Rob just came home from a guys 50th birthday weekend away in Puerto Rico. He stayed 2 nights at the El San Juan Resort & Casino, which is a Hilton hotel.
At the time that I booked his reservation, we had no Hilton HHonors points to book the room. Although I could have transfered American Express Membership Rewards points to my Hilton HHonors account to book the room, I decided not to. Hilton classifies this hotel as a HHonors Reward Category 8 hotel and free nights can be redeemed for a hefty 40,000 to 70,000 Hilton HHonors points per night. No thanks! The room only cost $219 per night and Rob was only staying for 2 nights. I opted for him to pay rather than use our very valuable Membership Rewards points.
Since we paid for the stay, Rob did earn Hilton HHonors points on the stay. Upon checking out, the logical card for him to have used, would have been our American Express Hilton HHonors card or our Citi Hilton HHonors card to earn extra Hilton HHonors points. The Amex offers 7X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent at the hotel and the Citi card offers 6 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent.
However, I directed Rob to pay using our Chase Sapphire Preferred card upon check out despite the fact that we only get double Ultimate Rewards points for the hotel stay. Reason being, we have no Hilton stays coming up in our future. Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which are extremely flexible, are much more valuable to me than Hilton HHonors points!
