We’re just back from our first post-COVID19 vacation, and I was the one who pulled out a card to pay for most of the expenses during the trip. When we were going to a small business, I used my AMEX to take advantage of the Shop Small $5 credit. Otherwise, I used my Fidelity Rewards card to earn 2% cashback for other expenses or my AMEX Bonvoy card to pay for gas and earn 10x points.
There were a few times on our trip that Sharon paid for items herself. Usually, it was for some souvenirs at a touristy shop where I decided to sit outside. However, there was the time when she got ice cream at this little hole-in-the-wall shop located at the end of a breezeway off the main street.
It was a sleepy day in town and we had to be some of the only customers who headed down there and saw the sign for homemade ice cream. It wasn’t even hot out, but Sharon was a bit hungry (and is a sucker for freshly made ice cream).
I stayed outside but she was nice enough to let me taste a few spoonfuls [Note from Sharon: Fudge Brownie and Banana Pudding flavors], which were very tasty and exceeded the look of the shop from the outside.
For me, the most pleasant surprise came when I got this email today.
As it turns out, I put Sharon’s Barclays Arrival+ card at the top of her wallet. It earns two points per dollar which can be used to reimburse travel expenses (it’s essentially a 2% back card.) After my last experience of forgetting to sign a card up for dining programs, I must have attached this card to Sharon’s Hilton Honors Dining account.
Since that’s the card she used to pay for the ice cream, she earned 60 bonus points (5 points per dollar spent) [Note from Sharon: the ice cream wasn’t that expensive. I paid for my friend Samantha’s ice cream, too]. More importantly, earning points with the dining program are one of the ways you can extend your Hilton points.
As of this writing, Hilton is extending the expiration for Honors points until the end of 2020. We’re not expecting to pay for a hotel stay for the rest of 2020, so it would be tough for us to keep points active without some work.
With no thought whatsoever, Sharon’s ice cream purchase extended her Hilton points through August of 2021. Hopefully, we’ll be able to stay at a Hilton property before then, or else we’re going to have to go and get some more ice cream.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 14,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
