Hilton Increases Top Reward Night Pricing – Now 200,000 Points (!)

This really pains me to write.

Ever since Hilton fantastically integrated SLH into its rewards program at the same time that Hyatt both lost SLH and flubbed the Mr. and Mrs. Smith integration (and even the Venetian Las Vegas integration) by making them revenue based and removing the outsized value we all look for on our non-work redemption trips, Hilton moved WAY up the ranks of programs in my eyes.

Hilton also allows Free Night Reward certificates from the Hilton Surpass and Hilton Aspire credit cards to be used “uncapped” – meaning that as long as a “Standard Reward Night” is available (this never has or will include Premium Reward Nights), you can use the certificate.

Compare that with Hyatt where the free nights you earn in every scenario except one tops out at Category 4 (which is on the low end of the property scale) and even the one you earn after 60 nights in a year tops out at Category 1-7. Hyatt has moved hotels up categories many, many times in recent years, moving so many hotels out of the reach of the certificates – and they really should be Cat 1-5 and Cat 1-8 certs, respectively, just to stay on par with their category inflation. 

For several years, Hyatt was far and away my favorite program. 

Following everything I’ve said above, Hilton became neck and neck with Hyatt for my favorite program. 

I’m finding I get more “value” from Hilton in terms of redeeming certificates (it’s not hard in two player mode to be working with 4 certs a year – 2 for each player from $15,000 in annual spend on each Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card and at renewal (and card opening) on each Hilton Honors American Express Aspire® Card). And people are quick to forget these started as “Weekend Night Rewards” – only valid on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights – but changed to any day during COVID and never changed back. That move made them a ton more valuable.

Hilton also gives the 5th night free on an award stay as long as you have even 1st level Silver status.

But Hyatt gives top tier Globalists better breakfast, guaranteed 4pm checkout, guaranteed upgrades to standard suites if available at check-in, and Suite Night Awards where you can confirm up to 7 nights in a standard suite at the time of booking by using one certificate (earned as Milestone Rewards at 40, 50, and 60 nights).

All of that said, Hilton long ago removed their award chart, yet kept a ceiling on the maximum any property would ever charge for a Standard Reward night. They don’t neatly fall into category buckets anymore, but if a property clearly never exceeds 100,000 points a night, for example, that is the ceiling and it may be less but it won’t be more. That allows people like us to retain “outsized redemption value” which is what drives us to do things like transfer Amex points to Hilton (during a transfer bonus of course!).

I feel like it wasn’t that long ago that properties never exceeded 95,000 points a night with Hilton. (And even when that happened, when there were still categories, it caused QUITE an uproar). 

Now, we have to go back four years to 2021 when we all went crazy over the last “new highest award rate” with Hilton. That was the move to 150,000 points max at a “handful” of properties like the Waldorf Maldives. I think I was more disappointed in the “no notice” than the increase and I’m going to have that same take in a second….

The thing is I really felt like there would be no increases at the top end of the range for another while yet. Despite real-world price inflation, that was just the feeling I had whenever I talked to Hilton.

And now, today, with no notice, we have several properties that have jumped the wall over 150,000 all the way up to 200,000.

I’m late posting this because I spent a couple of hours trying to suss out the damage from the Points Explorer page but it seems to not include all hotels and also shows premium rates in the results so my plan to do a max of 200,000 minus a max of 150,000 by region didn’t pan out. I tried!

What we are aware of right now:

• Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi – now 200,000
• (SLH) Calala Island, Nicaragua – now 200,000
• (SLH) RiverView Ranch Retreat – now 200,000
• Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal – now 190,000
• (SLH) Hermitage Bay, Antigua – now 190,000
• (SLH) Canaves Oia Suites, Santorini – now 190,000
• (SLH) South Bank, Turks & Caicos – now 180,000
• (SLH) Milaidhoo Maldives – now 180,000

Nearly all properties are SLH and that tells me that what was a perfect integration for us was not a perfect integration with Hilton’s economics. But with two Waldorfs also up over 150,000, it’s clearly not an SLH-only thing either, yet I think it’s a mostly SLH thing.

The Waldorf Astoria Pedregal is one of my favorite hotels ever, so that’s a gut punch for me personally. And having no notice is also a gut punch. 

The question is – how many more increases have there been across the board and are there more planned to rise into that 151,000 – 200,000 band? (I’m hoping to get and be able to share a full list but have not yet been able to get that from Hilton.)

There’s no question it decreases the value of Hilton points (although we do need to sometimes remind ourselves that when cash prices keep rising at luxury hotels as they have been since COVID, the loyalty programs can’t afford to absorb all that extra cost since they do need to reimburse the hotels).

At the same time, I guess it increases the value of those Free Night Reward certificates from the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card and the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire® Card.

I’m just hoping there is no other shoe left to drop.

If they put a cap on Free Night Rewards (or excluded SLH), that would be the biggest of gut punches. If they plan to raise the points maximum over 200,000 in the next several years on a Standard Reward, that would be terrible as well. After all, many of us save and save and save to get to an award night or week.

If your goal is 600,000 points for a 5 night stay at a 150,000 a night property – especially if you earn from Hilton stays! – and that’s now 800,000 points, man, that is a tough one to swallow.

Thoughts?

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