Although Rocky previously wrote about the ability to earn Hilton Honors points on Lyft, it’s worth a reminder. Plus there is a new update that also allows you to redeem your Hilton points for free Lyft credit.
I don’t use ride sharing much at all. I’m normally a big fan of public transit when traveling, and at home I have to drive 50 miles round-trip to the office. But my wife works downtown and doesn’t have her own car. She takes Lyft regularly to and from client meetings all over the Austin area. I have been procrastinating on creating a link between her Hilton and Lyft accounts even though she could have been earning Hilton Honors points all this time.
How much? In the last six months she’s taken 97 rides worth $1,330. That would be worth nearly 4,000 Hilton points at 3 points per dollar spent on Lyft. Not enough for a free night but not bad for no additional effort.
Making this connection is easy. Just visit the Hilton landing page and agree to the terms and conditions to link your two accounts. I’m not sure how it works on the back end, but she does use the same email address for both programs so maybe that’s the key.
It’s now also possible to redeem Hilton points for Lyft credit. She’s not going to do this when her boss reimburses her, and we tend to drive to the airport these days because of our son. However, you have the option to gift your Lyft credit to a friend during the redemption process. I take more solo flights than she does, and she could easily use her points to get me a credit for my next trip to see friends in Seattle.
Redeeming is easy, too. Again, visit the Hilton landing page and click the button to begin the redemption process. You can get a credit up to $100 for 45,000 Hilton Honors points, which means they have a value of ~0.22 cents each.
That’s far below my usual rule of thumb that Hilton points should be redeemed for at least 0.5 cents each, but I have found redemptions for 0.6 cents or more, too. It’s up to you whether 0.22 cents is good enough for the convenience of redeeming your Hilton points close to home when you don’t need another night in a hotel.
