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5 ways Hilton Honors should improve its loyalty program
Katie Genter is a digital nomad who has traveled full time since June 2017. She writes and edits stories about points and miles, and loyalty programs, often letting her personal experiences color these stories.
September 15, 2020 • 13 min read
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Quick summary
Hilton Honors offers valuable perks across its elite tiers, including waived resort fees on reward stays, free breakfast for Gold members and lounge access for Diamond members.
Elite members receive a fifth night free on standard room reward stays paid entirely with points, though some restrictions apply.
The program provides space-available upgrades for Gold and Diamond members, but several budget and extended-stay brands are excluded from this benefit.
Areas for improvement include more compelling promotions, real-time award pricing tools, expanded fifth-night-free benefits and guaranteed late check-out for elites.
What to consider
Some Hilton brands do not offer complimentary upgrades, limiting the value of elite status at those properties.
The fifth-night-free benefit is capped at four free nights per stay and cannot be used on premium room rewards or mixed cash and points bookings.
Late check-out for Hilton elites is subject to availability and not guaranteed, unlike policies at some competing hotel programs.
What you'll miss from the article
A detailed breakdown of Hilton Honors elite tiers, current program strengths and five specific suggestions for enhancing member loyalty.
Generated by AI with support from our editorial team.
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Although I have Hilton Gold status and my husband has Hilton Diamond status, I can't say we're loyal to Hilton Honors. After all, we spend most nights with other hotel loyalty programs. And, we often choose Marriott Bonvoy over Hilton Honors due to one specific elite perk. So, there's certainly room for the Hilton Honors program to improve and capture more of my hotel nights.
Today I'll consider how the Hilton Honors program could improve. I'll start this article by describing what I love about the Hilton Honors program. And, then I'll discuss five ways in which the program should improve its loyalty offering.
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What I love about Hilton Honors
The DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Penang (Photo by Katie Genter/The Points Guy)
What I love most about the Hilton Honors program is that it provides a solid offering regardless of your status level. Besides the entry-level Member tier, there are three elite tiers: Silver, Gold and Diamond. So, let's first examine the highlights and requirements of each Hilton Honors elite status tier.
You can earn Silver status with four stays, ten nights or 25,000 base points in a calendar year. Or, you can snag Silver status as a perk of the Hilton Honors American Express Card. Either way, Silver status provides a fifth night free when you book with points. And, Hilton provides Silver members a 20% bonus on base points earned from stays.
You can earn mid-tier Gold status with 20 stays, 40 nights or 75,000 base points in a calendar year. But, you can also get Gold status as a cardholder of the following Hilton Honors cards:
Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card
The Platinum Card® from American Express (enrollment required)
The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (enrollment required)
And, Gold status provides the following extra perks:
Space-available room upgrades up to the executive level
Finally, you can earn top-tier Hilton Diamond status with 30 stays, 60 nights or 120,000 base points in a calendar year. But, you can also get Diamond status as a perk of the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card. And, Diamond status improves upon Gold status with:
Executive lounge access
Space-available upgrades up to one-bedroom suites
100% bonus on base points earned from stays
The information for the Hilton Aspire Amex card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
But, although the Hilton Honors program has a lot of positives, it can still improve. So, now I'll describe five ways in which the program should improve.
Sitting area in a one-bedroom suite at the DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Penang. (Photo by Katie Genter/The Points Guy)
Hilton Honors gives Gold members space-available upgrades up to the executive level. And, Diamond members can get space-available upgrades up to one-bedroom suites. Hilton says, "if we have a better room available, it's yours."
But, there have been some notable Hilton stays in which we weren't upgraded. And, in most cases, the hotel didn't upgrade us due to an exclusion in the Hilton Honors terms. According to the terms, the following Hilton Honors brands don't offer complimentary upgrades:
Granted, you may still be given an upgrade when staying at these excluded brands. But, the Hilton Honors program doesn't require these brands to upgrade members. So, I generally book at a hotel offering better upgrade chances. As such, Hilton Honors would get more of my stays if it offered space-available upgrades at these brands.
Earn up to 7,500 points after two stays: Earn 2,500 Hilton Honors points after your first stay and 5,000 after the second. Register here.
