Nearly 400 SLH hotels are now online with the Hilton Honors partnership, so that you earn in the Hilton program on paid rates and can redeem your points for stays at their portfolio of luxury hotels. This gives Hilton a huge edge in luxury redemptions – making their points more alluring, even if not super high value.

• These are really great, high-end properties for the most part
  
• They’re priced within Hilton’s normal redemption range (so the most expensive redemption should cost 150,000 points per night)
  
• No resort fees on redemptions, and the 5th night free benefit applies

Hilton nabbed this partnership from Hyatt, which acquired the Mr & Mrs Smith booking platform. Like SLH, it’s a partnership with independent properties driving them business rather than a ‘brand’. On the whole, Mr and Mrs Smith has some even higher-end hotels, and Hyatt owning that platform should have allowed them to do even more with it.

Unfortunately, Hyatt went with low-value revenue-based redemptions making that partnership almost useless. You still have to book through their channels to get Hyatt credit and points – and (like Hilton and SLH, and Hyatt and SLH before it) best rate guarantees don’t apply.

Clearly, Hilton got the better end of this trade. And whereas paid stays through Hyatt rarely made sense since you were giving up Hyatt elite benefits to stay with them, the SLH experience is fine as an Honors member even though it’s similar to what members received from Hyatt.

In other words, since Honors status members don’t get much in the way of benefits, they don’t give up much when venturing outside of Hilton brands to SLH properties.

• All members: Member Discount, Complimentary Standard Wi-Fi, Complimentary Late Checkout, Bottled Water/Hydration per stay, No Resort Fees on Reward Stays
  
• Honors Silver: 20% Elite Tier Bonus, 5th Standard Reward Night Free, All “Member” benefits
  
• Honors Gold: 80% Elite Tier Bonus, Complimentary Breakfast (for two guests), Space-available Upgrades, 5th Standard Reward Night Free, All “Member” benefits
  
• Honors Diamond: 100% Elite Tier Bonus, Complimentary Breakfast (for two guests), Space-available upgrades, 5th Standard Reward Night Free, All “Member” benefits

Hilton had said that 100 SLH hotels would come online this year for Honors with more coming next year. They got most of the SLH portfolio – around the number that had partnered with Hyatt – online in a matter of months.

I’ve taken advantage of redemptions at places like Point Grace Resort in Turks and Caicos and Wentworth Mansion in Charleston through World of Hyatt.

Grace Bay Beach, Turks and Caicos

Wentworth Mansion

Both were fantastic value in their own way. This will give Honors a much wider portfolio of luxury redemption possibilities, although I expect inventory at many smaller properties to be quite limited.