Hilton’s New Instant Free Gold Status Offer

by Gary Leff

Hilton HHonors is giving away instant free Gold status through May 2013 to Visa Infinite cardholders.

The way they verify that you’re eligible, i.e. that you have a Visa infinite card, is by asking you to enter the first six digits of your card. Those six digits are ‘issuer identification numbers’ that say what kind of a card it is.

Great in theory, you have to know the first six digits of a Visa Infinite card to take advantage of the promotion. But that information is even available on Wikipedia, the very first result found in a Google search.

Which means that anyone can effectively take advantage of the promotion. As a Hilton Diamond member already I haven’t actually tested this out, I’m interested in it as a purely academic matter. But apparently entering the first listing in Wikipedia, for Masterbank of Russia, unlocks the page. (If I bothered looking at the code on the page I might find other ways to unlock it as well.)

Then again, they might not be trying all that hard to exclude ‘ineligible’ members considering that this past summer they gave away Hilton Gold to anyone with a Visa Signature card though that was for three months only and this is for a full year. Though in that case, existing Gold and Diamond elites got 5000 bonus points as a ‘consolation prize’ as well.

Though the benefits do vary slightly by brand and property, roughly speaking Gold status gets a (generally quite modest) upgrade, continental breakfast, free internet, and discounts on multi-night award stays.

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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  3. Yup, instant Gold for my wife using a number off Wikipedia. Plus, 40K HHonors points for 4 stays by May 31, 2012. Makes me wonder why I bother earning Gold. 🙂

    Ike

  4. I keep getting an error: We’re Sorry, An error has occurred in the system, and we are unable to process your request at this time. The error has been recorded and will be investigated by the system administrator.

  6. I’m in the middle of a gold challenge. Is there any reason to not do this? I have 2 stays, with 2 more booked in January. The idea is to have Gold status for an award stay at Conrad Tokyo in mid-Feb.

    -David

  16. T&C seem to say you only earn 40K bonus points if you use your Visa Infinite card to pay for the stay. Is that a correct reading, Gary? Although free gold status is nice, it’s a pity those of us who aren’t really Infinite card holders can’t get the bonus, too.

  21. Wonder if they will be verifying acct. Home addrs… From the FAQ

    ‘Who is eligible to participate in this promotion?
    This offer is open to selected Visa Infinite cardholders residing within Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa and who are enrolled in Hilton HHonors and register for the promotion.
    *Asia Pacific denotes Australia, Hong Kong, China, Korea Singapore, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines’

    Infinate card numbers from banks in other regions do not work. Worth a go, thanks Gary!

  28. I got an error message saying that they will be investigating this issue. I’m not sure why it didn’t work. Good for you guys that did though!

  31. I think, for reasons of privacy as to credit cards, that it will be VERY difficult for Hilton to say, “Oops” and undo the status that they give you. Thanks, Gary.

  32. Thanks for the Gold tip, didn’t work first 2 times as couldn’t find box for entering Pin/Password.

  33. it’s ridiculous that a company like hilton runs an offer like this but can’t make it work. i have an RBC Visa Infinite yet the numbers are invalid but it works with the Russian Masterbank numbers. Oh well, at least i’m gold now.

  34. @samuel, I got the same error message several times.
    Clear your cache and try again!
    The website is being super glitchy. For instance once it finally accepted the Visa number, it did not accept my HHonors number, so I did it again.
    The box for entering my HHonors PIN code was also missing, but when I hovered and clicked below the box for HHonors number it appeared and I was able to enter it. Hope this helps someone.

    Too bad I don’t REALLy have the Visa…I would have loved the 40k miles after four stays they were offering!

  38. Gary, I don’t know how and where you came up with these kind of deals and travel hacks. My hat is off to you. You are simply amazing.

  42. Nice to see that, in the rush to out-metal each other, Peoples Trust offers a “Vanilla Visa”, while Bendigo offers one in “Basic Black”…

  43. t&c
    Hilton HHonors Members with Blue or Silver status will receive HHonors Gold Elite status at the time of registration valid for one year

    Not till 5/13

  44. I wonder what will happen when Hilton notices that there are a lot of Russians signing up for this. None of the other numbers on the Wiki work.

    Got mine. Hope I keep it.

  45. @Peter S: this is on FT & MP since tuesday, slickdeals picked it up last night, so it will not last long….

  47. just signed up, checked my hilton’s site, it said gold, so went through ASAP.

    also, got this email today from priceline:

    Save up to 33% during The December Sale1
    Celebrate another year gone by with a much-deserved break during The December Sale. Book your getaway at any Hilton Hotels & Resorts by January 1, 2012*, and stay by January 8, 2012, and you’ll save up to 33%. With savings like this, it’s the perfect time of the year to get to experiences worth sharing.

  48. About 15 years ago, a friend of mine descibed the Internet as “the repository of all the information you’re not supposed to have.” Too bad for Hilton, and good for us, that this remains true.

    Instant Gold for me. Ridiculous.

  51. Gary–You’re telling people who don’t have a Visa Infinite card to lie/cheat their way into getting status? Really?! You’re encouraging people to blatantly scam Hilton right now…even if the card information is available on the internet, that doesn’t make it right.

  52. @Andrew I am not telling anyone to do anything. I am sharing the offer. I don’t even give them the codes, I just share that they are available through Wikipedia and Google. I’ve specifically said this is not something I’m doing. And it’s up to anyone reading to decide for themselves what they do with the information. To me, it really was just fascinating.

  53. Worked for me. And, as a result, I’ll be giving Hilton $1,000+ of business in a couple weeks that I most likely would not have done otherwise. That’s a win/win to me, and probably enough to make sure I meet status in 2012 for 2013. Thanks for posting!

