Last year Hilton announced that they would be removing award categories. I said this was bad news for consumers as it means that Hilton is able to charge more for properties without informing their loyalty members that prices were increasing. Previously Hilton always announced what properties were changing categories in advance and this gave members advance notice. It’s also a good way of keeping hotel programs honest because if 1,000 properties increase a category (or two) and 20 properties decrease a category we know a mass devaluation has occurred. Hilton went out of their way to bury the lead on announcing the removal of award categories.
According to View From The Wing one third of properties that were category one (costing 5,000 points) are now category two or higher (costing 10,000 points or more). In fact one property now costs 30,000 points per night where it previously cost only 5,000 points. It’s not only category one properties that have gone up in price either, other properties have increased in price. I don’t have an issue with hotels charging more points for properties, the issue I have with Hilton is that there is no transparency at all. I’m sure some properties have also decreased in price when we compare to six months ago, the problem is there is no way for us to know that without manually checking.
If you want to have a truly dynamic loyalty program, that’s fine. But there needs to be someway that loyalty members can value their points reliably. Southwest does a great job of this by tying the cost of an award flight to the cash price of the ticket. I know my Southwest points will be worth 1.39¢ each towards flights. Currently I have no idea how much my Hilton points are worth, I also can’t save up a set amount of points for a specific redemption because at any time Hilton could change the price without any notice or oversight. Loyalty programs are supposed to reward loyal customers, but I don’t feel any sense of loyalty to a company such as Hilton that won’t be open and transparent with me.
I am quite disappointed and fed up with the back room deals that benefits a mega company and devalues it’s members.
Time to make better choices.
I whole heartedly agree! I am a Hilton member and over the years have had plenty of times that I have saved points for a long trip. This is unfair to the customer that wants to be loyal when the bus I was has no loyalty at all.
Feel numb. Hilton devalue their points over and over again…..
You neglected to research the Hilton program, it seems. Like Hilton changed the orogram after 30yrs of no changes. Then, points increased on the standard rooms and people cried, why did you not make the program to where people can option for points & money for all rooms? So, 2 years ago, Hilton revamped the program, again, to please the mass. Now, every room is available for the point/money option and because of this the value, in both dollars and points, goes up & down, in value, with supply and demand. Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
Hilton Honors points and their program is the biggest joke… it has become like the Zimbabwe $.
They need to completely rebrand and reconfigure… wouldn’t touch their points credit cards with a barge pole.
Its a shame that Waldorf Astoria has to be a part of this absurd program.
This is due to the H1 promotion, lots people do e-check-in and check-out just to reach the stay requirement for diamond. If you try to book two nights, a few hotels are back to 5000
Thanks for the info. I recently started staying at Hiltons as I have maxed my Marriott and am a Platinum member for life. Hilton advertised some teasers to stay and accumulate points and awards. Not impressed with any Hilton hotels as yet.
It honestly seems crazy to be loyal to ANY hotel chain. You do far better being a free agent between the many chains and independent hotels. I get all the free/dirt cheap hotel points I can get and as much status as they’ll give me with the credit cards. I also book independent hotels when loyalty points don’t work (redemption rates too high, chain properties are bad or non-existent), using promos like cheap hotels.com gift certificates or occasional rebates like from booking.com. Hilton points work well for me sometimes, and are useless sometimes. It’s just part of the game. There seem to be more ridiculous point prices from Hilton this year, but also some good deals. Your mileage will definitely vary.
So true. We previously spent time at the Hampton Inn , Mount Dora for 20000 points.
Since the card changed we noticed one night is now 30000 points. No advance warning. I won’t be using this card anymore.
Not approaching it as a loyal guest by any means but, I was eyeing this loyalty program because of the new Amex cards that came out. I have not had any of them before.
While trying to familiarize myself with the value of the points on the few locations where I am most likely to use them, I came at a value of 0.4cpp.
A few questions for those more experienced with HH:
1. Are the values that you are getting now with this change less than 0.4cpp?
2. Is there a guide that I can read about the program? Just to find out things like breakfast included, parking, award availability, status perks,
3. Do you know if the awardmapper is updated often enough to keep up with this stuff?
4. If all is worth it, which card do i get first? New card / Downgrade / Upgrade / Downgrade again is the strategy I would like to chase.