Even as Hilton offers double elite nights for the last two and a half months of 2022 against still-reduced elite requirements for 2022, Honors has laid out what elite status-earning will look like in 2023: a snap-back to pre-pandemic rules, mostly.
Nights, stays, and base points revert to pre-pandemic levels:
- Silver: 10 nights or 4 stays or 25,000 base points
- Gold: 40 nights or 20 stays or 75,000 base points
- Diamond: 60 nights or 30 stays or 120,000 base points
So what’s different than qualification used to look like? Spend on co-brand American Express cards continue to count as Honors base points through December 31, 2023. as they have for a couple of years. That means (1) spend counts towards status, and (2) counts towards lifetime status as well.
Bear in mind,
- The premium Hilton Aspire card from Amex (which comes with Diamond anyway) earns 14 points per dollar on spend at Hilton, on top of the 10 base points earned for Hilton stays.
- Since the Aspire card comes with Diamond, 2023 status-earning isn’t leveraged as such this way. But look at earning lifetime Diamond. That requires 10 total years of Diamond plus either 1,000 nights or 2 million base points. Lifetime gets nicely accelerated.
- Event planners should all be lifetime Diamonds, putting the events on their personal card and getting reimbursed from work if they’re allowed.
I’m not sure why a U.S. member with the ability to get approved for an American Express card would go out of your way to stay to earn Hilton status, unless you were doing so by happenstance, given:
- How easy Hilton status is to get: Gold comes with the Surpass co-brand and with the Amex Platinum, and is probably the sweet spot with Hilton anyway, and Diamond comes just having the premium Aspire card.
- How weak Hilton status is: no commitment of upgrades to available suites, no guarantee of late check-out, and in the domestic market no promise of actual breakfast, instead a food and beverage credit that’s likely less than what breakfast costs.
Hilton status is basically a credit card perk, and keeps you out of the room above the HVAC (usually) plus gives you a food and beverage credit or lounge access in those hotels that still have one. What’s nice is Hilton’s footprint – it’s easy to go with Hilton as a backup chain if you’re selecting a smaller but richer hotel program for primary loyalty, recognizing that those won’t have properties everywhere you might want to go.
Meanwhile Hilton is improving its points expiration policy, moving from requiring activity every 15 months to every 24 months – perfect for occasional engagement!
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
2013 or 2023?
Genuinely laughed out loud at the paragraph summarising Hilton status – that’s high-level trolling right there Gary 🙂
Wholeheartedly agree about Hilton status. We focus on Hyatt for real hotels, but Hilton is a nice backup, and quite good overseas.
We each have the Aspire (which comes with Diamond) as we can get more in $ value from having the card then the annual fee when Airline and Resort rebates as well as free night are factored in. So it makes money to have the card.
Cheers.
If someone really wants a suite, it’s best not leave it to chance and simply pay for it. Often, suite packages will come with breakfast . . . and, of course, wifi. So, what’s left? Early check-in and late check-out. As for lounge access, if one eats out on the town, does it matter? I don’t see the value of tier status in any of these programs other than points earn rate.
LOL. Yup, the “thought leader in travel” doubles down :
Except that reality keeps intruding…
…”tactical” nukes keep going BOOM !
I will stop there because by now anyone with an ounce of gray matter between the earns already “gets it”. When all one has left is to repeatedly parrot, without defending them, claims that’ve been thoroughly debunked (as above,; for more, checkout the other post on HH promo that is still front page on this site), it’s clear that credibility is shot, a white flag is raised, and it’s time double down to save face.
How does that go again?
Checkmate.
I have Gold status and literally get nothing for it. Never got an upgrade, never even got offered a water or snack like it says you get in the app.
DCS – you’re so full of it, As a Diamond for 10 yrs (who no longer will be one after this year due to Hilton’s belt tightening), Hilton is turning more into a Marriott then a Hyatt.
Getting an substantial room upgrade at a Hilton within the US is as rare as Biden making through a speech without a mental gaffe. On top of that, their breakfast benefits have been watered down, they still dont offer late checkouts, guaranteed suite upgrades, you name it. For whatever reason, Hilton’s CEO thinks its a great idea to hand out Diamond status like candy in Halloween while chopping benefits and services to those who earned Diamond the hard way.
