Hilton effectively got rid of its award chart in 2013 when they introduced price ‘ranges’. They varied the price of hotel awards based largely on the price of a room.
Two years ago this was the Hilton award chart:
Hilton formally dropped even this award chart but promised that they weren’t raising prices. Hilton Senior Vice President Mark Weinstein promised this wouldn’t make hotels more expensive. The priciest redemptions were 95,000 points, a hotel might still cost that, or the price of the property might be lower.
Credit: Waldorf Astoria
I suppose it’s good that this promised lasted for two years. Unfortunately there appears to no longer be a 95,000 point cap on redemption prices.
One Mile at a Time noted that the new Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi is open and bookable on points. And it prices at 120,000 points per night for a standard room.
On a value per point basis, if you really value the hotel at $2000 a night in peak season, this isn’t terrible pricing — Hilton points can get you a discount.
We don’t yet see hotels like the Conrad Maldives, Conrad Bora Bora, or Conrad Koh Samui pricing at over 95,000 points per night. But Hilton is no longer anchored to a 95,000 point maximum. At least that is how it appears at first blush. I’ve reached out to Hilton, hoping to learn that this is some sort of mistake.
Update: Hilton confirms the new top 120,000 points price and says at this time it applies only to this property,
We’re pleased to offer standard redemption rates at the Waldorf Astoria Maldives. This hotel is unique in that it is priced slightly higher than standard rooms at our other luxury properties due to the hotel’s exclusive offerings and all-pool-villa accommodations. At this time, we do not have any other hotels that we deem would fit into this pricing model.
Glad to hear you reached out to Hilton about this Gary.
I like your approach a lot better than Lucky’s, who simply accepts Hilton’s unethical behavior and moves on.
Deceiving title. Why is One Hotel Charging 120,000????
Question was not addressed.
Even the mega-troll DCS admitted on OMAAT that the new top level was probably going to 120K
DCS is a huckster and Hikton Hojors is a crappy program.
Forget about the 120,000 limit, during the Christmas week, it goes as a high as 1,060,000 per night!!! Crazy…
As you wrote in 2017:
“Hilton says they are not increasing the maximum price of any hotel, and do not intend to do so. If they increase pricing [effectively moving hotels up in award category, or by changing the prices for each category or increasing the price of the top category] and they do not make an announcement of this in advance they will come under much-deserved criticism.”
Meanwhile, many hotels doubled in price overnight over the past few months, without any notice whatsoever. For example, the DoubleTree Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru went from 10k to 20k.
Your tone is so much better on this than Lucky, who came across like a Bankrate employee
Don’t worry. In a few months, we’ll see another top tier property begin to charge 120k, and a Hilton rep will come along and say, “at this time, it only applies to these two properties.” And, so on and so forth.
Did you really think that when they told you no hotel would be over 95,000 points, that this was etched in stone forever? I haven’t actually researched it, but is there another major chain that has not added another category or raised their top category since 2013 when the 95,000 cap was first introduced? Anybody else still giving out free night credit card certs that can be used at a $2000/night hotel?
Since Hilton removed the category i mentioned in other forum that this has been done to work against the members and not in their favor as Hilton says .
starting that day Hilton was not respecting the Max point table . (www. pointsandmoney.com ) and now they have replace it with other table !!!
Hilton is playing very dirty game with members .. very soon Hilton point value will not exceed USD .0.002 or even 0.001 .
now a day out of more then 5000 property only very few hotels ( less then 1 % ) worth redeeming points !!
i am shifting to Marriott after i burn my 1000,000 points where i can find transparency and respect and much better benefits ..
Quote
“Hilton confirms the new top 120,000 points price and says at this time it applies only to this property”
Until it doesn’t only apply to this property
Based on their crazy inflated redemption prices with declining breakfast benefits
I give it 6 months to a year before we have a Hilton Bonvoy moment of which program can devalue points the most