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With the current Hilton Honors double points bonus expiring August 31, they’ve announced a new double points bonus starting September 1 and running through December 31. Registration required.
That means with the exception of February 1 through April 30 when their bonus was a flat 2000 points per night Hilton has basically offered double points for two years.
In addition for the last four months of the year Diamond members will receive 10,000 additional points for each 10 nights, up to 50,000 bonus points maximum. That doesn’t actually equate to 1000 points per night unless staying in exactly 10 night increments, stay 19 nights and you still only earn 10,000 bonus points not 19,000 or 20,000.
Basic earning in the Hilton program is about average. Before a series of devaluations it was overly generous. But with consistent double points promotions Honors is a rich earn and burn program.
In fact if your focus is Hilton points it’s possible to earn up to 42 points per dollar which at a value of $0.004 per point is a 16.8% rebate on hotel stays.
- 10 base points
- 5 additional points for ‘points and points’ earning style
- 10 additional points from the double points promotion
- 2.5 more points as an elite bonus for Golds and 5 for Diamonds
- 12 points paying with the Hilton Honors™ Surpass® Card from American Express
And that doesn’t count the extra bonus for Diamonds, the booking bonus that comes from the Amex Surpass Card, or the 500 points per booking you make with the Hilton mobile app which runs through the end of 2017.
The Hilton app is worth checking out anyway for the ability to choose your specific room. Hilton has also introduced beacon-enabled messaging.
Terms and conditions:
Offer valid September 1, 2017, through December 31, 2017 (“Promotion Period”) at any hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio excluding Hampton by Hilton Hotels in Mainland China. Hilton Honors™ members must first register at HiltonHonors.com/DoubleUp prior to completing a stay within the Promotion Period. Registered Hilton Honors members will only receive Bonus Points for nights completed during the Promotion Period, regardless of a check-in date before the Promotion Period begins or a check-out date after the Promotion Period ends. Registered Hilton Honors members will earn Double Hilton Honors Bonus Points per stay during the Promotion Period. “Double Points” means you will receive a bonus equal to the number of Base Points earned during a stay. There is no limit to the total amount of Bonus Points that may be earned during the Promotion Period with this offer. However, there are restrictions on the amount of Base Points that can be earned on a single stay at certain brands. See Hilton Honors Terms and Conditions for more details. Bonus Points earned on Base Points do not count toward tier qualification. Please allow six to eight weeks from completion of your stay for points to appear in your Hilton Honors account.
This is why I’m a Hilton fan. I travel about 18 times per year – not enough to be platinum with any program. However, as a Hilton Gold (gotten via my Amex Platinum card), I get free breakfast at most hotels, and a lot of them don’t charge for parking. Hilton is constantly running promotions; I find that I get at least 10% value back, reliably and consistently. Plus, Hiltons are everywhere.
I think that other chains, like SPG, have nicer hotels in general. However, the Hilton value proposition for those that don’t travel enough to earn platinum status with a program like SPG is hard to beat.
I’m a Hilton Diamond and can never register for any promotion. Always get an “null response object returned from WebLoginUserName call” error. I’ve called a half dozen times, written about 16 emails. Customer Service always tries to give me the run around, other ways to register etc., rather than simply calling someone in IT to fix the problem. If I had a an error like that for customers at my company that went on for years, I’d be fired. Do these companies have an IT staff? What kind of CTO do they have that allows them to build websites with customer error reporting. They should already know that customers get failures with their webpage. You expect this stuff dealing with a chinese airline not a US corporation. Then Hilton wonders why I stay 150 nights a year with other hotels. Why should I trust a company that can’t even get their webpage to work for their top customers.
and book through Upromise for 5% back