Best deal to dream: Get up to 20% off in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and up to 30% off in Asia
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But, none of these promotions push me to stay with Hilton instead of another hotel loyalty program. After all, elite night credits aren't useful since the Hilton Aspire Card provides Diamond status as a perk. And, 2x base points on the double rewards promotion isn't compelling. The promotion that allows you to earn up to 7,500 points after two stays could be useful when stacked with the other promotions. But, even this promotion doesn't motivate me to go out of my way to satisfy it.
So, Hilton could improve its loyalty offering and attract more stays from its members with compelling promotions. For example, I was historically a fan of IHG's Accelerate promotion. Although Accelerate nudged me to book more expensive brands or rates in some cases, it was also lucrative. Hilton Honors could offer a similar promotion that encourages its members to try new brands, stay longer or book packages by providing large, tiered point bounties.
If you know where you want to stay, you can use the flexible dates search function to find inexpensive dates. But, if you are looking for a good deal, you may want to use Hilton's Points Explorer tool. This tool allows you to select your points budget and region. The tool then returns the lowest and highest points per night for which travelers have booked as of a particular date. But, this date is in the past. So, there may not be any nights currently bookable for the minimum points cost shown by the Points Explorer.
Hilton's Points Explorer tool is a good start. But, the tool would be more useful if it returned the minimum and maximum award night cost currently bookable. Although adding this feature wouldn't directly improve my loyalty, it would help me maximize redemptions with Hilton Honors. So, improving the Points Explorer tool could indirectly improve member loyalty.
Waldorf Astoria La Quinta (Photo by Benji Stawski/The Points Guy)
When redeeming Hilton points for a standard room reward stay of five or more nights, Silver, Gold and Diamond members get every fifth night free. However, Hilton doesn't waive the actual cost of every fifth night. Instead, Hilton will subtract the average number of points per night for each fifth night.
You can use the fifth-night free benefit on unlimited stays each year. But, you must pay for your stay entirely with points and you can only get four free nights per stay. Additionally, you can't use this perk on the following:
Stay that is part of a reward stay offer, package or promotion offered by Hilton or any of its partners
Although most of these restrictions are understandable, I believe removing two exclusions would improve traveler loyalty. First off, Hilton should remove the cap of four free nights per stay. Especially as travelers are booking stays for a month or more, removing this cap would help Hilton members looking to redeem points for longer stays. Second, some Hilton loyalists prefer to book premium room rewards that provide more room or a unique experience. So, it would be a customer-friendly move to allow the fifth-night free benefit on premium room reward stays.
A room at the Conrad Washington, DC (Photo by Scott Mayerowitz/The Points Guy)
Finally, several other top hotel loyalty programs offer elite members guaranteed late check-out until a set time. For example, World of Hyatt offers Discoverists and Explorists 2 p.m. check out and Globalists 4 p.m. check out. Meanwhile, Marriott Bonvoy offers Platinum Elite, Titanium Elite and Ambassador Elite members 4 p.m. check-out. Granted, these late check-out perks aren't provided at select hotels and must be requested. But, elites with these programs can rely on set late-check out times when staying at most hotels.
Hilton Honors, on the other hand, does offer a late-check out perk for all members. But, this benefit must be requested and is subject to availability. And, the program's terms don't state that higher-tier members get better late check-out benefits than members with no elite tier.
One Hilton hotel gave us a 4 p.m. late check-out upon request. But, it's more common to only be given a couple hours after the stated check-out time. As such, you can't plan on getting a late check-out when booking your stay. So, my husband and I book stays with Marriott or Amex's Fine Hotels and Resorts program when we want to be guaranteed 4 p.m. late check out. But, if Hilton Honors offered guaranteed late check-out until a set time for elites, we'd stay with Hilton more.
Related: Why you shouldn't ignore hotel check-out times
Bottom line
It's easy to maintain Hilton elite status through Hilton credit cards and Amex Platinum cards that provide hotel status. Specifically, even if you only stay with Hilton Honors a few times each year, you can reap top-tier status perks. And, Hilton has some other gems such as high earning rates and waived resort fees on award nights. But, the Hilton Honors program could do more to encourage elites to be loyal and spend more nights with Hilton.
Comments
By commenting, you agree to our Community Guidelines to help create a positive space for conversation. The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser, our partners, or The Points Guy (“TPG”). They have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these parties. All responses are submitted by individual contributors, and neither the bank advertiser, our partners, nor TPG are responsible for ensuring that all posts and/or questions are answered.