  54. As Steelsnow already pointed out, the offer only works with cards from certain regions.

    Canada is not included, hence the reason your CIBC and TD Infinite cards aren’t working people!

  57. Thank you. As a result, any planned Marriott and Hyatt stays will be switched to Hilton by day’s end.

  59. @Andrew how could this be anything but GOOD for Hilton?? Look at all these people who will now switch their reservations for the year to a Hilton as a result! Besides, they’ll pull it or revoke the status if it really hurts them. You can trust a major corporation will do whatever is in their own best interest.

  61. Many thanks Gary. You are a wonderful blogger. Keep up the good work. I will book with Hilton throughout this promotion period even though I think the 40K bonus may not work for me.

  62. It would be wise simply for Hilton to quietly honor this. The promotion provides them with a competitive edge … especially over IHG and Marriott which now offer far better credit card signup bonuses if you use the right links (80K Priority Club points and instant Platinum status, 70K Marriott points w/free night + status credit).

  63. well i already am Platinum memeber so wont be of use to me but does anyone know of anyway i can get 2,500 points free right away if i can pull it off i wont have to pay for a $400 hotel room since it will all be covered by points 🙂 thanks

  66. I am Gold and qualified for 2013, but the 40K after 4 stays is an incentive!! Anyone else that is already gold signing up?

  68. Look CLOSELY @ details…..each stay must be paid with Visa Infinite card to qualify for 40,000 HH points. No complaints here though…..I’ll be sitting in the Executive Lounge @ Doubletree next weekend in NOLA! (i hope)

  69. Warning: Amid the concern of some about us cheating Hilton, some of us may be taken in by Hilton as well. To get the 40K bonus points for 4 stays by the end of May, you have to pay for them with that qualifying Infinite card. Which is hidden in the small print many of us didn’t read.

    Lots of people will probably do what I was about to do, until I read the posts above. Namely, go out of your way to stay in Hilton properties to get the 40K bonus, then not qualify for it because we didn’t use the right card.

    Hilton may have the last laugh here, if people switch stays from other chains, or even do an optional “points stay”. They will get the extra business, and yet not have to give anything extra for it.

    Surely Hilton isn’t covert enough to “scam the scamers” this way. Or are they?

  70. Amazing. My Gold status was expiring and I wasn’t sufficiently motivated to do anything about it (I thought about getting the Surpass card, but I’ve never gotten around to “wasting” an application). This shows procrastication can be a good thing. 🙂 And to May 2013! Nice.

    Does anyone recall what constitutes a “stay” with HHonors for the 40K bonus? Like can it be booked through Expedia? 40K HHonors points isn’t terribly exciting, but it’s obviously something.

    My next HHonors stay is at an Embassy Suites. Two free waters and two candy bars coming up! I cannot contain my excitement. Wait, maybe I’ll pick the salty snack. 🙂

    But, somewhere, maybe I’ll get a room upgrade or a breakfast out of this. Thanks!

  76. Still seems to be working, but you need to be more creative in searching for the first six digits. Try google image search rather than web search.

  80. strangely i just tried this and i keep getting “invalid registration”. when i use a wrong password, it does tell me “login failed”, so it seems something is off with my account when trying to sign-up. did anybody else get that problem?

  81. zimpff,

    I had exactly the same message. Tried Firefox, Chrome and Safari..

    Anyone ??

    Thanks

  82. Getting “invalid registration” as well in IE/FF/Chrome. Although my old account expired and I had to sign up for a new one, maybe the servers need to sync first?

  84. If you see ‘invalid registraion’ after submitting, you might want to change your account country to the issuing country of the card number you’re using. It worked for me, might work for you too (hopefully).

  85. @Mike @andrew
    I had that same message. Almost gave up until I read Matthew’s post. That worked for me too. I changed me address

  86. You have to change the country on your honors account. The 411945 number is for a bank in the Russian federation. After I did that adjustment it worked perfect and my account now says gold.

  88. Just tried it on Jan 25th. Took it with russian address, said congratulations, but several hours later…..still blue not gold

  89. mine finally went through BUT still shows blue as stutus even thought it seemed to go through… fishy

  90. Nobody else is concerned that the RUSSIAN codes work? I think I’ve probably got a file thick enough already from the Crnivore without lying and committing fraud using a Russian bank number. Can’t imagine that’s worth it.

  91. February 16, 2012 – tried several times with errors, then updated country to Russian Federation and now I went from Blue to Gold instantly!!!

  92. Thanks again Gary! I am currently in a European Hilton hotel that charges almost €30 for internet access. My gold status got me free breakfast, lounge access, internet and an upgrade to an executive room. The best part is that I am booked through a Priceline opaque booking and I saved almost 70% off the best rate I could find online.

  93. Thanks for this – I received my Gold card yesterday and it is valid until March 2014!

  95. Looks like I just missed out on this. They’re now asking for the full 16 digit number now. Guess I’m going to have to get Gold the old fashioned way.

  98. just tried it now again since i did this successfully months ago and now I am back to Silver. You need 16 digits now and it seems like they are pulling (illegitimate) Golds back to Silver…

  99. I went in today, changed address if honors acct to Sydney, used 411945 as first six digits and remainder from one of my cards. Worked like a charm. Logged out and then back in again and I went to gold.

  101. Worked for me on July 8th, 2012. I used 411945 and also the remainder from one of my cards. Sweet!

  103. Does this work with brand new accounts? It worked for me, I told my little brother about it so he went and sent up a new account, and we can’t get it to work!

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