Good morning everyone, happy Monday! I had a great time in Minneapolis this past weekend at Frequent Traveler University (FTU) Advanced. I enjoyed catching up with old friends, meeting readers, and networking with fellow travel hackers. If you missed FTU, the next travel conference I will be at (and speaking at) is Chicago Seminars, on October 20-22.
Last week, I wanted to book a 5 night Hilton stay, but I only had enough Hilton Honors Points to cover the first night. I could have booked the first night and then racked up the remaining Hilton Honors Points over the next several months to book the rest of the nights, but I wanted to take advantage of Hilton’s 5th Night Free feature, where when you book a stay of 5 nights or longer, you do not need to pay points for the 5th night. I reached out to my travel hacker friends on Facebook and Twitter and asked if someone would let me borrow 91,000 Hilton Honors Points so I could book the 5 night stay. Luckily, 1 of my friends agreed to help me out and we were able to test out Hilton’s new point pooling feature. Here is how you can pool Hilton Honor Points into 1 Hilton account.
As you can see, I only had 69,365 Hilton Honors Points, but I was short 90,635 Hilton Honors Points needed to book a 5 night stay that cost 160,000 Hilton Honors Points. Rates were 40,000 Hilton Honors Points per night, but since the 5th night was free, I only needed to pay 160,000 Hilton Honors Points (4 x 40,000 = 160,000). To get started pooling Hilton Honors Points, sign into your Hilton account and click on More Ways to Use Points under the My Points section on the left side on the page.
