Hilton Honors under went a series of changes, starting in February and they are not done yet! This, in addition to the devaluations over the years, has made Hilton Honors a program that many do not care to use anymore for many reservations. However, even though my loyalty is with Hyatt, I still have several reasons to love Hilton Honors. Here are 3 reasons to love Hilton Honors – with a bonus for special occasions! 🙂
3 Reasons to Love Hilton Honors
Points Are Incredibly Easy To Get
Credit Cards
Let’s start with credit cards. There is no other hotel chain, not even the new SPG/Marriott, that has the credit card offers that Hilton has. They don’t just have 2 cards – they have 4 cards with 2 different banks! This is a great way to really make sure you are getting the most Hilton points possible!
There are two highest offers ever that expire tomorrow – 100,000 Hilton points with the Hilton Surpass (and a free weekend night in the second year) and 80,000 points with the Hilton card – both from Amex. Counting those huge offers, here are the cards you can get and the highest offers the typically run:
- 100,000 points – Hilton Surpass (Amex)
- 80,000 points – Hilton card (Amex)
- 75,000 points – Hilton Visa Signature (Citi)
- 2 Free weekend nights – Hilton Reserve (Citi)
That totals 255,000 Hilton points and 2 free weekend nights that have the potential to be worth up to 180,000 points by themselves. That is an impressive haul from credit card bonuses alone!
Card Referrals
American Express is quite generous with card bonus referrals. The Hilton Surpass is offering 25,000 points and the basic Hilton Amex card is offering 10,000 points – for each approved application. The caps on both is 80,000 points – each. This means the potential exists to earn another 160,000 Hilton points.
Credit Card Spending
The Hilton Surpass card, for example, offers some great earning potential when using the card. If you use it for paying at Hilton properties, you can earn 12 points per dollar. That means a stay that would cost you $300 (picking that number because it works with this Amex Offer), you would earn 3,600 Hilton points which would almost earn you a free night at a Category 1 hotel!
For regular spending, you would earn 3 points per dollar and bonus category spending (US restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations) will earn you 6 points per dollar.
Pooling Points Is Easy and Free
One of the new advantages with the Hilton Honors program is the ability to pool points. Not only is it easy and free but you can pool points from up to 11 Hilton accounts! Transfer up to 500,000 points per year.
If you want to get an incredible amount of points for family vacations, you could really bulk up a single account with Hilton points. Not only is that useful for single reservations but it also allows you to get 5 nights for 4 nights in points (if you were short in your account before).
Imagine 2 people maxing out the credit card and referral bonuses from above. That would total 930,000 Hilton points in a single account from two people! That can get you a lot of free vacations!
Finally, it also allows you to take advantage of a Hilton Diamond member. If they book the award, you can get some awards that are otherwise unbookable if the hotel is booked up.
Redemptions Are Still Easy and Can Be Cheap
The new Hilton Honors slider for redemptions
Since the new system is pretty much a revenue-based system with a cap based on categories, it is possible to pay quite a bit less on your award booking depending on the cash price. For mid-range hotels, this new system has proved to be quite valuable. If the hotel is coming in at a big cash price, it still would be capped at 30,000 points (for a category example) – even if the hotel is costing $450 for the night!
On the flip side, if the hotel is going at a cheap price, you can rebook and snag a few of those points back. Also, if you come up short on the points, you can always mix and match your points and cash.
Bonus Reason – Suite Redemptions
Terrible redemption rate but you can book a huge suite only with points!
Unlike some other hotel programs, you can redeem points for just about any suite at Hilton hotels – including presidential suites! The redemption rate is much worse than for basic room redemptions but if you were planning for an extra special vacation and you wanted to really splurge on a huge suite, you can do it with points!
Remember, Hilton points are pretty easy to grab so if you concentrated on collecting Hilton points and got some family/friends to help, you could easily get to 2 million Hilton points for such a fantastic splurge.
Takeaway
There is still a lot to dislike about the new Hilton Honors program but there are these 3 reasons that I have found to like them for certain redemptions. It is great to have a program like this to turn to for some redemptions, ranging from low category hotels to fantastic suites.
