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Joe recently posted a rather remarkable trick, that essentially allows you to get “free” rooms at Hilton hotels. In short, you can pay 5,000 points for a room, and then get the 5,000 points back!

Save for the caveat below, the “5,000 points back” trick applies to any Hilton points redemption. So in the case of Category 1 hotels (5K points) you’re essentially getting them free (well, for the cost of a chocolate bar/beer/other incidental), while Category 2 hotels (10K points) are half price. For Categories 3-10, you will obviously just get a 5K points rebate on the 20-95K points you spend on the redemption.

The good news is, however, we can now “half price that half price” on Category 2 hotels – giving you Category 2 hotels at a remarkable £20 a night! That is seriously good value. 

How? I hear you ask.

It’s very straightforward. Until 1 December 2016, Hilton HHonors is offering points purchases of over 10K points at half price. That means you can buy Hilton points for 0.5 cents each.

So, 10,000 Hilton points will cost you $50 (£40).

We’ve already explained how to get a free Category 1 room. Here are the precise steps you need to take to get a Category 2 room for £20.

• Sign up to the Hilton Visa promo, offering 5,000 free points on your next stay
• Buy 10,000 Hilton points for £40 (half price)
• Book a reward stay at a Category 2 Hilton through the Hilton app (10K points), charge something to the room and pay the bill with any Visa card (debit is fine)
• You will then get 5K of those 10K points back, meaning you’ve spent just 5K points on the stay. You got those 5K points at half price, so your total outlay for the stay is £20 (plus a Kitkat)

Where are these free hotels?

There are 60 Hilton (Category 1) properties where you can stay for just 5,000 points per night. 

Obviously if you don’t have 5,000 Hilton HHonors points, you will have to buy them first (at half price, here). You will however, then get them back via the 5,000 points rebate. HHonors points at 0.4 pence each is very much a fair price, and will give you ample opportunity to get good value Hilton stays in the future (not least Category 1 stays at £20, or Category 2 stays at £40: in itself a great price).

Given that most Category 1 properties are Hamptons, this does reduce the number of places you can get a free night’s stay considerably, but it’s still possible. And then there’s the Category 2 options…

And the £20 hotels?

There are also 140 Hilton (Category 2) properties available at just 10,000 points per night. So, there is a huge number of lower-end Hilton properties abroad, whether Hilton category 1 (5K HHonors points – so free) or Hilton category 2 (10K HHonors points – so £20).

One caveat

Before you get too excited, there’s a very important detail we need to make clear. Hilton HHonors has a slightly odd and rather annoying rule, which stipulates that things you buy at its Hampton, Home2 Suites and Homewood Suites brands DO NOT count as eligible for earning HHonors points, and therefore such stays are unlikely to trigger the 5,000 bonus – although we don’t know that for certain.

That said, Points And Money bookings are fine at any Hilton brand, so even with Hamptons etc, you can get some seriously low prices on Hilton stays.

As touched on above, even ignoring (and outside of) the 5,000 points rebate, a Category 1 hotel for £20 or a Category 2 hotel for £40 is excellent value.

Another point: you can combine the above to get 4 free stays and free Hilton Gold status..!

As noted above, this bonus deal effectively allows you stay for free at Hilton properties. Also currently available to you is a Hilton Status challenge, which allows you to fast-track to Hilton Gold status by making 4 stays (cannot be consecutive nights) within 90 days.

So, if you signed up to this status challenge, you could get Gold Hilton Status and 4 nights at a Hilton hotel for as free! The process is as follows:

• Sign up to the Gold fast-track status challenge
• Buy 20,000 points for $100 (£80)
• Stay 4 separate times at a Category 1 hotel, costing 5k Hilton HHonors points each time (which you will then get back each time, provided you follow the steps outlined in this article)
• Hey presto! You’re Gold!

Bear in mind you don’t have to go with Category 1 hotels, of course, you still generally get fantastic value at the 10k (£20) a night Category 2 hotels, so if they work better for you, I would go for that option – you are still getting 4 nights at a Hilton and Gold status for an amazing £80!

And, by the way, Hilton Gold status is well worth having.