One of the frustrating parts about many different miles and points currencies is that they make it hard (or impossible!) to transfer miles and points to family or friends for free. While there are many programs (mostly but not exclusively banks with so-called transferrable currencies) that allow you to transfer points to your spouse, friends or family without a cost, most do not. I often get questions from people starting out wanting to know how to transfer Hilton points to a friend or family member.
Given the current card offers where you can get up to 100,000 Hilton points, transferring Hilton points and combining Hilton points in a family can really help your balances grow! See top hotel credit card offers here.
Hilton Points Pooling: How to transfer Hilton points to friends for free
Thankfully, Hilton is bucking the trend and announced Hilton Points Pooling back in February, though the concept of being able to transfer Hilton points to family members through Hilton Points Pooling actually rolled out a few months later. I got a notice from Award Wallet the other day that my wife’s Hilton points were expiring, and since I’m a Hilton Diamond, I figured it probably made sense for all of our family’s points to be under my account anyways, so I thought I would transfer her Hilton points to me (her spouse). Since this was the first time I had ever transferred Hilton points to anyone, I thought I’d write a step by step tutorial on how to transfer Hilton points to friends, family members or a spouse.
Rules on who can transfer Hilton points for free
There are a few rules set up on who can transfer Hilton points through Hilton Points pooling. From the FAQ
- You can have 11 total people in a points pool. 1 person sets up the pool and then 10 people can transfer points into the pool (essentially, transferring points to the original member)
- There is no fee to participate in Hilton points pooling
- There is no limit to the number of Hilton points pools that you can be a part of
- You can transfer a minimum of 1,000 Points and a maximum of 500,000 Points into a pool in a calendar year. You can receive up to 2 million Points in a calendar year.
- In order to transfer Hilton points to a friend through Hilton Points Pooling, your account has to be at least 30 days old and have a minimum of 1,000 Points.
- Transferring / Pooling Hilton points like this does not count as account activity and will NOT keep either person’s points from expiring.
How to transfer Hilton points to friends, family or a spouse
To start your transfer of Hilton points, you’ll want to go to the pool points page. You’ll need to sign in, but then you’ll see a page that looks something like this
Enter in your friend, family member or spouse’s name and email address, and shortly thereafter, you’ll get an email like this
Your friend / spouse / family member should get an email that looks a little something like this
They’ll need to log into their account, and accept the points pooling request in order to transfer Hilton points to you. Once the person does that, you’ll get a confirmation email in your account
The flashy graphics REALLY make a big difference I’m sure… 🙂
Hilton says that the points transfer process can take up to 24 hours, but in my experience, it was more or less instantaneous. Given the current card offers where you (and your spouse, if applicable) can get up to 100,000 Hilton points, transferring Hilton points and combining Hilton points in a family can really help your balances grow! See top hotel credit card offers here.
I hope that this tutorial on how to transfer Hilton miles to others has helped!
What about you? Did you know how to transfer Hilton points to friends? Have you transferred Hilton points before? Leave your experience in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
@Dan —> Question. You write that your wife’s points were set to expire soon, and so you thought you’d transfer them to you. HOWEVER, does this REALLY HELP? You also included the following from Hilton’s own FAQ:
“Transferring / Pooling Hilton points like this does not count as account activity and will NOT keep either person’s points from expiring.”
So, does it really help?
Jason – you are correct but… I just transferred all of my wife’s points to my account. So she has like 200 points left and while they might expire, I don’t really mind that much. They’re all in my account now which has more recent activity
Dan, let me know how that goes because . . . the way I read that quote (“Transferring / Pooling Hilton points like this does not count as account activity and will NOT keep either person’s points from expiring.”) is that her points will still expire — UNLESS, logistically, it’s too difficult for Hilton to continue to track the points separately (which is probably true), and *any* activity in your account “refreshes” ALL the pooled points.
In other words, say you have 1,000 points and your wife has 750 points which expire in 30 days. (Yours expire in 15 months, absent any account activity.) You transfer/pool 500 of her points over to you. It sounds to me as though her 750 points are still set to expire in 30 days, even though 500 of those are now pooled in your account — ABSENT any further account activity. But I can’t see how Hilton can track the pooled points separately, so I *imagine* that if you earn (whether through stays or cc spend), say, 250 additional points in your account, ALL 1,750 would have a new expiration date. In other words, I can’t see how “your” 1,250 points would expire in two years but “her” 500 — even though they are now in a pooled account would still expire in 30 days. HOWEVER . . .
This is different from the way British Airways handles it. My wife’s and my accounts are pooled, but when logging into our respective accounts, we still see our own individual totals and they still have separate expiration dates (i.e.: mine expire 23 May 2019, while hers are set to expire five days later, on 28 May 2019).
Interesting – I hadn’t thought about that. My assumption was that by her “pooling” her points with mine that they essentially were now “my” points. But I could see it working the way you described as well
I was thinking the same thing. Is it worth all the work to pool my husband’s points to my account. If they will just expire. But I think it’s a loophole that may work. Let me know?