Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
When Hilton Honors announced changes to its loyalty programme, including the dropping of the second “H”, it promised to bring in the opportunity for select members to extend Diamond status for one year.
This is a simple measure that I’m sure is much appreciated by people whose travel patterns have been temporarily affected by illness, maternity leave, job change, etc.
Unfortunately, the conditions for this extension are quite restrictive. You must be a current Diamond member whose status is due to be downgraded on 31 March, 2017. You must also:
- Have had three years as a Diamond (it isn’t necessary that those years be consecutive)
- All three of those years need to have been “real Diamond” – i.e. 30 stays or 60 nights. Status matched years do not count
- Have spent more than 250 nights (paid or reward) or earned 500,000+ base points since joining Hilton HHonors
In order to apply for the extension, you must visit this website and submit a request prior to 31 March, 2017.
This Diamond Status Extension offer is supposed a once-per-member’s-lifetime deal, so presumably Hilton Honors intends to bring it back every February / March. However I am puzzled by the 31 March deadline. Presumably there are a fair few Honors members who won’t even notice the change in their status until after it occurs; this apparently will be too late for requesting an extension.
It’s fairly obvious, however, that Hilton Honors have put some thought into this, so that it isn’t “travel hack-able”.
I would be inclined to apply before I revert to being a lowly Silver, but I believe that I only have two years as a real Diamond, and who knows how many total nights I have…
[EDIT: Hilton Honors couldn’t even bother to send me a personal reply…]
I was upgraded to Diamond via a status match in June last year. My account currently says:
“Based on stays earned this year, your 2018 tier would be Member. To maintain Diamond status in 2018, you need 28 more stays.”
So this says to me that I will be Diamond for the rest of the calendar year. Is that right?
I’m a bit surprised so many people say they’re being downgraded at the end of March.
I did ask the same question to Hilton chat who confirmed it a few months ago, but this sudden surge of blog articles online about March 2017 downgrades is making me wonder!
If you did it in June, you 99%-definitely should have received the rest of 2016, all of 2017 and the first three months of 2018.
I haven’t really seen blogs touting premature downgrades, and the Honors website has always shown quirky things about status, but I would only worry if on 1 April there are a bunch of people screaming about status downgrades.