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Tis the season… when hotel chains start announcing their first promotions for 2018.

Hilton Honors has joined the pre-Christmas rush with “Points Unlimited”, a promotion that will run from 1 January until 30 April, 2018.

In 2017, Hilton Honors ran a series of simple “double points” promotions. In 2018, their first promotion is a flat, stay-based promotion. For each stay, members will earn 2,000 bonus points. Members will receive an additional 10,000 point bonus for their fifth stay. In other words…

• Stay 1 – 2,000 bonus points
• Stay 2 – 2,000 bonus points
• Stay 5 – 12,000 bonus points
• Stay 6 – 2,000 bonus points
• Stay 10 – 12,000 bonus points
• etc. etc. with no upper limit

Registration is required. You can do that by clicking here.

A Travel Hacking Tip

One of the more interesting elements of Hilton Honors is that award stays often trigger promotions such as these. All you need to do is charge something to your room, in order to earn a few Honors points for your spend. Alternatively you could make a Points & Money booking to achieve a similar outcome. Of course, Hilton Honors might shut down this loophole at any time, but historically I have earned promo points for award stays.

In the extreme, you could earn Hilton Honors status quite cheaply – either the usual way or via a fast-track promotion – as long as you live or work near a Category 1 hotel costing 5,000 points per night. If you book five Category 1 stays (the dates cannot be consecutive if you want them to qualify as separate stays) you will spend 25,000 Honors points. Those five award stays would earn you 20,000 bonus points, making your net cost 5,000 points!

Don’t Forget Cashback

I have not seen anything regarding an extension into 2018 of the 500 point bonus for using the Hilton App. As a result, you should re-read Ian’s great post about earning cashback for Hilton stays.

Clearly, Points Unlimited works well – roughly £8 rebate per stay with a £40 bonus every fifth stay – for those travel hackers who tend towards cheap one-night stays. If your travel habits involve long, expensive stays, then clearly you will want to avoid Hilton Honors for the next four months…

What do you think about this promotion? Interesting, or boring?