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Tuesday, January 28, 2025

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Buy Hilton Honors Points With 100% Bonus (0.5 Cents Each)

3KOne Mile at a Time by Ben Schlappig / Jan 28, 2025 at 2:23 AM//



Hilton Honors appears to have just launched its latest bonus on purchased points, though it doesn’t have a published end date. This is potentially in line with the best offers we see from the program, and could represent a great value for hotel redemptions.
Promotion on purchased Hilton Honors points

At the moment (an end date hasn’t been published), Hilton Honors is offering a bonus on purchased points. Different members may be targeted for different bonuses, so you’ll want to log into your account to see what you’re eligible for. It would appear that the best offer is for up to a 100% bonus, which kicks in when you purchase at least 5,000 points in one transaction.
Buy Hilton Honors points with a 100% bonus
How much does it cost to buy Hilton Honors points?

Hilton Honors ordinarily charges one cent per purchased point, including all taxes and fees. That’s before any discounts or bonuses. If you’re eligible for the 100% bonus and maxed out the offer, you’d receive a total of 480,000 points at a cost of $2,400, which is a rate of 0.5 cents per Hilton Honors point.
Buy Hilton Honors points for 0.5 cents each

When Hilton Honors offers a promotion on purchased points, it’s typically for either a 100% bonus or 50% discount, so this offer is in line with the best deals from the program.
How many Hilton Honors points can you buy?

Hilton Honors ordinarily lets you buy up to 160,000 points per account per calendar year, before any bonuses. During this promotion that cap has been increased by 50%, so you can buy up to 240,000 points before any bonuses, for a total of 480,000 points with a 100% bonus.

Do note that Hilton lets you combine points across accounts at no cost, so in reality you could acquire substantially more points by simply buying them across accounts and then consolidating them.
Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal
Which credit card should you buy Hilton Honors points with?

Hilton Honors point purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as a hotel purchase for the purposes of credit card spending.

I’d recommend using a card with which you’re trying to reach a minimum spending requirement, or a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending, like the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (review), Citi Double Cash® Card (review), or Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review).

When in doubt, review which credit cards are best for buying points and miles.
Best cards for non-bonused spending:

Is buying Hilton Honors points worth it?

There’s potentially huge value to be had buying Hilton Honors points. Hilton Honors sells points at a reasonable cost, has lots of aspirational properties, has good redemptions with a fifth night free opportunity, and elite status is also easy to earn with the program. Hilton’s new partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) is also awesome, and offers great new redemption opportunities.

When you combine those factors, buying points can be a great deal.
How many points do you need for a free night at a Hilton?

Hilton Honors doesn’t have a published award chart, but rather the program has dynamic award pricing. This means that the cost of a standard free night award can vary depending on the day of the week, time of year, etc.

As a general rule of thumb, Hilton Honors free night awards start at 10,000 points per night, and go up to 150,000 points per night (though very few properties cost over 120,000 points per night).

Sometimes you’ll see award costs that are way higher than these amounts. In those situations it’s because there’s not a standard room available, so higher pricing kicks in for premium rooms. That’s generally not nearly as good of a use of Hilton Honors points.
Waldorf Astoria Maldives
What is the Hilton Honors fifth night free benefit?

If you have Hilton Honors elite status (which is easy to earn, as I’ll outline below), you receive a fifth night free on award redemptions. This is a way to stretch your points even further, and whenever possible, I’d recommend making your Hilton Honors award stays in increments of five nights.

To take advantage of this, just log into your Hilton Honors elite account, and go through the process of making an award booking for five nights. When you get to the booking page, you should notice that the cost of the fifth night is automatically deducted.
Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam
Tip: Easily earn Hilton Honors elite status

One thing I love about the program is how easy it is to earn elite status with credit cards, including both Hilton Honors Gold status and Hilton Honors Diamond status. These tiers offer perks like room upgrades, complimentary breakfast, hotel credits, and more. For example:The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review) offers Diamond status for as long as you have the card
The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (review) and Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (review) offer Gold status for as long as you have the card
The Platinum Card® from American Express (review) and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (review) offer Gold status for as long as you have the card (Enrollment required)



The information and associated card details on this page for the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card has been collected independently by OMAAT and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Enjoy complimentary breakfast as an elite member
What are some good uses of Hilton Honors points?

