Free Hilton Gold Status Through August 31 and 5000 HHonors Points for Current Gold and Diamond Members

by Gary Leff

I’m a little late to this party since others have mentioned this several hours ago, but you can sign up for instant Gold status in the Hilton HHonors program just by entering any Visa Signature credit card number.

The status will last through August 31, and three Hilton stays by August 31 will extend status through March 2013. Gold status gets some modest upgrades with Hilton (even Diamond doesn’t include suites as part of the terms and conditions of the HHonors program) and it gets complimentary breakfast.

The offer is supposed to require a US-based Visa Signature, but there are reports of non-US cards working. The offer also specifies that the three stays to extend status must be paid for with a Visa Signature, though it’s unclear whether this will be enforced.

Current Gold and Diamond members can still sign up, and will receive 5000 HHonors points. (The page doesn’t say this prior to entering your information, after Gold and Diamond members sign up the site will acknowledge your current status and indicate that they’ll be giving you the 5000 point bonus.)

It does seem that the IT behind the offer is somewhat glitchy, it can take a few signup attempts to get this to work. Personally my sense of irony required me to enter my Hyatt Visa number rather than my United Visa number in order to sign up for the offer…

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. “Personally my sense of irony required me to enter my Hyatt Visa number rather than my United Visa number in order to sign up for the offer…”

    Heh – I did the exact same thing 🙂

  4. Thanks for the tweet! Took a while to get through, but finally did. Cheers1

  5. Many thanks. Worked for me. 5,000 points is very good deal for 30 seconds work.

  6. I got to work only after entering my Priority Club Visa Card.

    I have a stay at a Hilton next week so it works out.

  10. It wasn’t working from Chrome (error in URL was “Coreelatin+IDs+are+not+equal”) even with multiple tries but I tried from IE 9 and it worked. Thanks for the Hilton 5k I earned with my Marriott Visa. 😉

  11. I’m currently gold, earned through Amex Surpass spend, expiring 3/2012. Instead of notification about earning 5000 points, I received the following extension offer.

    “Book now and complete three stays using your Visa Signature card by August 31, 2011 to have your Gold membership extended through March 31, 2013.”

  12. worked great – thanks! just wish i had seen this before booking a non-ref room at the airport Westin when I could have gone with Hilton.

  14. Does anyone else feel like this is a little suspicious. A full 16 digit account number? You can tell if it’s a Visa signature card from the first 6 digits. Also – it’s odd that they have you enter the card prior to entering your hhonors profile information. Seems like they’d do that first to gain credibility. Is the 5K instant – or was the status change instant? Trying to test the authentisity of the offer. Thx

  15. @Mike:
    I logged in right after I did it and I was gold. I then had to call HHonors about a reservation and the rep thanked me for being gold.

  16. That’s right. Now that I’m Gold, I can get my old gold card and use the Gold Hotline number again…..let me check if it’s the same number on this horrible, cheap Silver card that I have from Visa Sig…

    ED

  18. Thanks Gary it worked for me…. even when traveling yours is the first blog I hit in the am…

  20. I did take the plunge…and as luck would have it Gold took effect instantly – just prior to the posting of my Conrad stay in Brussels this past week. Nice 25% bonus. Thx

  21. Same as Joe, I’m currently gold, earned through Amex Surpass spending. The Gold membership will expire soon. I also got the same message here – “Book now and complete three stays using your Visa Signature card by August 31, 2011 to have your Gold membership extended through March 31, 2013.”

    Any thoughts from anyone please?

  22. Thanks Gary! I saw this post, got the instant Gold, and used it for my stay 3 hours later.

  23. I just tried it and it worked and that was a quick and easy 5000 bonus points. T H A N K Y O U!!!!! I LOVE THIS BLOG!

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