Changes to Hilton H rewards

On Jan 15th, Hilton will change redemption levels. A quick glance through the changes there are mixed news; good and bad.

Waldorf Collection hotels (Premium properties including the fantastic Rome Cavalieri) will increase low season redemption rates by 10.000 points to minimum of 50.000 per night. Low season is defined property by property.

For all other Hilton brands, a Category 7 has been added. No information yet to hotels in this category. Redemption will be 50.000 per night. I would suspect hotels such as London Park Lane would fall into this, as well as some of the nice Conrads such as Maldives resort.

Good news for status members; discounted rates for 4, 5, and 6 days added. I believe it was 7-14 days previously.

Simon,

Thanks for this extra detail. Yes, I would agree that the HH programme has been great until now. I was not aware of all of upgrade changes.

What puzzled me recently was that I rang one of the Waldorf Collection properties in Puerto Rico to book in Jan. Off the cuff, I asked about Diamond VIP benefits and to my surprise I discovered that it no longer included breakfast! Not all properties have an Executive Lounge and I now would have to pay for this. The main reason we wanted to stay at this property was to play golf, and we have now decided to stay at the Embassy Suites golf course instead for $95 a night.

I have booked 2 rooms for five nights at the Waldorf in NYC at an excellent rate of $233 a night assuming breakfast was included as a Diamond VIP. If I recall, they charge $18 per person (cont) and $22 per person (full) breakfast. So for four people this will add about $400 assuming we eat at the hotel each day. Of course my expectations are perhaps too high in this case at this rate 🙂

What is clear is that benefits of loyalty schemes, and values of miles and points are decreasing. HH is only one of many.

This puzzles me a bit, as this is the time to invest in loyal customers. While there are clearly costs associated with loyalty schemes, many of these are cash/profit cows; specially among airlines. It was reported that while UA was losing $4b a year, Mileage Plus was generating $1b of profits a year. The point was that the trade of miles to partners generated a lot of revenue and profit. The downside is the liability side of the balance sheet ballooned. So airlines found ways to “cancel” members’ miles due to inactivity, and expiration dates were made shorter. I am not sure if hotels have the same challenges.

I still think the HH programme is good, but I need to test these new changes out (upgrades) before I give my final verdict.

Consistently inconsistent… My favourite

As I live about 2km from the Hilton Slussen, I have never used it 🙂 I like the CPH Airport… Always excellent rooms and service.

I could see why it would be different benefits for different brands; Conrad, Hilton, Waldorf. Secondly, I know that not all hotels have Exec Floors/Lounge. I am ok with this. However, Hilton brands should always include breakfast for Diamond VIP. Are you gold or Diamond?

Have any of you had problems since the website has changed? I booked for the Hilton Cardiff and it gave a price of £99.00 . There were options for £5.00 breakfast and £10.00 for flexability, but when I clicked on both of these the price increased to £159.00, if I took then off it would show a price of £143.00. I tried on another computer and the same thing happened.

I was rather annoyed at this and decided to cancel and book in the Holiday Inn which was £30.00 cheaper. I’m a gold HH and prefer Hilton everytime, but I hope this is a one off glitch. I did email Hilton which has been acknowledged.

I tried to book two rooms at an adance purchase rate at another hotel before this and kept getting an error to try later. I telephone reservations and the girl said that you can book one room on advance purchase on line but not two. Although you can if they are at flexable rates.

No, N, I’ve not had any problems with the website, which is where I always book. Perhaps I’ve just been lucky. I did recently book a hotel on it without reading the small print (Eastern Europe Delights or something like that) and ended up immediately paying for both nights…

K – I sympathise with your tier status loss. I had enough for Diamond renewal if my old year (April – April) was counted. However, I didn’t in the previous calendar year, so was booted down to Silver. However, the January – April nights have allowed me to pretty rapidly get back up there. However, this “getting back” doesn’t replace the lost benefits and point bonuses whilst being a humble Silver.

Also, it does rack me off intensely that Hilton masquerade the change to a calendar year accounting period as being “in response to demand.” It cannot be so – this is an ‘untruth’. As you say, it simply cannot benefit the Member in any way at all. It is simply a means to get rid of all the Golds and Diamonds that qualified through the Scandic ownership (amongst other things). Scandic were excellent, and only 10,000 points per reward night!!

Simon

True, VK.

For an interview with Jeff Diskin, senior vice president of global customer marketing, regarding the changes to the Hilton HHonors redemptions, visit:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/hilton-hhonors-urged-to-have-balanced-perspecti