There are so many amazing hotels where you can redeem Hilton Honors points and get great value. Just to give a few examples based on current pricing (not factoring in the fifth night free):The Conrad Bora Bora is often bookable for 120,000 Honors points per night; this is a gorgeous resort, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
Zemi Beach House Anguilla is often bookable for 110,000 Honors points per night; this is an awesome Caribbean resort, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills is often bookable for 120,000 Honors points per night; this is one of my favorite city hotels in the United States, and paid rates are often over $750 per night
The Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam is often bookable for 120,000 Honors points per night; this is one of my favorite city hotels in the world, and paid rates are often over $800 per night
The Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos is often bookable for 120,000 Honors points per night; I’ve stayed here and had an incredible stay, and paid rates are often over $1,000 per night
The Waldorf Astoria Maldives is often bookable for 150,000 Honors points per night; this is an amazing hotel I’ve stayed at, and paid rates are often over $2,000 per night
Conrad Bora Bora

As you can tell, it’s not hard to do the math here and realize the potential for outsized value, when you consider an acquisition cost of 0.5 cents per point, and the potential for a fifth night free.
Do Hilton Honors points expire?

Hilton Honors points don’t expire as long as you have at least some account activity once every 24 months. Eligible account activity includes earning or redeeming points, so buying points would even reset the expiration of your points.
How much are Hilton Honors points worth?

Everyone will value points differently, but personally I value Hilton Honors points at 0.5 cents each, and I tend to value points pretty conservatively. As you can see, the pricing here is roughly in line with how much I value these points, and there are ways to get a ton of outsized value with this promotion.
Zemi Beach House Anguilla, Hilton LXR
Does Hilton Honors have blackout dates?

Hilton Honors doesn’t have blackout dates on award nights, and all standard rooms are available for award redemptions. So this is about as good of a policy as you’ll find with any hotel group when it comes to award room availability.
How else can you earn Hilton Honors points?

There are lots of ways to earn Hilton Honors points, beyond just staying at Hilton properties or buying the points directly. You can easily earn points by using Hilton Honors’ co-branded credit cards, which also offer great welcome bonuses. These cards include the following:Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review)
Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (review)
Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (review)
Hilton Honors American Express Card (review)

While you can also transfer points from Amex Membership Rewards to Hilton Honors, I tend to think this doesn’t represent a very good deal, given how valuable Amex points are.



The information and associated card details on this page for the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card has been collected independently by OMAAT and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills
Bottom line

Hilton Honors is currently offering a bonus on purchased points, whereby members can receive up to a 100% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire points for 0.5 cents each. This is as good as deals from the program get. With a short term use in mind, there are plenty of situations where this could represent a good deal.

Do you plan on buying Hilton Honors points with a bonus?


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NYT Strands today — my hints, answers and spangram for Tuesday, January 28 (game #331)
Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion / 10h
Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints. Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game. SPOILER WARNING: Information





Agatha All Along Won’t Return for Season 2, No Matter How Much Patti LuPone Wanted It
400+Gizmodo / 10h
Just like WandaVision before it, creator Jac Schaeffer envisioned the Marvel series as a one-and-done.





9 Reasons To Apply For IHG Premier Credit Card
100One Mile at a Time / 10h
Link: Apply now for the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card The IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card ( review ) is a popular hotel credit card, and for good reason — it’s worth getting for the excellent welcome bonus , and it’s worth keeping for the long-term perks . In this post, I want to look at nine reasons to apply for this $99 annual fee IHG Premier Card . In no particular order… Excellent W





DeepSeek says its newest AI model, Janus-Pro, can outperform OpenAIs DALL-E
Mashable / 10h
DeepSeek appears to be twisting the knife. U.S.-based AI stocks took a tumble on Monday following the release of the China-based DeepSeek AI chatbot. The new product from the Chinese tech startup offers a more affordable large language model (LLM), presenting a competitive alternative to OpenAI's options like ChatGPT . But DeepSeek wasn’t finished. By Monday afternoon, the company unveiled its la





How Does DeepSeek’s A.I. Chatbot Compare to ChatGPT and Other Competitors?
23NYT > Technology / 11h
The chatbot from China appears to perform a number of tasks as well as its American competitors do, but it censors topics such as Tiananmen Square.





