Hilton Honors is the loyalty scheme of Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc, one of the largest hotel chains with ~5,000 properties worldwide.
Compared to other hotel chains, you have to earn a lot of points in order to have enough to redeem for free nights. The good thing is that they make it very easy to earn points.
Here’s our guide to Hilton Honors to help you learn everything you need to know.
1) There Are Four Status Levels
Hilton Honors has four status levels:
2) You Can Earn Points At 14 Different Brands
Check out our guide to the different Hilton brands if you’d like to find out more about each one.
3) You Earn Either 10 Points Per Dollar Or 5
You earn 10 base points per dollar at most of the above brands. The exceptions are Home2 Suites and Tru where you earn 5 base points per dollar.
4) Hilton Doesn’t Have Category Levels
Hilton Honors used to have 10 different hotel category levels. They ranged from category 1 hotels requiring 5,000 points per night up to category 10 hotels requiring 70,000 – 95,000 points per night.
The loyalty scheme changed in February 2017 and eliminated category levels. Instead, they’re effectively working on a dynamic or revenue-based points structure. That means when there’s lower demand for a hotel (e.g. North Dakota in January), you use fewer points. When there’s higher demand for a hotel (e.g. New Orleans during Mardi Gras), you’ll have to use more points.
5) The Name Changed
Their loyalty scheme used to be called Hilton HHonors. One of the changes to the scheme in February 2017 included dropping the additional H.
6) You Can Pay With Points & Money
Hilton Honors now allows you to pay with all cash, with all points or a mix of the two. When booking, you can adjust the number of points you want to use per night, with the cash element decreasing with the more points you use and vice versa.
7) You Get The 5th Night Free (With Status)
When booking a reward stay with your points, you get the 5th night free so long as you have Silver status or higher.
That means that if a hotel requires 30,000 points per night, you’d only pay 120,000 points for a five night stay rather than 150,000.
It’s simple to get status with Hilton Honors as all of their credit cards automatically offer Silver or Gold status, including those that have no annual fee.
Speaking of which…
8) There Are Four Hilton Honors Credit Cards (For Now)
Hilton are unusual as they not only have four different credit cards that earn Hilton Honors points, but they’re issued by two different banks – American Express and Citi.
Both banks offer a card with no annual fee as well as a card with an annual fee that’s under $100.
That’s due to change in 2018 though as Hilton have signed an exclusive contract with American Express. That means their co-branded Citi cards will be going away from January 1, 2018,
9) You Earn Points & Points Or Points & Miles
In addition to the base points you earn with each stay, you can choose to receive either bonus Hilton Honors points or bonus miles with your favorite airline. This is called your MyWay Earning Style.
10) They Have Several Transfer Partners
There are a number of other reward schemes out there that allow you to transfer your points or miles to Hilton Honors. All of these convert at a rate of 1 point or mile to 1.5 Hilton Honors points:
Citi ThankYou Rewards- American Express Membership Rewards
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles
11) Pay Discounted Rates
If you’re a member of Hilton Honors and you book directly with them, you’re eligible for lower rates.
Be sure to always click the ‘More Prices From $xxx‘ link as you’ll often find even cheaper rates there. For example, here are the rates for a King room at the Hilton Garden Inn Tulsa Midtown:
At the top, you have the Flexible Rate which would normally be $139 per night. As a Hilton Honors member, you can get that same Flexible Rate for $132 per night.
Clicking the ‘More Prices…’ link brings up some additional options. These include the Advance Purchase Rate of $118 for non-members and $115 for members.
12) Combine Points With Family And Friends
This is a great new benefit which was also introduced in February 2017. It allows you to pool your points with family and friends without any charge.
It’s especially helpful when it comes to gaining or maintaining status in the Hilton Honors scheme. Shae and I both have a large balance of points, so in the past we’d have to book reward stays under our own accounts, meaning our stay and night credits would be split between us.
Thanks to this change, we can now transfer all the points from one account to the other and book all stays under that one account. That makes it much easier to earn enough credits to maintain Diamond status.
13) You Can Use Your Points To Buy Stuff. But You Shouldn’t.
Hilton Honors has its own shopping mall where you can redeem your points for products, gift cards and other items. The redemption values aren’t great though – 50,000 points gets you a $100 Starbucks gift card, whereas that same number of points could get you 10 nights at a Hilton resort in Egypt.
If you have status, you’d be able to redeem those 50,000 points for 12 nights as the 5th and 10th nights would be free thanks to the benefit listed in point 7 above.
14) Earn Points When Eating Out
Hilton Honors is one of the loyalty schemes out there that offers a dining reward program. Simply sign up here, register your debit and/or credit cards and earn points whenever you eat at one of the participating restaurants.
There’s usually some kind of joining bonus, so check the requirements to get that the first time you register.
15) Earn Points When Shopping Online (But Probably Better Not To)
Another way to earn points is to shop online through the Shop-To-Earn Mall portal. Having said that, you should always check Cashback Monitor first to see if there are any other cashback portals paying more. In nearly every case I’ve ever seen, it’s better to not use Hilton’s portal as other portals have better rates.
Question
That’s our guide to Hilton Honors, but is there something you’d add? Are there any hints, tips or tricks you know about that can help all of us to maximize their loyalty scheme? Please let us know in the comments below.
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