Hilton HHonors Announces Hotel Award Category Changes — Find Out Which Hotels Will Cost You More (or Fewer) Points to Redeem

by Gary Leff

After Hilton’s dramatic award chart gutting of nearly two years ago, there weren’t huge changes again this year.

And Hilton decided to change the way they made changes to how they re-assign hotels to award categories. Instead of an annual change to tons of hotels (a schedule they really weren’t wedded to in the past anyway) they decided they would make rolling changes throughout the year. And instead of informing all members proactively of these changes, they would just post them on a web page in the name of ‘transparency’.

At least they are announcing the changes. And savvy members could create a change detection for the page.

Towards that end, Hilton is making category adjustments to several hotels effective January 14.

Hotels with Category Increase:

  1. Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam, increases from category 9 to 10
  2. Hilton Garden Inn Krakow, increases from category 3 to 4
  3. Doubletree by Hilton The Point Hotel, increases from category 4 to 6
  4. Hilton Edinburgh Airport hotel, increases from category 5 to 6
  5. Alexandra Barcelona, increases from category 6 to 7
  6. Hampton Inn Richmond Airport / Sandston, increases from category 2 to 3
  7. DoubleTree by Hilton Phoenix Gilbert, increases from category 4 to 5
  8. DoubleTree by Hilton Asheville – Biltmore, increases from category 5 to 6
  9. Hampton Inn & suites Ft. Lauderdale / Airport, increases from category 5 to 6
  10. Home2 Suites by Hilton Long Island City, increases from category 5 to 6
  11. Hilton Biltmore Park, increases from category 6 to 7
  12. Hampton Inn & Suites Destin, increases from category 6 to 7

Hotels with Category Decrease:

  1. Hilton Bora Bora Nui Resort & Spa, drops from category 10 to 9
  2. Hilton Garden Inn Gainesville, drops from category 6 to 5
  3. Hilton Waikoloa Village, drops from category 7 to 6
  4. DoubleTree by Hilton Breckenridge, drops form category 8 to 7
  5. DoubleTree by Hilton Ocean Point Resort & Spa, drops from category 9 to 8

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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Comments

  1. does anyone even care anymore? and I wonder how many people redeem in above category 6 unless they’re just burning off remaining balances.

  3. Helpful, thanks

    Question tho… Hilton has those “bands” where you they can charge “seasonal” prices for periods within the category band. Does hilton ever tinker with this (raising the price within the band)? And if so, do you know if they disclose it?

    Seems like they can really tinker without any transparency

  4. Actually have an HGI Krakow res booked for way out next year, so glad I locked that in. Though the property can sometimes be dirt cheap, so might end up cancelling and booking revenue.

  5. After the bloodbath, an unanswered letter to Hilton asking whether they would reconsider these massive increases if it led to considerable PR problems, and the burning of my remaining 500k points, the 2014 score for this Hilton Diamond (thru 2016 after 12 years at the highest level), is:

    2014 stays:

    Starwood: 33. (51 nights)
    Hyatt: 13. (20 nights)
    Langham: 4 stays (6 nights)
    Radisson: 1 stay (3 nights)
    Small Luxury Hotels, and others: 13 nights
    Hilton: 6 stays. (13 nights, incl. 8 at Conrad Maldives and 3 more free)

    Total Hilton Room Revenue: about $300 for 2014.

    I have nevertheless accumulated a mess of Hhonors points, but I’ll spend those when someone suggests yet another way of pimping Hilton as bad as they’ve dumped my loyalty.

  6. Considering that BlackRock pimped out Hilton for the best year and an IPO that went bonkers I guess they really don’t care what they do, it has no effect on profits.
    Some of the hotels being increased are the height of absuridity. That these hotels belong in the upper regions of any redemption chart is crazy. I have been to some of them and if anything they should be evicted from the program for violations of cleanliness and hygene. Plus these are suburban airport locations they belong in a cat 1 or 2. Hilton must value their own points @ about 0.0001 cents now, that is the only way a 59.00 hotel in cat 6 makes any since.

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