Hilton no longer has a published award, this is something I absolutely hate. I don’t mind dynamic pricing but if that’s the case I like to see a fixed value per point (similar to Southwest) so that points aren’t just devalued without notice. Via View From The Wing we now know about four Hilton properties that are increasing in price (Hilton hotels still have a maximum price that isn’t publicly listed):
- DoubleTree Hangzhou East, China: 20,000 points (was 10,000 points)
- DoubleTree Jiaxing, China: 10,000 points (was 5,000 points)
- DoubleTree Wuhu, China: 10,000 points (was 5,000 points)
- Hampton Inn Universal Orlando, United States: 30,000 points (was 20,000 points)
These changes will go into effect on July 7th, existing bookings are not affected. Now I don’t mind loyalty programs changing the price of their properties and I think Hilton announced these changes well in the past (by updating this page with notice). This new system of the Hilton Honors Vice President e-mailing out changes to a blogger doesn’t seem ideal. I think Hilton would have done really well to keep the award charts public and have them represent the maximum price they will charge for a room and then offer lower rates when it makes sense to do so. That’s basically the system they have in place but with absolutely zero transparency, the fact that don’t want that transparency makes clear their real intentions of gutting the program yet again at some stage in the future.
A lot of their 50k hotels before the elimination of categories are now 60-70k in the US. So this news is minor compared to that
I wish it was consistent. Not sure how much I need to save up or how many Amex Hilton cards I need to get.
Eyeing a Hampton Inn in London that went from 128k to 200k+ to 160k in just a few months. For the exact same week of travel.
The Hampton Inn Universal Orlando has its point values switched. (Should be: 30,000 points (was 20,000 points).)
Thanks, I need to give you editing privileges!