Hilton’s New Diamond Reserve Status: All Benefits Revealed

While some details leaked early around the existence of a new Hilton Honors elite level above Diamond, called Diamond Reserve, we had only learned of the requirements to earn it.

Now, we know all of the details around this new exclusive Hilton Honors Diamond Reserve status that (to me) seems clearly designed to make sure that those that spend significant amounts at Hilton properties will be genuinely rewarded and not have to compete against Hilton Diamond members that have Diamond via the Hilton Aspire credit card for a $550 annual fee.

Happily, Hilton has done this without taking anything away from those credit card Diamond members, as benefits for Hilton Gold and Diamond will not be changing – even as Hilton makes it easier to earn Gold and Diamond without having a Hilton co-brand credit card.

I spent the last 48 hours with the Hilton team learning everything there was to possibly know about this new status tier and believe me, my questions were exhaustive for all 😉 A big thank you to the Honors team for being genuinely interested in every question about every possible thought on the new benefits.

Let’s go step by step:

How Do You Earn Hilton Honors Diamond Reserve Status?

• 80 nights or 40 stays and $18,000 in annual eligible spend (this is spend at Hilton properties)

They have concurrently reduced requirements for organically earning Gold and Diamond status. Gold now requires 25 nights, down from 40, while Diamond now requires 50 nights, reduced from 60 nights. If you earn 80 nights and do not have the $18,000 in spend, you would remain Diamond level.

Note: You cannot earn this in 2025 for 2026. You will be able to earn Diamond Reserve beginning January 1, 2026 for the 2026/2027 program year. 

I’ll also note that Marriott Bonvoy’s Ambassador status, the closest competitor status if you don’t include Hyatt with its much smaller global footprint, which requires 100 nights and $23,000 in annual spend. If you ask me, Hilton knows that, with its scale, Marriott Bonvoy customers are really is who they are competing for, although this could draw over some Hyatt Globalists that find the footprint difficult and would welcome a non-Marriott alternative.

Additionally, Gold is now earned via 25 nights or 15 stays or $6k spend and their goal is the most valuable mid-tier status. Diamond is now earned from 50 nights or 25 stays or $11,500 in spend. Base points will no longer be a measurement for status tiers, being replaced by easy to follow spend amount.

This will be the last year of Rollover Nights. 2025 rollover nights will rollover to 2026 and the program will sunset after that. There is also a slight change to Milestone Rewards with a new 180 night cap on earning 10k points every 10 nights starting with 40 nights stayed.

Again, there is no change to Gold or Diamond benefits nor to the credit card lineup.

What are the Benefits of Hilton Honors Diamond Reserve Status?

• The highest priority for space-available upgrades, confirmed as early as three days before check-in, up to a one bedroom suite. Note that available 1 bedroom suites are not a guaranteed benefit although they can be given just as they always could be with Diamond. The big difference now is that Diamond Reserve will have a clear benefit with regards to pecking order as these upgrades will clear ahead of when Diamond members could clear and the system will absolutely be prioritizing the best available upgrades for Diamond Reserve. While T&Cs guaranteeing a certain room type can be comforting for members, keep in mind that Marriott Bonvoy ditched that wording for all elite tiers recently. Also, Hilton’s system is fully automated so the best rooms can be delivered as upgrades consistently and without hotel intervention.
• New Confirmable Upgrade Rewards: Abbreviated as CURs, members will receive one award when attaining Diamond Reserve and a second at the 120-night milestone (or you can choose 30,000 Points). These are valid for a stay of up to 7 nights in (up to) a one bedroom suite, confirmable at booking, at brands like Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, LXR Hotels & Resorts, Signia by Hilton and Curio Collection by Hilton.That makes them equivalent to what Hyatt Globalists get (although at 60 nights a Hyatt Globalist would have 5 Suite Upgrade Awards available, each valid for up to 7 nights), and vastly superior to what Marriott Ambassadors would have since they could choose 5 Nightly Upgrade Awards at both the 50 and 75 night milestones, though that would be instead of choosing something else, like a 40,000 point free night at 75 nights, and even then they would have only 10 total nights to use whereas these would give you up to 14 and not at the expense of any other benefit. Most importantly, a Marriott customer cannot see Nightly Upgrade Awards clear until 5 days out (3 days at Edition, Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis) and so they are pretty useless for when you want to lean into your status for a family vacation and know you need a suite. The new Hilton certs are at booking and therefore give you predictability rather than a maybe.Sure, I’d love to see a Diamond Reserve member be able to earn more than 2 a year, but if the one bedroom suites prove pretty easy to book, this will be a solid benefit. My gut tells me that Hilton would love to give more certificates out based on more nights stayed or more $ spent, but needs to see how these work in practice first.And here’s an interesting way that the Confirmable Upgrade Rewards surprisingly beat Hyatts: You can combine points / cash / certificate bookings. While a standard (simple) booking with an upgrade certificate can be done online, you’ll need to call or chat with a Diamond Reserve agent who can manually confirm each night into the suite. So yes, you can use a CUR on a 7 night stay that is, for example, 5 nights with Points including the 5th night free + two Free Night Reward certificates. With Hyatt, you not only can’t use one on anything except a consecutive stay in one confirmation number, Hyatt terms specifically say you cannot use an SUA on a certificate booking. Hyatt may win on the number of awards you can currently in a year, get but Hilton certainly seems to win on the value of a certificate. 

