They just came out with a new way for members to purchase additional points. It's $12.50 for every 1,000 points up to 20,000 points total. Hilton probably thinks no one will figure out that this is not great for hotel stays at least. To get a free night at one of their hotels I was told I need 35,000 points. I already have 13,000, therefore, I will need 22,000 additional. Since 20,000 is the max. that I can purchase that would be $250.00. The hotel I want to stay at costs $119.00 per night. <BR><BR>It's cheaper for me to just pay for the one night stay. These so-called points/rewards programs just rip people off.

Um, I suspect people are more likely to purchase 1,000-5,000 points, having earned an odd amount. In your case, it would be better to pay for the night's stay and EARN points for future use

I guess that could be so because it sure doesn't make any sense to purchase 20,000 points-at least not in my case.

remember to make a change in your profile every 3 months and get up to 2,000 points. Hilton HHonors is funny as you can earn almost as many points with bonuses as from hotel stays. I currently have 85,000 points without staying there too much.

Thanks for the tip regarding the profile updates. I wasn't aware of it.<BR><BR>I also have Marriotts Rewards and they're even more stingy with their &quot;rewards&quot;.

On the other hand, if you needed 20,000 points to use for a flight that would cost $800-$1,000, then $250 would be cheap! We usually use our points for flights, not hotels.

I checked the flight rewards and they're limited to Europe. The lowest was one coach ticket to London for 125,000 points I believe.

Actually, you can use the points for flights almost anywhere, Mexico, S. America, Hawaii, Canada, within the US, Asia/Pacific, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, or Europe. A ticket to London or anywhere in Europe is 150,000 points. When I said you might need 20,000 points for the ticket, I meant that if you had 130,000 points and were only 20,000 points short, then buying those points to come up to 150,000 would be a good idea.<BR>

We stayed 4 nights in Italy on points and were treated like royalty. Champagne in the room on checkin and snacks every night. Being a diamond member and using a Hilton Honors credit card pays off big time.

ttt

Another option is to transfer points from another frequent flyer program INTO your Hilton Honors account instead of buying them from Hilton. That's what I did to qualify for a &quot;free&quot; stay...