340,000 Hilton Honors points goes to...

The moment you've all been waiting for… The first winner of our million points giveaway is….

*drumroll and suspenseful music 🥁🎶*

Heather S. from Texas. Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of 340,000 Hilton Honors points!!!! Are you surprised? Are you overwhelmed? Are you running around screaming with excitement?

Now I know there are multiple Heather S's reading this - if you are the winner, you've already received a congratulations email from me directly. Sorry to the rest of you Heather S's, but don't worry - you (and all of the non-Heathers) could still win hundreds of thousands of other points!

I've also published a short blog post on our website today that explains some of the best ways to earn and redeem Hilton points.

Now, the rest of you might be wondering…

Should you ever buy points like we did for this giveaway?

Earning free points from travel and credit cards isn't the only way to acquire points at a good value. In fact, there are a number of scenarios where buying Hilton points actually makes a lot of sense.

Let me walk you through a specific example from a few weeks ago where I bought points for an upcoming hotel stay of mine:

I'll be traveling through Southeast Asia in a few months and needed to book a 5-night stay in Kuala Lumpur. I found a room at a Hilton property that cost $60 per night with cash ($300 total) or 4,800 points per night (24,000 total). Since purchasing 24,000 points only cost $120, I was able to book the room for $24 per night by buying points and booking it. Essentially, I turned a $300 booking into a $120 booking just by using this workaround.

Opportunities like this pop up ALL the time, so next time you're thinking about paying cash to book a hotel, first check to see if buying points would be cheaper. Hilton is offering a huge sale on their points right now, so you might consider building up your stash for a future booking.

Make sure to tune in tomorrow for your chance to earn extra entries into the million points giveaway! There are still hundreds of thousands of points left to give, so don't give up hope just yet!

I'll be honest, everything feels a little less exciting after giving away those Hilton points… BUT here's something that's at least close to as exciting as that was:

Well, I have great news for you. Flying Blue (the loyalty program for KLM and Air France) is offering some amazing deals on flights to Europe for the next ten months. To be clear, these are cheap deals for using miles to book flights, not cash.

Let me give you a few examples:

I thought of this yesterday when I literally had to take clothes out of my backpack to get Ryanair to accept it as a personal item on my flight to Tallinn… A small price to pay for avoiding the ridiculous carry-on fee… Has anyone else had to do this before?

Thanks for tuning in today. Make sure to read tomorrow's newsletter for another easy giveaway entry.

Would you buy points to save money on a hotel booking? Are you going to transfer some points to KLM/Air France to book some flights to Europe? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.

Oh, BTW - hundreds of you reached out asking for the spreadsheet I referenced in Monday's newsletter. I didn’t realize that so many of you would find it valuable, so we've decided to make it available to you at some point in the near future. More details to come 😉

Have a lovely day,

59.4370° N, 24.7454° E