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We have regularly stated that the Hilton free night night certificate available via the Hilton Barclaycard is one of the best “easy-win travel hacks” out there. You simply need to spend £750 on a free credit card to get a free night at any Hilton Group property.

Clearly, if used tactically, this can be an incredibly valuable benefit.

I was recently fortunate to receive the Hilton Free Night Certificate, and make a very good tactical redemption with it. I wanted to share this with you as a practical example of a good use of the free night.

What was the deal?

I am off to Dubai early next year, and as part of this stay wanted a weekend (Friday and Saturday night) at the Waldorf Astoria Palm Jumeirah.

Unfortunately, the Friday night was on sale at an eye-watering AED 4051 (£830). I was very keen to stay there, but struggling to justify this outlay to myself.

However, I saw an opportunity here.

While the Friday was £830, the Saturday was available at a much more modest  AED 1700 (£350).

As a result, I booked the Friday night using my Free Night Certificate, and the Saturday night with cash. I actually splashed out a little bit, going for the Dinner, Bed and Breakfast option at  AED 2282.70 (£467) all-in.

Not cheap, but that’s 2 nights in a top quality Waldorf Astoria (plus dinner and breakfast on one of the nights) for a total of £467. Given that I’d have paid for the Friday night if there’d been no other option, this really is a genuine cash saving, using my Honors points.

The really sharp among you will however note the obvious caveat to the above – I could have bought 80k Honors points (the number required for the Friday night stay) for $800, so technically that’s actually the saving with the Free Night Certificate.  

Want to know more about the Hilton Free Night Certificate?

We pulled together a comprehensive guide to it, here.