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What is the Hilton Honors Dining rewards program?

Hilton Honors Dining is Hilton’s rewards program for dining at restaurants, bars, and clubs. In a nutshell, Hilton will reward you with Hilton Honors bonus points that can be redeemed for free travel, merchandise, and much more just for dining at participating locations within their network. It’s an extremely popular dining rewards program because it’s built off of Hilton’s well-recognized international hotel brand and existing Hilton Honors rewards program. Earning points from Hilton Honors Dining is just one strategy to maximize the value of being a member of the Hilton Honors program. Read on for more details and a full review on why you should join this dining rewards program.

Joining Hilton Honors Dining

You can join Hilton Honors Dining as a user for free by just going to the official website (www.hiltonhonorsdining.com) and clicking ‘Sign up’. During the sign-up process, you’ll need to provide basic information like your email address, name, and existing Hilton Honors number. If you don’t have a Hilton Honors account already, you can create one at Hilton.com. Luckily, the sign-up process is really quick and easy. You don’t have to worry about going through a long application, credit check, or approval process. Anyone can sign up and it’s free. That’s definitely a huge perk about this program!

Once you have completed the quick registration process above you are already very close to being able to receive valuable rewards points for simply dining at restaurants within the network! What better way to justify exploring new dining experiences than to get rewarded for it!

Linking a credit card to your Hilton Honors Dining account

The next step is you’ll need to add one of your existing credit cards or debit cards to your Hilton Honors Dining account. This process will link your existing credit card or debit card to the Hilton Honors Dining program so that Hilton can automatically give you bonus points every time you dine within their network as long as you pay for your dining bill on the card you linked. The benefit of linking multiple cards to your account is that you can get rewards points for using any of these cards when you dine within the network. Adding cards to your profile does not charge your card, so you aren’t spending any money by doing this. The more cards you register, the better the chance that you’ll be prepared for a dining reward opportunity! 

As you can see from the image above, your user dashboard provides you with information regarding your rewards account. Under the ‘Account Information’ tab, you will be able to see a box showing the credit or debit cards you have already added to your account, or if you are looking to add a brand new card simply select the credit card or debit card type (American Express, Visa, Mastercard, etc) and put in your card number. Once completed you will just need to hit ‘Submit’ and you are done! The card should show up under ‘Registered Credit/Debit Cards’ section of the dashboard shortly. We would recommend waiting a short period of time (at least a few hours) after you register your card before using it at dining location. This will give the system time to fully update your card information.

Earning bonus points through Hilton Honors Dining

So how much will dining within the Hilton network actually give you in terms of points? It depends on how many times you have dined within the network within a year.

• Elite Members can earn 8 bonus points per $1 spent when you dine 11 or more times in a calendar year AND opt-in for email notifications from Hilton Honors Dining.
• Online Members can earn 5 bonus points per $1 spent when you dine 10 or fewer times in a calendar year AND opt-in for email notifications from Hilton Honors Dining.
• Members will earn only 2 bonus points per $1 spent when you don’t opt-in to email notifications from Hilton Honors Dining.

You can view your current status by logging into your Hilton Honors Dining account and click ‘my account’ in the top navigation bar below the Hilton Honors Dining logo. Your membership status appears directly below your name on the right side of the Account Center.

Hilton Honors bonus points will appear in your Hilton Honors Dining account as soon as the transaction is registered by the restaurant (usually within 5 days). You can view this directly on the Hilton Honors Dining website.

These same bonus points earned will appear in your Hilton Honors account around 6-8 weeks after the transaction occurs. You’ll have to go to the main Hilton website and log in to your account to view that.

Please note that your bonus points earned through Hilton Honors Dining will expire after 36 consecutive months of no dining activity. But the solution to preventing this is easy! Keep your points active by dining within the network and using your registered cards to pay.

Choosing the dining locations and leaving the review

After you register and add a card, you’re pretty much all set-up! You’ll first need to do a search for dining spots to see what’s in the Hilton dining network. You can filter dining locations based on multiple factors such as establishment type, cuisine type, price and proximity to a given area. If the restaurant, club or bar is not in the Hilton network, you will not be able to earn Hilton Honors points for dining there. Utilize the search bar on the Hilton Honors Dining website to see what restaurants near you or in a certain location are in the network.

Once you find a dining spot that is in-network, go eat there! Then after you’re done, pay for the bill with one of the cards you added to your Hilton Honors Dining account. If the card you use to pay for the bill is not linked to your account, you will not receive bonus points. Also, you must complete a short review of dining location to receive bonus points for the dine. Hilton will send a thank you email with a link that shows the restaurant, date of the dine and bonus points you have earned. Once you click the ‘rate it’ button you will be able to complete the short review.

New member bonus for Hilton Honors Dining

Often Hilton Honors Dining can offer an additional introductory bonus given to new members. In order to get the bonus, you will usually have to sign up for the program and use it within the first 30 days. In the example promotion above, Hilton Honors Dining is providing 1,000 bonus points if you meet certain criteria. To get the 1,000 bonus points for this promotion, you must do the following:

1. You must sign-up for Hilton Honors Dining by a certain date (date will depend on the specific promotion).
2. Spend a minimum of $25 at an affiliated dining location in the first 30 days of account creation.
3. Use your registered card that you linked on your account to pay for the bill.
4. A few days after your visit to a participating restaurant, you will receive a thank you email. The email will contain a ‘rate it’ website link which will take you to complete a short online review. You must complete the review within 30 days of dining or you will NOT receive credit for the promotion. If you haven’t received the email, check your spam folders and also verify your email is correct on your account.
   
5. Finally, you must remain opted-in to receiving email notifications. You won’t get the bonus points without being opted-in!

After completing these steps, you’ll earn your 1,000 bonus points or whatever the bonus point promotion is at the time! In the past, we’ve seen bonuses as high as 2,000 Hilton Honors bonus points!

Additional ways to earn Hilton Honors Dining points

Hilton Honors Dining has partnered with Fazenda Coffee Roasters to provide some additional value to the dining program. The partnership will give dining members bonus points for purchasing Fazenda coffee directly from the Fazenda website using a linked credit card. This works in a similar fashion to using a linked card at a dining location. This can be a fantastic benefit for coffee lovers! Especially those who already are accustomed to purchasing coffee online. If you are open to trying different types of coffee, why not get rewarded for drinking it?!

Redeeming Hilton Honors Dining bonus points

Since the points you earn through Hilton’s dining program are fed into the Hilton Honors program as bonus points, you can redeem those points through the Hilton website. You’ll need to sign into your Hilton Honors account in order to redeem them. For instructions, see the section called ‘Redeeming Hilton Honors Points’ in our full review article here.

Overall summary of Hilton Honors Dining

In conclusion, CompareBare highly recommends joining Hilton Honors Dining! The program has a very easy sign-up process and it takes very little effort to earn points. The program is a great value-add if you’re already a Hilton Honors member. You can supercharge earning Hilton Honors points by joining this dining program and eating within the affiliate network. Simply set up your account and add at least one credit card or debit card to your profile. From there, everything is automatic. Hilton does all the work for you by recognizing which restaurants you dined at and crediting points to your account. The number of points you earn is based on your spend at the participating properties. The most tedious part of the program is searching for places to dine within the network. But even that is pretty simple.

Overall, Hilton Honors Dining is a fantastic way for you to earn points for something you already do: eating out! If you want to learn more about other dining programs, check out our post on dining rewards programs.