of the relevant information.
Shawn, do you need to close the 1st Citi HHonor card in order to apply for the 2nd one? Do you allow 2 cards with same name exist?
No you don’t, although sometimes it helps to get approved for more. I still have 2 of these cards sitting around from a few years ago when I churned them since I haven’t had to sacrifice them yet and they are building longevity on my credit report.
Spend time reading the FT thread to educate yourself. This is a lousy card when compared to others since you can’t even get one upper level Hilton night out of this card. Still this was great info for me. I have had the card since 2013. Just did an app-o-rama for more significant bonuses but threw this application in at the end just for fun. Was immediately approved, so was wife. Many people have multiples of this card open at the same time. One guy said he has had 7 open at a time. Another person said they were on their 22nd HH card, some closed of course. If all you do is want to accumulate Hilton points, then this is a nice option and pretty amazing that it still works. Only BofA is so equally lax, hint Alaska Airlines.
Not anymore after MMS published that he got 5 cards…I applied 2 Alaska using 2BM but one was approved with lower credit limit and one pending…..let’s hope that MMS doesn’t kill this one too….
Right, I hear you. Don’t know what he is thinking, unless he did it to warn BofA indirectly of their relaxed policies. He’s in bed with a lot of the issuers so wouldn’t be surprised.
Shawn, I am new at Flyer Talk and I can’t seem to find links to the churnable Citi card out the wiki that is constantly referred to in the thread. Can you help me out?
Thanks, I appreciate your blog.
The link is in the post, but here it is: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-thankyou-rewards/1641330-citi-hilton-hhonors-visa-50k-60k-read-wiki-choose.html Enjoy!
I recently used 70K of HH points for 2 nights for a room that normally costs about $170/night….regardless of whether that was a smart move on my part, the points deal here would cost me $700 for the same? vs about $340?
I am unclear if you need to wait 18 months now for the advantage card? For the Hilton, since the post referred to churning, I expected it to be about a credit card BTW.
Love your website Shawn, but this website left me a little sad. I was expecting to find a way with credit card spend to get hilton points for free, but not for signing up for cards. Again, not your best post, and I’ll keep reading, but a more appropriate title is in order. Thanks!
I really didn’t mean to be misleading and feel the post does offer value for many people. With that said, I do appreciate your feedback on the title and will look at ways of being clearer the next time. Thanks for reading Jon and I apologize for the title not being clearer.
useless post.