Hilton moved to a dynamic rewards program in early 2017. The easiest way to follow devaluations since then is by looking at the maximum that is charged per night in points.
- 2017: 90,000 points
- 2019: 120,000 points
- 2021: 150,000 points
- 2025: 200,000points
Obviously not only the most expensive properties have increased in price and prices rises are being seen across the board now. These programs without award charts that aren’t tied to the cash price of a property are the worst of both worlds, there is very little transparency and no notice or accountability when the program is devalued.
Hilton devalued points again today
I have a lot of points on Choice Hotels, Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton and HotelsCom, Everytime I look on Google I find better price on the small Hotels websites (that are in reality small Branch of Expedia). So my goal is in reality to liquidate all the points and only do welcome bonus. Being faithful does not pay anymor
Why liquidate all the points? What if you suddenly get unexpectedly unemployed, like a lot of people in the government have recently, and like I did last December after working at my company for over 25 years, about 2 years before my planned retirement? Then you’ll be able to stay on points, while if you’ve liquidated all your points, you may not be able to stay at all.
And welcome bonuses on credit cards are coming with more and more restrictions all the time, so it can get harder and harder with many programs to re-acquire points as quickly as it was possible, say, a decade or longer ago. That’s especially true with programs that use Amex cards, since Amex has all sorts of ways to put you in “pop-up jail” just for things like not doing regular spend on all your cards.
Hilton points have gone to dogshit lately. All the talk of “muh SkyPesos” pales in comparison to Hilton points. They are seriously worthless, and I don’t plan on restocking them anytime soon.
It depends where you’re going. This change only affects rooms which were already high priced.
I’ve been checking “less in demand” Hilton hotels, and they’ve not changed any recently, other than minor up and down variations.
So for those people who don’t stay at high-end hotels, and just need “ordinary” hotels such as Hampton Inn, because perhaps where they travel to are “out of the way” places such as near national parks and such, the points are not necessarily worthless.
This is a big blow to our community. Ouch!
Woof
Looks like they also may have reduced points earning as well. Just checked out of the new WA Punta Cacique and only got 5x points on spend. Got 10x at Pedregal last month. Either this new hotel is even cheaper than it looks, or Hilton’s devaluation is even worse than we thought.
5x vs 10x earned how? With what status? Are you just talking about base points?
The Hilton website says you earn 10 base points at most brands, but there are a couple exceptions, though WA is not listed among them.
Have you looked at the history of the WA Punta Cacique? Maybe it used to be one of the brands that don’t earn 10 points until recently converting to WA, and forgot to adjust its base earnings rate?
I won’t use points unless I get more than .05 points per cent. I’m getting 85k per night (with a free fifth night) at a resort that goes for $612 a night. That is a good deal. You have to be flexible.
They’re doing it so they can sell you on the “inflation protected” Hilton timeshare points.
I donk like any deval but this one isn’t that bad. Only looks to be affecting a handful of redemptions that were getting outsized cpp redemptions.
This kind of stealth devaluation is really frustrating for loyal Hilton Honors members. Jumping from 150K to 200K points per night especially with no advance notice makes it harder to plan and get real value out of saved points. It definitely reinforces the ‘earn and burn’ strategy more than ever.