Since Hilton’s award chart changes in 2013, there haven’t been huge additional changes.
Hilton decided to alter 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.
Conrad Bangkok
At least they are announcing the changes. And savvy members can create a change detection for the page (like I do).
Hilton HHonors is making category adjustments to several hotels effective October 12.
21 go up in category and 33 go down. Overall a sliver of the overall HHonors portfolio, however:
- When you make these changes several times a year it’s easy to make any given cohort of changes seem small. In the last 5 quarters of announcements we’ve seen 133 hotels go up in category and 80 go down.
- More important Hilton no longer has to raise hotels a category to increase their price since they now have a range of prices within several categories. And there are no announcements when hotels get more expensive within a category thus we really can’t say whether there have been big increases or not.
Waldorf Hilton London
Here are the changes:
HOTELS WITH CATEGORY DECREASE |
||||||
|
Hotel Name
|
City
|
State
|
Country
|
Previous Reward Category
|
New Reward Category
|
Effective Date
|
| Hampton by Hilton St Petersburg ExpoForum | St Petersburg | Russian Federation | Category 6 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hampton Inn by Hilton Istanbul Atakoy | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 2 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hampton by Hilton Samsun | Samsun | Turkey | Category 2 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Ankara Gimat | Ankara | Turkey | Category 2 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Mardin | Mardin | Turkey | Category 2 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Kayseri | Kayseri | Turkey | Category 2 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Izmir Bayrakli | Izmir | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Konya | Konya | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Sanliurfa | Sanliurfa | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Erzincan | Erzincan | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Istanbul Ataturk Airport | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 1 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Adana | Adana | Turkey | Category 3 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Izmir Alsancak | Izmir | Turkey | Category 3 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Mersin | Mersin | Turkey | Category 3 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Istanbul Golden Horn | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul Avcilar | Avcilar | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree Istanbul Tuzla | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Izmir | Izmir | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Avanos Cappadocia | Nevsehir | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Van | Van | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Ankara | Ankara | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Bursa Convention Center & Spa | Bursa | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Kusadasi | Kusadasi | Turkey | Category 4 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul Piyalepasa | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Istanbul Kozyatagi | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul Sirkeci | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 5 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul Old Town | Istanbul | Turkey | Category 6 | Category 5 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Garden Inn Dubai Mall of the Emirates | Dubai | United Arab Emirates | Category 6 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hampton Inn Miami South Beach 17th Street | Miami Beach | FL | United States | Category 9 | Category 8 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Cabana Miami Beach | Miami Beach | FL | United States | Category 9 | Category 8 | October 12, 2016 |
| Vintro Hotel South Beach Curio Collection | Miami Beach | FL | United States | Category 9 | Category 8 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Garden Inn Miami South Beach | Miami Beach | FL | United States | Category 9 | Category 8 | October 12, 2016 |
| The Saratoga Hilton | Saratoga Springs | NY | United States | Category 9 | Category 8 | October 12, 2016 |
HOTELS WITH CATEGORY INCREASE |
||||||
|
Hotel Name
|
City
|
State
|
Country
|
Previous Reward Category
|
New Reward Category
|
Effective Date
|
| DoubleTree by Hilton Beijing | Beijing | China | Category 2 | Category 3 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Yuxi Fuxian Lake | Yuxi | China | Category 3 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Alexandria King’s Ranch | Alexandria | Egypt | Category 1 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Hilton Dublin | Dublin | Ireland | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem | Jerusalem | Israel | Category 9 | Category 10 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh – The Caledonian | Edinburgh | United Kingdom | Category 8 | Category 9 | October 12, 2016 | |
| Embassy Suites Anaheim – South | Garden Grove | CA | United States | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 |
| DoubleTree by Hilton San Francisco Airport | Burlingame | CA | United States | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 |
| Homewood Suites by Hilton San Fransico Arpt | Brisbane | CA | United States | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Garden Inn San Francisco Airport/Burlingame | Burlingame | CA | United States | Category 6 | Category 7 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hampton Inn & Suites Albany | Albany | GA | United States | Category 3 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Garden Inn Olathe | Olathe | KS | United States | Category 4 | Category 5 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hampton Inn & Suites Raleigh Downtown | Raleigh | NC | United States | Category 4 | Category 5 | October 12, 2016 |
| Doubletree By Hilton Hotel North Salem | Salem | OR | United States | Category 3 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hampton Portland OR | Portland | OR | United States | Category 4 | Category 5 | October 12, 2016 |
| Embassy Suites Hotel Portland Airport | Portland | OR | United States | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hampton Inn & Suites Cleburne | Cleburne | TX | United States | Category 1 | Category 2 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Garden Inn Houston Northwest / America Plaza | Houston | TX | United States | Category 3 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 |
| Home2 Suites By Hilton Lubbock, TX | Lubbock | TX | United States | Category 4 | Category 5 | October 12, 2016 |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Vancouver, WA | Vancouver | WA | United States | Category 3 | Category 4 | October 12, 2016 |
| Hilton Bellevue | Bellevue | WA | United States | Category 5 | Category 6 | October 12, 2016 |
Amazing how many of the hotels that went down category are in Turkey and Miami. Methinks coup attempt and Zika play a role here.
Looking at the list, it seems pretty obvious that tourism in Turkey has fallen through the floor.
And there are Category 9 Hampton Inns? Really???
Thank God no other hotel program has followed this variable pricing stupidity
I always thought that the D’Tree in Beijing was way underpriced. Nice hotel with excellent breakfast. Should still be good value at Cat 3.
In 2013, HHonors introduced their current award chart and have not touched it since. Instead, they have simply been reassigning 1- 2% of their hotels to different categories each time they made changes, which is an innovative approach to devaluation that’s preferable to across-the-board, wholesale award chart “massacring.”