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The Hilton Gold fast-track “employee” offers have a colourful history, that have long-operated in something of a shade of grey.
In short, while they are nominally aimed at employees of a certain company, in the past everyone has been able to sign up to them (and, if we’re honest, Hilton did not really appear to care that much). However, more recently, as part of an apparent attempt to protect the “exclusivity” of the Gold (and Diamond) status levels, Hilton have been requiring that you have an email address of the employee in question to benefit: see the Accenture example here.
However, a new fast track option has emerged for employees of LG, which does not require you to have an LG email address and as such is technically “open to all”. While I leave it to you to consider the ethics of this if you’re not an employee, it’s certainly an option.
What’s the Hilton fast track requirement?
After signing up, you need to stay 4 times in 90 days to get Hilton Gold status.
Is Hilton Gold any good?
Yes, it’s fantastic: a huge step up from Silver, and really not that much of a step down from Diamond. You can read our full analysis here.
Benefits include:
- Complimentary Wi-Fi Internet Access
- Space-available room upgrades and continental breakfast at select brands
- 25% bonus on all Base Points, getting you to free nights even faster
- Complimentary Health Club access to hotel owned and operated facilities
After a discounted Hilton stay? Our sister site hhdiscounts.com lists all available Hilton promos.
Apart from some Hilton benefits, gold may also enable you to status match to Club Carlson silver and Best Western Diamond, at least that’s what I was able to get last year.
I’ve read the full analysis (linked in your article). Must just say my recent experience of staying at a Doubletree By Hilton as a gold was a bit less than fantastic.
Sure, I had a free upgrade on one room from a queen room to a king room. I booked two rooms and the other room remained a queen room.
This was a cash paid stay, two rooms for four nights, booked direct with Hilton via their app.
Had to ask for a bathrobe in the king room and then was provided with a robe without a belt to keep it closed.
Was told at check-in that the guests’ library lounge would be closed for refurbishment through my whole stay (no mention of this on the hotel’s website by the way). The spa would only be available for two of the four nights.
My ‘compensation’ was a drinks voucher to redeem in the hotel bar, one drink for one guest, one time. Remember I was paying cash for two rooms for four nights. My companion has no Hilton status but hey, I was paying for both rooms and am gold. Perhaps just unlucky at this hotel.
1) Best Western match anyone and his dog to Diamond. They can do that as Diamond at BW is basically worthless.
2) Club Carlson Silver isn’t worth much either. I have Gold and I’d say it’s worth diddly squat since they cancelled the 2-4-1 and 4-4-2. This was the only worthwhile benefit that you got as Gold and since they cancelled it I’ve never stayed in any Club Carlson properties.
3) I have HH Gold also and they don’t guarantee category upgrades for Gold (or even Diamond, in fact, although you will often receive one). Normally you can expect an enhanced room (higher floor, corner room) but category upgrades are always discretionary. So if you get an actual upgrade there isn’t really any cause to complain.
4) Decent loyalty programmes (e.g. MR/SPG) don’t discriminate against guests who use points instead of cash when allocating status benefits. On SPG/MR you receive the same status recognition and benefits – you just don’t accrue the points. Unfortunately, Hilton is more like IHG in this respect and people who book on points can be treated as second class citizens (weirdly, HH is the only programme that recognises points stays as counting for status challenges!).
5) When you got the bathrobe without the belt, did you mention it to them at the time? I’d simply call room service ASAP and get them to send a robe with a belt.
6) Not telling you about the lounge and spa access until check-in is v. poor but surprisingly common. I think you should have held out for better compensation than one lousy drinks voucher. I’d have escalated that without question. I’ve been stung myself and so can offer you a tip for future stays: ring up the hotel a few days prior to your stay and ask if there are any service issues or lack of facilities you should be aware of. Any decent Hilton should clearly communicate such issues in advance though so this is where I’d be looking to name and shame the individual property on FlyerTalk if they didn’t inform me AND didn’t offer some reasonable compensation.
7) Doubletree is a bit of an enigma. It has the widest disparity in terms of meeting service standards between their various properties. Since it’s hard to know what you might get it really pays off to do a lot of review checking for the individual DT property.
That was intended to be a reply to Mark L
Thanks for your reply, Pangolin.
You make fair comment re BW / CC status benefits, unfortunately.
I will admit I should have better researched the hotel – essentially chose it based on location.
I did not personally get the robe (sans belt) it was for my companion in the other room and they didn’t tell me until much later that the garment was missing its belt.
Re 6) Good tip, thank you. Definitely will be calling hotel in advance of next stay to check availability of facilities.
I have re-read my post and it does come across as a right old whinge, sorry about that, my feelings of disappointment were still fresh. I had only intended to point out the status match potential and I’m afraid some spleen was vented. I say some, there were many issues with that DT stay but lets not get me started again 🙂