  Sorry, these cannot be applied to SLH bookings at this time as the systems just aren’t integrated in a way that can pull it off. I fully believe that if it was possible, they would have. Autocamp is also excluded.

  

• Guaranteed 4pm Late Checkout: This has been a chronic complaint of mine when it comes to comparing Marriott Bonvoy and Hilton Honors since Bonvoy gives this benefit to Platinums and above and can be a very important benefit when you have a flight later in the day. And this benefit actually beats all of the competition’s late checkout in two ways. One, there are no limitations (except again it won’t apply to SLH). This means you can take your 4pm late checkout even at a resort conference center, or casino property. Even better, the late checkout is automatic. There is absolutely no quibbling with the front desk about if your stay qualifies (looking at you, Marriott Bonvoy) and no opportunity to be denied. It’s just there. I think this benefit adds significant value to this new top tier status.While I would love to see regular Diamonds get even 2pm guaranteed (you can absolutely be granted it, mind you, but at the hotel’s discretion), I think this is a benefit that we widely see Marriott properties trying to deny against program terms due to the difficulty in delivering it at scale and Hilton needs to try this out with a relatively small pool. My hope would be it could be expanded in some way later.
• In addition to executive lounges, Diamond Reserve members will enjoy complimentary access to Hilton’s Premium Clubs, a growing collection of exclusive, on-property clubs, most commonly found at Hilton’s luxury, lifestyle or full-service hotels, that include elevated food and drink offerings. This is innovative! Note that with Marriott Bonvoy, absolutely no members receive access to without paying hundreds extra. Not even Ambassadors! I’m typing this from the Sakura Club at the Conrad in Washington D.C. and while it isn’t crowded (as you would expect for a lounge inaccessible by standard elite members) and has a nice breakfast spread, the luxe vibes come out at night with daily rotating menus for dinner and premium wine and beer. A bit of a Ritz Carlton Club Lounge vibe, but much better in my opinion. I am awaiting a comprehensive list of properties but it’s about 10 or 11 right now with more coming online. The Signia properties all have a premium lounge concept as well.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Other examples of Premium Clubs include Club Signia at Signia by Hilton Atlanta Georgia World Congress Center and the Imperial Club at Rome Cavalieri, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

  

• 120% Point Bonus on all stays. This is compared to 100% for Diamonds. 
• Premium phone support: I learned that this will be a dedicated team of Hilton’s most highly trained, senior agents. They could have gone dedicated like Bonvoy and Hyatt, but it seems that since a concierge can only work ~40 hours a week, they believe that a more premium experience can be had by a small elite team working together and leaving excellent notes for each other. They are tasked not just with flawless reservations, but really getting to know you and even proactively contacting hotels to help improve your stay. I’m really excited to see how this works. 

Here is a comprehensive benefits chart for Hilton Honors starting January 1, 2026.

Quick note: At SLH properties, Diamond and Diamond Reserve have the same published benefits, though the property will definitely see that you are Diamond Reserve and theoretically treat you better accordingly.

Overall, I’m very impressed with what Hilton Honors is doing, even if it’s only at a very hard to achieve status tier. There is no doubt they have been listening closely to program feedback the last “many” years and really want to take an approach to rolling out new benefits where the benefit delivery will be solid. Mark Weinstein, the CMO of Hilton, succinctly said “Promises made, promises delivered” today with regards to how they want these new benefits to land. You have to love that kind of thinking around not what will make headlines, but what will win over and keep higher spending guests.

Sure, I’m personally sad credit card elites won’t be able to shortcut into Diamond Reserve, but if we could, they couldn’t deliver these benefits. And I really do think that a successful new Diamond Reserve tier could lead to improvements for Diamonds later on. 

As I intimated at the outset, I think they have the potential to bring over quite a lot of Marriott Ambassadors (and maybe some Titaniums that can meet the $18,000 in spend). There are many complaints around Marriott Bonvoy elite member benefit delivery and also around the Ambassador program. Marriott does have a great luxury hotel footprint (largely thanks to the Starwood merger) but Hilton has been growing on the luxury side like crazy with the SLH partnership as well as new Waldorf Astoria, LXR, and Conrad properties coming online all the time, so a Marriott Bonvoy member could easily justify jumping across to a pretty similar foot print (Marriott has a bit over 1,000 more hotels globally) to experience a new range of luxury properties with which to redeem. Sure, some Hyatt Globalists may jump as well but Hyatt does generally well over deliver on their program precisely because of their much smaller footprint, so I don’t think they will be the bulk of converts, especially as Globalist has no required yearly spend.

Ans yes, some Hilton properties have become quite expensive in points (with a few hitting 250,000 points), but a Diamond Reserve member is earning at a clip of 22 points per eligible dollar spent at Hilton. A Marriott Ambassador earns 17.5 points per dollar at Marriott.

A Hilton Aspire credit card earns 14X on Hilton spend vs. 6X on any Marriott card for Marriott spend.

If you have both Diamond Reserve status and an Aspire card, you’d earn 36 points per dollar with Hilton vs 23.5 points per dollar as a Marriott Ambassador with a Bonvoy Brilliant credit card – more than 50% more points. 

Thoughts?

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