Oh – I forgot to mention those reward nights at a lot of US hotels requiring literally hundreds of thousands of points per night.. SIGN ME UP!!!
Currently, the only difference between Hilton and Marriott is one actually lists their supposed benefits but both companies equally dispense them sparingly.
Now that’s a checkmate.
@John L – I have been a HH Diamond nonstop since 2010 and a HH Lifetime Diamond since May 2022, and I have cleared better than 80% of my suite upgrades since 2012 when they became a Diamond perk. I have done just 3 Hilton stays in 2022 and have gotten a suite upgrade each time, including one automatically under Hilton’s new global automated upgrades. We’ve have heard ad nauseam claims-cumblogosphere-dogma about how some programs (e.g., SPG, R.I.P.) “promise” or “guarantee” suite upgrades while Hilton Honors does not, but the truth is that the claims have as much basis in reality as the one that I nuked I above.
With a statement like…
…it is clear to me that if you are even a HH Diamond, you’re problem is that you are clueless about how the game is played and are unable to make the most of the status. Hilton’s most expensive standard awards cost 150K/night and are found only at a few uber aspirational properties like WA Maldives. There are no US hotels with standard awards that require “literally hundreds of thousands of points per night” other than a few top-end ones, like WA Beverly Hills, where standard awards can cost over 100K/night but not more150K/night — costs that are less than those of highest Hyatt or Marriott standard awards. Really.
As for comparing BONVOY, which was at one time a decent, stable and mature program not unlike HH until it tried to be like SPG to appease the latter program’s rabid loyalists and failed but the damage was done, I will just say “Go BONVoY yourself”. Yup, the program has gotten so bad, its name has become a pejorative epithet…
BTW, @John L — Two of my three suite upgrades this year were at Hilton Bellevue in Seattle (automatically under the new scheme) and, on overnight Day Use rate nevertheless, at Hilton Newark Airport, both located in good ol’ US of A and not overseas. The third upgrade was at DoubleTree London ExCel…
Then and than are homophones that sound alike but have different meanings. Then can function as an adjective, adverb, or noun, and indicates time or consequence. Than is a conjunction or preposition used to indicate comparison
Cheers.
Gotta chime in a bit with DCS on this. Every Hilton brand I’ve stayed at the past 8 months has offered breakfast, including Doubletree which is still making fresh omelettes. Tru, Hampton Inn, Garden Inn, they’re all offering breakfast instead of the credit. I’ve stayed at a few Marriott properties but those breakfasts aren’t significantly better or worse than Hilton.
Someone could earn Diamond through base points and credit spend much below $40k.
At ten base points per dollar and twelve credit card points (which count as base points in 2023) per dollar, someone could achieve Diamond status with $5455 spend at Hilton.
I have been a Hilton Diamond for 3 years. Internationally, it is wonderful. I always get a good upgrade, and 80% of the time it is to a suite. Also, internationally they still have the free full breakfast (a 30-45 USD value X2) at the hotel’s restaurant. Also, internationally, they have Executive lounges with afternoon “Tea” and evening snacks and drinks all day long. I was Gold via Amex Plat for years and years before that and the story is the same, except the upgrades were to a very nice room instead of a suite. The story is starkly different for the domestic Hiltons. The $10-$15 “coupons” you get are crap. It won’t even cover a coffee and breakfast sandwich at the designated food shop. And domestically, you have to fight for any upgrade. As a result, I seldom stay at Hiltons in the US, but it is my preferred brand in Europe and Asia – and I love it. @DCS, I’m not familiar with the guaranteed upgrade 72 hours prior to arrival. Can you explain how that works or give a link for me. Thanks.
@Don,
Your experience matches ours precisely. Internationally, they’re great. Domestically very poor and we stay at Hyatt, which has true value.
We are both Diamond via Aspire, so no real skin in the game from a stay standpoint. But since we easily make more in value than we pa for the card, it’s worth it for the international trips.
Cheers.