Hilton Honors is out with their new promotion for the start of 2019. It’s called ‘Points Unlimited’ and offers 2000 bonus points per stay plus 10,000 points every 5 stays or 10 nights, between January 4 and May 5. Registration is required.

This is the exact same promotion they ran January through April 2018, by the way and is a departure from double points which they have run most of the time otherwise for the past three years.

• I value Hilton points at 4/10ths of a cent apiece making 2000 points worth $8 which is ok on a one night stay, not so good on a long stay.

• If you do stays in increments of 5 during the promotion period that doubles to an average of 4000 points or $16 per stay, again still good on a one night not as good on longer stays.

During the first quarter of 2017 they offered 2000 points per night not per stay. This promotion rewards customers making short stays, since you get 2000 points the first night and no bonus points each additional night.

Hilton is the most active offering promotions, offering the richest promotions, of the major hotel chains. This one doesn’t limit the number of points you can earn. It doesn’t have a minimum stay to earn points. And it only excludes Hampton Inn properties in China.

Of course Hilton needs to offer significant promotions because with Starwood Preferred Guest no longer on the scene, and especially with the earning changes introduced early in the year, Hilton’s earn and burn proposition for stays is less valuable than other hotel programs even if they do have Up in the Air star Anna Kendrick pitching for them now.

Suite at the Conrad New York

George Clooney after all was loyal to Hilton in Up in the Air and really underscored the benefits of the Honors program.

The road map for where Hilton has gone with their program was laid out by Jeff Diskin, now Hilton Executive Vice President, back in 2010.

[B]eing over indexed in terms of the base level doesn’t give you enough payback because not enough people can understand or know what it is. We are actually recognizing that it’s much more important to have promotional activity in the marketplace to segment divide and conquer and put different initiatives in place for different groups of travelers. Not just by their tier level but also by the type–if they’re resort stayers or meeting planners–versus just having a core proposition which we over indexed.

He said the Honors program was giving too much basic value to members and it wasn’t generating enough value. They hadn’t been active with promotions. And that needed to flip. That’s exactly what’s happened.