The best way to use Hilton Honors points.
Loyalty points can be used in many ways: to book rooms and more. In fact, it is also possible to book [...]
Loyalty points can be used in many ways: to book rooms and more. In fact, it is also possible to book unique experiences such as concerts and performances, soccer matches and sporting events, to the possibility of being used to buy merchandise or Even transferred to other loyalty programs.
In this article:
My advice, unless you earn hundreds of thousands of points a year, so many that you cannot spend otherwise, is to use them for one thing and one thing only: booking a hotel room.
Never book non-standard rooms
Coming to the Hilton Honors program, but this discussion also applies to Marriott and other chains that make this distinction, ideal use is to always book only standard rooms to get the most in terms of conversion between points used and cash cost of the room.
All Hilton facilities offer different types of rooms; basic rooms are called standard, all others are categorized as premium and sold at a cost, in terms of points, higher.
In December I will be staying at the new Hilton Amingiri resort in the Maldives., as you can see I booked 5 nights in a standard room, priced at 110k points per night and, Taking advantage of the fifth night free rule, At the end of the day I will spend 88k points per night
The same room would cost, paying cash, nearly $8,000 for the same type of stay on the same dates. Not to mention that since the date of booking, the Euro has weakened significantly against the dollar, the value of my conversion was about 0.18 cents per Hilton Honors point.
Not all conversions are the same
Very often in my reviews I explained that I paid cash for the hotel or flight Because the conversion was not convenient, this happens when the cost of the room is particularly low or, conversely, the number of points required to stay is particularly high. Since for award stays, loyalty programs adopt variable pricing related to a number of factors, it may be the case that a low room cost is not matched by a low number of required points, and conversely at a high room cost the required points do not exceed a certain threshold.
To understand what I mean I give some examples. The Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam, one of the most beautiful hotels in the Hilton porfolio in Europe can be booked for as low as 110k points per night, for a counter value of between 680 and 1000 euros per night. As you can see, even if the cash price drops, the cost in points never drops beyond a certain threshold.
Of course, the same 110k points used to book a night in the Maldives guaranteed a better conversion, but that doesn't mean, however, that using 110k points to book a room that costs €700 is a bad conversion: the average point value is 0.5, so 110k should equate to about €550.
Another example with the New York's Conrad Downtown Manhattan, beautiful hotel in the southern part of the Big Apple. As you can see the prices for one night in a premium room also splash over 1.3M points, a nonsensical figure when compared to only 1100 $ of the cash cost. Or even more absurd when compared to only 80k HH points required a few days later. Similarly, it is evident that spending 80k on a room that costs 700$ is a better conversion than spending 110k on a room that costs the same 700$.
How to accumulate Hilton Honors points in Italy
The best way is to stay in Hilton facilities in Italy and around the world and take advantage of, for example, The Gold level that allows you to accumulate more bonus points and also gives away breakfast. This level is included in the American Express Platinum annual fee. Even if you don't have the most exclusive of Amex cards, it is still always possible to take advantage of the ongoing Hilton Honors promotions to accumulate free points, even tens of thousands with each stay.
In addition to this, it is always possible to transfer Membership Rewards points accumulated through the daily use of the cards In HHonors program points.
