Hilton Double Stay Count Promotion and 40% Discount

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

TPG Hilton contributor Nick walks us through the current "Any Weekend Anywhere" dual promotion where you can both book rooms at a discount and earn double elite credit on two night stays. Here's how you can maximize it.

Hilton HHonors has just announced the return of the “Any Weekend Anywhere” promotion that offers discounted rates at many properties around the world. The great thing is that the discounts are valid through the end of next year, and you have until January 31, 2013 to make a reservation (or February 14^th in Asia). They have also added a twist that offers members double stay credit towards elite status on stays of two nights or longer.

While not nearly as exciting or rewarding as last year’s Q4 certificate promo, this can nonetheless be an intriguing promotion if one or more of the following describes you:

1) You have firm weekend plans that involve a Hilton property (or maybe even an existing reservation!) between now and December 31^st

2) You are close to qualifying for the next level of status

3) You are trying to hit a minimum spend requirement on the Citi Hilton Reserve card for the valuable two free weekend night certificates

4) You want to maximize one of the Q4 airline promos

The promo isn’t currently advertised on the Hilton HHonors homepage, but you can find more information by clicking this link, and full Terms & Conditions can be accessed here. You can see that this promo is far from simple, but here are the basics:

*Except Hilton Garden Inns, where discounts are only available Thursday-Sunday

All rooms require full prepayment up-front and are non-refundable, so be sure your plans are set in stone before you take advantage of the discounted rates. From the offer homepage, click “Book Now” at the top left to begin the search process.

In typical Hilton fashion, IT bugs abound when trying to find available rooms. I tried a simple search for the first weekend of the promo (Friday December 14^th – Sunday December 16^th) in my hometown of Fort Pierce, FL. Here are the results:

However, when I click on “View available dates” for the first property, there are suddenly rooms available!

You can see that for this property, the best available rate for the two nights is $79, and with the promo, that drops to $67.15 (exactly 15% off).

A similar “IT fail” is seen when searching for a room in London for the second weekend of the promo. The first four results all claim to have no availability, when in fact, every one of them does.

So how can you maximize this dual promo?

1) Double-check on existing reservations or firm up weekend plans for 2013. If you already booked a weekend trip, it doesn’t hurt to login and see what your options are. For example, The Trafalgar London is a property offering 40% off the Best Available Rate, which drops the nightly rate of a Double Guestroom Plus towards the end of December from £263 ($420) to £157 ($250)! This new rate is significantly cheaper than the AAA discount and even the regular advance purchase rate as well.

2) Use it to hit the next level of status. If you are within 6 stays of the next level of status with Hilton and live in an area with cheap Hilton properties, you could book three inexpensive two-night stays for the last three weekends of the year and bump yourself up. For example, the Hampton Inn & Suites in Fort Pierce has the same $67.15 rate available for all three December 2012 weekends that fall within this promo. For a total of $449.22 (including taxes), you would earn 6 stays (instead of just 3) towards elite status. If that puts you over the hump from either Silver to Gold or Gold to Diamond, I’d say that’s well worth it.

Remember too that those reservations would also earn points, so each weekend stay would net you at least 3343 points (1343 base points + 1000 Q4 bonus points/night) plus any elite bonus points, plus any points earned through credit card spend. As a reminder, you earn 12 points per dollar spent at Hilton on the Surpass card (5,390 more points), 10 points per dollar on the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card (4,492 more points), and 6 points per dollar (2,695 more points) on either the Hilton Amex or Citi Hilton Visa.

3) Speaking of which, this promo could be a great way to work towards a minimum spend requirement and take advantage of the incredible earning rates on the new Citi Hilton Reserve card. In my opinion, this card is a MUST for any Hilton HHonors member, as it earns 10 points per dollar at Hilton properties and has no foreign transaction fees (among other benefits). With $2,500 of spend in the first four months, you get two free weekend night certificates to use at almost any Hilton property around the world. If I paid for the aforementioned stay at my local Hampton Inn with this card, I would earn another 4492 points and knock out almost 20% of my minimum spend.

4) Stack this promo with a Q4 airline promo (like the Virgin Atlantic one TPG discussed here). If you select Virgin Atlantic as your double-dip partner for the above stays, you could earn the first three bonuses of 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000 Flying Club miles. If you then book two more cheap one-night stays, you’d earn the final two bonuses of 4,000 and 5,000 Flying Club miles. That’s a total of 15,000 bonus miles that can be transferred into 30,000 Hilton HHonors points! Remember too that if your five stays are at a full-service Hilton properties (Waldorf, Conrad, Hilton, DoubleTree, or Hilton Garden Inn) and you select “Points + Fixed Miles” as your earning style, you’d earn 1,000 additional miles per stay, giving you 20,000 total Flying Club miles (or 40,000 Hilton HHonors points total if you then transfer them).

5) Combine them all. Any one of the above scenarios may not be terribly lucrative for you, but taken together, they can offer some great earning possibilities. Here’s how that would work for a general Hilton HHonors member booking 5 stays at a full-service property like the Hilton Garden Inn PGA Village/Port St. Lucie (three two-night weekend stays plus two single-night stays on Thursday November 29th and Saturday December 1st):

Double stay credit for three weekend stays plus two single-night stays = 8 stays towards elite status (16 needed for Gold, 28 needed for Diamond)
6 weekend nights at $84.99/night = 5,100 base points (doesn’t include any elite bonuses)
2 additional nights at $77.39/night = 1,548 base points
8 nights for Q4 bonus = 8,000 bonus points
Total spend of $741.17 on Citi Hilton Reserve card = 7,412 bonus points
20,000 Flying Club Miles (assuming you choose Points + Fixed Miles) transferred back to Hilton at 1:2 ratio = 40,000 bonus points
TOTAL POINT EARNINGS = 62,060 points

So is this promo for everyone? As with every promo that involves spending your hard-earned money, do the math and see if makes sense for your situation and goals. However, if it does make sense for you, this could be a lucrative way to score both some bonus elite credit and HHonors points at a reasonable cost.