Nvidia Responds to Getting Hit in Face With Shovel
100+Futurism / 11h
AI chipmaker Nvidia has finally broken its silence following the firm setting a new record for the biggest single-day loss of any company in history . Chinese startup DeepSeek made a major splash over the last few days, claiming that its AI chatbot can rival the best OpenAI has to offer but at a tiny fraction of the cost . It also happens to be open source and free for all to use. The announcemen





SonicWall says hackers are exploiting a new zero-day bug to breach customer networks
2 TTPs•
22TechCrunch / 11h
SonicWall said the bug is "confirmed as being actively exploited in the wild" by malicious hackers. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.





iOS 18.3 is here with a major change to how you enable Apple Intelligence
Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion / 11h
iOS 18.3 is out now for all users, alongside a few other Apple software updates. For the first time, this update enables Apple Intelligence by default. This update rolls out a fix for Notification Summaries and improvements to Visual Intelligence. After a few weeks of developer and public betas, Apple finally released iOS 18.3 to the public today – meaning that if you have an iPhone capable of ru





New FPGA-powered retro console re-creates the PlayStation, CD-ROM drive optional
Ars Technica - All content / 11h
Retro game enthusiasts may already be acquainted with Analogue, a company that designs and manufactures updated versions of classic consoles that can play original games but also be hooked up to modern televisions and monitors. The most recent of its announcements is the Analogue 3D , a console designed to play Nintendo 64 cartridges. Now, a company called Retro Remake is reigniting the console w





Dead babies, critically ill kids: Pediatricians make moving plea for vaccines
54Ars Technica - All content / 11h
As federal lawmakers prepare to decide whether anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, pediatricians from around the country are making emotional pleas to protect and support lifesaving immunizations. T he American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has assembled nearly 200 stories and dozens of testimonials on the horrors





With iOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence is now on by default
Ars Technica - All content / 11h
As is custom, Apple rolled out software updates to all its platforms at once today. All users should now have access to the public releases of iOS 18.3, macOS Sequoia 15.3, watchOS 11.3, iPadOS 15.3, tvOS 15.3, and visionOS 2.3. Also, as usual, the iOS update is the meatiest of the bunch. Most of the changes relate to Apple Intelligence , a suite of features built on deep learning models. The fir





Businesses are struggling to address vulnerabilities hidden in phantom dependencies
Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion / 11h
Hidden dependencies pose unseen risks in modern software systems, says report Function-level analysis slashes unnecessary vulnerability fixes by 90% Advisory delays leave systems exposed to potential exploitations As organizations increasingly rely on third-party components and open source libraries to accelerate development processes, experts have warned addressing the security risks associated





How an Indie Studio Got 400-Plus Games Into a $10 Bundle to Help LA Fire Victims
20Wired / 11h
As wildfires and other effects of climate change threaten the future of the region, devs are pulling together to raise funds for those affected.





Quartz has been quietly publishing AI-generated news articles
23TechCrunch / 11h
Quartz, the international business news outlet, has been quietly aggregating reporting from other outlets, including TechCrunch, in order to publish AI-generated articles under the byline “Quartz Intelligence Newsroom.” Quartz started publishing simple AI-generated earnings reports months ago, but beginning last week, the outlet moved on to short articles. One of the 18 AI-generated articles publ





Jurassic World Rebirth‘s Writer Insists ‘Dinosaurs Are Still Fun’
400+Gizmodo / 11h
After 2022's Jurassic World Dominion soured many on the franchise, the seventh Jurassic entry hopes to win back the fans.





Steam Deck Transformed Into Screen-Less ‘Steam Brick'
How-To Geek / 11h
The portable handheld PC market has skyrocketed with the Steam Deck exploding in popularity. But what if you made a handheld... well, not a handheld? Someone just did this, and it's probably the most cursed thing I've seen in a while.





Signal Messenger Has a New Way to Link Devices
How-To Geek / 12h
Signal is releasing a new feature that lets users move their message and media history when they connect a new desktop or iPad to their account. It is still in beta testing, though.





How to switch off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac
44TechCrunch / 12h
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to turn off and disable Apple Intelligence from your devices. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.





Some YouTube Viewers Say They're Seeing Hours of Unskippable Ads
21Lifehacker / 12h
Google has been taking its crusade against adblockers to a whole new level lately, and users are speculating that unskippable multi-hour ads are its latest weapon. Over the past week, Redditors have been sharing screenshots showing that they’ve been served ads with runtimes as long as three hours, with no skip button in sight—and that's to watch videos that are much shorter than the ads themselve





Nvidia drops $600B off its market cap amid the rise of DeepSeek
25TechCrunch / 12h
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, became the talk of the proverbial AI town when it released its R1 model on Friday. R1’s functionality and accuracy compared to its U.S. counterparts, despite using fewer resources and less compute power, seems like a win for the overall AI industry. But it isn’t necessarily good news for everyone. […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.





