Hilton, Starwood, and IHG are Out With New Promotions

It’s the end of 2015 so remaining hotel promotions are ending, and the new year is upon us. We now know what three of the major hotel chains have in store for the January through April timeframe.

Hilton Double Points and No Excluded Hotels

Hilton is running Double Your HHonors January 1 through April 30 offering double Hilton points or airline miles.

Registration is required and you have to choose whether to earn double points or miles (and then you will want your ‘earning style’ to match — i.e. if you choose double points, make sure you are earning points for your hotel stays rather than miles).

Hilton co-brand American Express cardholders have an additional bonus of 1000 HHonors points when paying for their first stay with the card during the promotion period.

  • If you have the American Express Hilton HHonors card, sign up here for the promotion to earn double points or miles and a bonus 1000 points for paying for a stay with your card.

  • If you have the Hilton HHonors Surpass card, sign up here for the promotion to earn double points or miles and a bonus 1000 points for paying for a stay with your card.

As I wrote back in May, the biggest problem with HHonors promotions has historically been the large number of hotels that ‘opt out’ of providing bonus points. And just like with the summer and end of year promotions, they’ve overcome that. All Hilton hotels are participating in this.

IHG Rewards Club Accelerate Promotion: Everyone’s is Different

IHG Rewards Club loves targeted promotions, taking what they know about your stay behavior and trying to incentive more activity.

Accelerate (registration required) runs January 1 through April 30.

It seems most people earn for staying in January. You can earn points for applying for (if you don’t already have) or using (if you’re a cardmember already) their co-brand credit card. Some folks are incentivized to stay more and more nights. There’s generally a bonus for completing a certain number (most of) the different points-earning tasks.

Here’s my offer:

If I stay once in January at a Holiday Inn on a ‘bonus points package’ and stay a second time at a Holiday Inn such that I stay a total of 5 nights across those two stays that should be enough for the ‘achievement bonus’. I could also get an IHG Rewards Club co-brand MasterCard instead of a second Holiday Inn stay or instead of hitting 5 total nights and still earn that achievement bonus.

Starwood Double Points on 2+ Night Stays and 250 Points Per Night at Some Hotels

Yesterday I covered Starwood’s winter offer: Between January 11 and April 30 you can earn double points of stays 2 nights or longer, and you can earn 250 points “in popular destinations.” Registration required.

Just over 20% of Starwood hotel properties offer the 250 bonus points per night.

Anxiously Awaiting Hyatt

We didn’t see a year-end promotion from Hyatt Gold Passport. I’m especially interested to see what they’ll be able to do in 2016. We know they won’t be having us register for a promotion this week with Gold Passport systems down. But since they’re implementing a new CRM that should mean new data analytics capabilities — and should let them learn more about what promotions succeed in generating incremental business for their hotels. Backed by a better business case, I’m hopeful they’ll get generous in the promotions space.

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. Gary I think you are reading it wrong on IHGs offers. It seems the stay in January is separate of the other five items. There are six total, and the achievement says do 4/5 items to get the bonus. You have to stay more then one night to get the bonus. I have the same offer, and that is how I am reading it as well. My offer says stay at four, or five nights. Not sure it is worth the cost for the points. Two nights may have been worth while.

  2. Mine requires 2 stays at 2 different Crowne Plaza hotels…not a one near me so I’m Out…not worth seeking out subpar properties just to get 1.5 award nights…

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