I attended a Citibank/Hilton event last week at the Conrad New York which unveiled the new Hilton HHonors Reserve Card. It was held at the rooftop bar, directly across from condos where several top stars live and looking out over the river. They were pouring cocktails, but I didn’t see the executives doing the briefings drinking. So I didn’t visit the bar too often, I wanted to have my wits about me since the event gave me the opportunity to sit down with Jeff Diskin, the head of the Hilton HHonors loyalty program, and Ralph Andretta who runs co-branded cards for Citi. Most of my questions didn’t really center around the new credit card product. It more or less speaks for itself. I did ask another Citi executive earlier in the night, “how can you…
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Citibank Introduces Awesome New Hilton HHonors Reserve Card
Monday morning Citibank rolls out a new Hilton co-branded premium Visa credit card, and it looks to be really outstanding. Signup Bonus: 2 free weekend nights after $2500 in spend within four months. These free nights are valid at all Hilton redemption categories including Waldorf Astoria properties. Anniversary Bonus: 1 free weekend night each year after $10,000 in spend. Earning: 10 HHonors points per dollar on Hilton spend, 5 points per dollar on air and car rental, and 3 on everything else. Elite status: Instant Hilton Gold status which you retain as long as you have the card and Diamond status after $40,000 in annual spend. No foreign currency transaction fees. Annual fee: $95 I have the Hilton American Express Surpass card, largely because $40,000 in send on that card earns Diamond status. You can…
Which Frequent Flyer Program to Double Dip With on Hilton Stays?
Hilton has long been known for “double dipping” — earning both points and miles for a single stay. It used to be you had to make a choice when staying at a hotel, I remember not even being a member of hotel programs back in 1997 and being pretty excited that I could give my United Mileage Plus number at the checkin counter and earn a few United miles for my stay. Hotel programs have so many airline transfer partnerships because historically they were the ugly stepchild of loyalty offerings, it was all about airline miles and it was difficult for them to make headway. They moved from just offering airline miles to offering their own programs, but the legacy mileage-earning options remained, and airline transfer options were a weigh station between the two programs…
Has Hilton HHonors Quietly Gotten Better Than We Think?
One of the programs that was shut out at the Freddie Awards was Hilton HHonors. I don’t think they should have won Program of the Year, but I do feel that HHonors has been getting a bit of a bad wrap in the frequent flyer community. For a long time they deserved it. The features of their program were limited — On the redemption side, no ability to use points for a better room than standard, no ability to stretch your points through cash and points awards like Starwood and then Priority Club offered. On the elite benefits side, no suite upgrades. To me, that’s the kiss of death for a program. And a couple of years ago they went through a big devaluation of their points. But Hilton has made major changes in these…
Hilton Introducing Suite Upgrades for Diamond Members
A couple of months ago I laid out the strengths and weaknesses of each of the major hotel loyalty programs. At the time I said there were two major drawbacks to the Hilton HHonors program: No suite upgrades. Diamond isn’t much better than Gold. There is no suite upgrade benefit in HHonors. Not confirmed, or at check-in based on availability. For a chain their size, too few aspirational properties. Once you get past the list of top-end award values, they’re surprisingly thin on luxury vacation destinations. Earlier on I would have said another major drawback was that in addition to no suite upgrades (as part of the terms and conditions of the program), there was also no way to redeem additional points to get a better room either. But Hilton earlier this year introduced both…
Buy Hilton HHonors Points Today at Half a Cent Apiece
Today’s Discover America Daily Getaway from American Express is purchase of Hilton HHonors points — 100,000, 150,000, and 250,000 point blocks and when you pay by American Express you get a 10% discount and bring the price down to half a penny apiece. Buying points from Hilton HHonors directly is limited to 40,000 per year and costs about a penny a point, so this is a deep discount relative to the normal cost of purchasing points. It’s a good deal, and yet I’m torn. My usual mental model is that the average Hilton HHonors redemption gets you about half a cent per point in value. So you’re more or less prepaying the cost of an average reward stay. Not that appealing. There are of course some really strong redemption values, and if you are likely…
The Challenges of Just Making a Reservation with Hilton, and Do They Have Too Many Brands to Offer a Functional Website?
Quick – can anyone name all of the hotel brands that are a part of Hilton? Without looking it up, that is? There’s Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, Hampton Inn & Suites, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites by Hilton, and Hilton Grand Vacations. The proliferation of brands certainly affects other chains too, I don’t think Hilton is actually the worst here, if I had asked the same question about Marriott, would you have included TownePlace Suites in your list? But Hilton has different phone numbers for each. Or call Hilton directly and get a menu tree asking which one you want to make reservations at. There has to be cost savings to better-integrating the brands. There has to be upside to just having fewer brands, there may be brand…
Hilton Gold Fast Track Offer
Hilton is offering Gold status after just four stays within 90 days of registration. Terms and conditions of the offer do say “Offer available only for Savings at Work-eligible Corporate Cardmembers for stays paid for with a Savings at Work eligible American Express Corporate Card and is not transferable” but I can’t imagine that this is the case in practice. (Via Frugal Travel Guy.)
Details of Hilton’s New Devalued Award Chart are Unveiled
Last week I posted that Hilton has been planning to devalue its points by introducing a new, more expensive higher category and presumably bumping the majority of properties up a category as a result. Now the new award chart is out and goes into effect on January 15. It comes with a new category 7 (50,000 points per night), and all “Waldorf=Astoria hotels” are 50,000 or more points in low season and up to 80,000 points a night in high season. From the FAQ: Has the cost of a free night changed? Yes. Reward categories have been updated along with point redemption rates. Please refer to the chart below. Updated reward catagory 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 New point cost for 1 free night 7,500 12,500 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000…
3000 Virgin Miles per Hilton Stay Through October 19 at Many Properties
I still like crediting my Hilton hotel stays to British Midland, but there’s currently an offer of 3000 Virgin Atlantic miles per stay through October 19th at Hilton properties in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Europe, Middle East and Africa plus specific hotels in: – New York – Los Angeles – San Francisco – Seattle – Washington DC – Las Vegas – Boston – Atlanta – Miami – Chicago – Denver (Registration required.) Combine that with the standard Avis offer of 1000 Virgin miles per rental (even on one-day rentals, this is where I usually credit my Avis rental days absent a special promo) and the Virgin miles do add up quickly, topped off in my own case with transfers in from American Express Membership Rewards. But for folks doing points transfers remember that the…