Top AI Investor Says Goal Is to Crash Human Wages
100+Futurism / 12h
Waging War Marc Andreessen, cofounder of the massive venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz — which has its fingers in pretty much every pie in tech — has revealed an eyebrow-raising detail in his "techno-optimist" vision of the future. In a recent tweet , the American billionaire investor casually proclaimed that AI must "crash" everyone's wages before it can deliver us an economic utopia — on





Furious Crowd Tears Waymo Robotaxi Limb From Limb
Futurism / 12h
Maximum Car-nage Expensive-looking robotaxis make easy targets, it seems. On Saturday, a self-driving Waymo cab was badly trashed by a crowd, who tore the vehicle to absolute shreds as it idled in the middle of a quiet street in Los Angeles's Beverly Grove, The Los Angeles Times reports . Local police say they received a call of a group vandalizing the vehicle around 4 am. When they arrived, the





DeepSeek’s Popular AI App Is Explicitly Sending US Data to China
200+Wired / 12h
Amid ongoing fears over TikTok, Chinese generative AI platform DeepSeek says it’s sending heaps of US user data straight to its home country, potentially setting the stage for greater scrutiny.





Pebble Founder Is Bringing the Smartwatch Back as Google Open-Sources Its Software
300+Gizmodo / 12h
Pebble was beloved by enthusiasts who sought a no-frills smartwatch with a simple interface and long battery life.





6 things to do when you get the Capital One Venture X
The Points Guy / 12h
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information and offers. We love credit cards that come with an array of perks — especially when they can outweigh the card’s annual fee. Maximizing benefits on a credit card can mean the bank is essentially paying you to keep the card year after year. However, not using the perks means you’re potentially paying a fee for no reaso





Using Ollama to Install Deepseek 14B on a Laptop
Next Big Future / 12h
Langchain used ollama to install Deepseek 14B on a laptop. They used for a local deep researching model. $ ollama pull deepseek-r1:14b $ export TAVILY_API_KEY= $ uvx –refresh –from “langgraph-cli[inmem]” –with-editable . –python 3.11 langgraph dev





Google open-sources the Pebble smartwatch’s software, and its creator is making a new model
63Engadget / 12h
Pebble is back, baby. On Monday, Google (which owns Pebble’s IP via its Fitbit purchase ) open-sourced the OG modern smartwatch’s software. Although that paves the road for anyone to make new Pebble-esque wearables (or custom firmware for the old models), one high-profile figure has already raised his hand: Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky. Google says the open-source PebbleOS includes most of the





Oklahoma Senator Proposes Total Ban on Porn to ‘Restore Moral Sanity’
300+Gizmodo / 12h
Making, distributing, or consuming pornographic material could get you 10 years in jail.





The Expanse‘s First 3 Seasons Are Leaving Amazon Very Soon
500+Gizmodo / 12h
You have 11 more days to stream the first half of one of the best sci-fi series ever made.





DeepSeek Releases Open-Source AI Image Generator as American Stocks Continue to Crater
500+Gizmodo / 12h
Silicon Valley's Chinese competitor has released another free AI model.





Apple’s Next Big iOS Update Will Turn on Apple Intelligence, Whether You Want It or Not
300+Gizmodo / 13h
Fortunately, it's super easy to turn off, but it goes to show that Apple Intelligence is here to stay in the walled garden.





Bilt Rent Day (Feb. 1): Avianca LifeMiles transfer bonus, a new Neighborhood Cafe and more
300+The Points Guy / 13h
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. TPG founder Brian Kelly is a Bilt adviser and investor. Good news for Bilt Rewards members: Feb. 1 is another Bilt Rent Day. As on previous Rent Days, you can snag double points for nonrent purchases, book a Bilt Neighborhood Comedy or Dining experience, and play the “Rent Free” game. Bilt is also offering a status-b





Four Ways to (Literally) Carve Storage Out of Your House
Lifehacker / 13h
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Housing is getting smaller and more expensive—which means many of us are putting our mental energy into making our existing homes work for us even if they’re bursting their seams with stuff. From storage unit strategies to time-honored ideas like making sure every stick of furniture comes with bonus storage capabilities, we’re all trying to cram t





Alibaba’s Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones
21TechCrunch / 13h
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek might be getting the bulk of the tech industry’s attention this week. But one of its top domestic rivals, Alibaba, isn’t sitting idly by. Alibaba’s Qwen team on Monday released a new family of AI models, Qwen2.5-VL, that can perform a number of text and image analysis tasks. The models can […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.





The Pebble Smartwatch Is Trying To Come Back
How-To Geek / 13h
Eric Migicovsky, the founder of the old smartwatch company Pebble, is bringing the brand back with help from Google. Migicovsky, who still uses a Pebble watch, got Google to agree to open-source the Pebble operating system.





Magic: The Gathering's Digital Double Strategy Finally Brought Me Back to the Game
How-To Geek / 13h
Magic: The Gathering has managed to do pretty well for itself in a world of video games and instant digital gratification. I've been out of the hobby for a long time, so I had no idea how smartly the company had integrated its physical card game with its digital one.





FCC chair helps ISPs and landlords make deals that renters can’t escape
50Ars Technica - All content / 13h
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has dropped the previous administration's proposal to ban bulk billing deals that require tenants to pay for a specific provider's Internet service. In March 2024, then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposed a ban on arrangements in which "tenants are required to pay for broadband, cable, and satellite service provided by a specific communi





US‘s wind and solar will generate more power than coal in 2024
23Ars Technica - All content / 13h
The Energy Information Agency has now released data on the performance of the US's electric grid over the first 11 months of 2024 and will be adding the final month soon (and a month is very little time for anything to change significantly in the data). The biggest story in the data is the dramatic growth of solar energy, with a 30 percent increase in generation in a single year, which will allow





Alien: Earth will bring the horror home
23Ars Technica - All content / 13h
Alien: Earth , an all-new original series, premieres this summer on Hulu and with Hulu On Disney+. FX/Hulu dropped a surprise short teaser for its upcoming spinoff series, Alien: Earth , during the AFC Championship game last night. What makes it intriguing is the way it's shot entirely from a Xenomorph's point of view as the creature races through a spaceship's corridor while a "containment breac





Could Oracle be about to take over TikTok? Trump reportedly backs plans for shock deal
Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion / 13h
NPR claim to have intel on a new plan for Oracle to be part-buyers in TikTok The President is denying any knowledge, but Congressional staffers are less tight-lipped At press time, TikTok is still unavailable on Google and Apple's app stores due to imminent ban Oracle could be next in line to take over ownership of embattled social media giant TikTok from ByteDance, if new reports are to be belie





Meta Quest Pro 2 could be back from the dead (yet again), and Quest 4 is reportedly in the works
Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion / 13h
Leaks tease that the Meta Quest 4 and Pro 2 are in development Meta Quest Pro 2 has reportedly been canceled twice previously No release date or specs details right now The third time might really be the charm, folks. Despite reports that two separate Meta Quest Pro 2 prototypes were canceled mid-development, Meta is reportedly having another crack at its high-end offering, according to insider s





Dimension 20s Gauntlet at the Garden was a euphoric experience for Dungeons and Dragons fans everywhere
Mashable / 13h
Dragons, fairies, and talking rats descended upon Madison Square Garden on Jan. 24 for Dimension 20' s sold-out Gauntlet at the Garden — and the results were nothing short of a blast. Led by Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan and starring "intrepid heroes" Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Brian Murphy, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, and Lou Wilson, Gauntlet at the Garden transported its thousands of aud





Star Wars: The Acolyte Was the Second Most Watched Show on Disney+ Last Year
300+Gizmodo / 13h
Analysis of a year of streaming TV habits backs up fans who think the Star Wars series was canceled too soon.





Trump’s Meme Coin Is Down 64 Percent From Its High
100+Futurism / 13h
Down the Drain Since Donald Trump's "official" meme coin hit eyebrow-raising heights just before his inauguration, its value has plummeted spectacularly. As CoinMarketCap 's price-tracking shows , the value of the $TRUMP coin currently sits at just under $27 per token — a 64 percent decrease from its all-time high of $75 the day prior to the president's swearing-in. Less than a week after the coi





U.K. Fertility Regulators Are Preparing for Lab-Grown Eggs and Sperm
Gizmodo / 13h
Britain’s regulatory experts gathered last week to discuss laws and regulations around in-vitro gametes.





Cornell’s robot jellyfish and worm are powered by a hydraulic fluid battery
TechCrunch / 13h
Researchers at Cornell University on Monday showcased a pair of bio-inspired robotics running on a hydraulic fluid-powered battery. The redox flow battery (RFB) also mimics biological functions, as it releases electrolytic fluids, which dissolve to create energy through chemical reaction. The first two robots on display are a modular worm and a jellyfish, designed by […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All ri