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I posted yesterday about the current Hilton Honors 100% bonus when purchasing Points. As regular readers might know, I’m usually a little sceptical when it comes to buying Points or Miles (apart from SPG Starpoints of course!), but sometimes it’s worth a quick reminder about how you can make big savings using these deals. With the bonus Hilton Honors Points deal, it’s possible to stay at Hilton hotels for just ~£14.40, which really is remarkable.
Getting the Points
The 100% bonus runs until June 7 2018, and you can buy up to a maximum of 80,000 Points per year (not including the bonus 80,000!).
The 100% bonus means that you would effectively be buying Hilton Points at a rate of ~0.36p (0.5 cents) per Point, which is a little under my general valuation for them of 0.4p.
Redeeming the Points
Category 1 Hilton hotels require just 5,000 Points per night. At 0.36p per Point, you can buy 5,000 for about £18.00, which is a pretty great deal in itself – assuming you can find a Category 1 you actually want to stay at. A Category 2 (like the excellent Hampton Liverpool Airport) would cost £36 – frequently saving you more than half the lowest cash rate:
Remember that Points bookings are (almost) always refundable too.
To sweeten things even further, Silver, Gold and Diamond Honors members get the ‘5th night free‘ on award stays, meaning that you only pay the Points required for 4 nights when staying 5 nights. 5 nights at a Category 1 therefore requires 20,000 Points, which would cost ~£72. £72 divided by 5 nights = ~£14.40 per night!
Bottom line
I reason I’m writing this post today is because I actually intend to take advantage of the 100% bonus myself this time – and redeem for a Category 1! I’ll be in Turkey in a few weeks and won’t arrive until quite late, so a 5,000 Points Category 1 airport hotel sounds perfect. The cash rates aren’t high really (£40-£50), but why pay that when I can get the Points for £18 instead?
What are your favourite Category 1-2 Hilton Hotels?
Hi Joe,
I too plan to buy through this offer. The pain is in finding the category 1 and 2 Hilton hotels- is there any updated link- the one you posted about 2 years ago doesnt seem to work anymore.
Thanks
Hi Sharat,
Hilton (irritatingly) sort of got rid of Categories officially a while ago, even though they still use them in reality. So, you won’t find any mention of Categories on the Hilton website anymore, but hotels are still, 5k (cat 1), 10k (cat 2), 20k (cat 3), etc. LoyaltyLobby listed all the Cat 1s here: https://loyaltylobby.com/2017/04/19/hilton-honors-properties-at-just-5000-points-per-night-65-altogether/ and Cat 2s here: https://loyaltylobby.com/2017/04/20/hilton-honors-properties-10000-points-per-night-141-altogether/ . They might be a bit out of date now, but should be broadly correct.
Craig clocked a few of the most recent changes last month: https://insideflyer.co.uk/2018/03/hilton-honors-definitely-devaluing-without-saying-anything/
I use this website for searching for hotel points prices . Not sure if its 100% accurate but works with all the main hotel groups
http://awardmapper.com/
Award Mapper is great, but unfortunately it hasn’t been updated in a year or two at least…
I guess the website owners couldn’t make enough money off of affiliate links to justify the massive investment in time for every new hotel and award category update…
Hi,
If I want to do the Hilton Diamond Status match challenge does it work with pay with points or only cahs stays?
Thanks
Hi Callum,
Yep, Points stays have certainly always counted historically and I haven’t heard anything different. I’ll be making a Points stay myself next week actually, so should be able to confirm 100% shortly after, but I’m 99% sure already.
Has it counted ?
Still impossible to say 100% as although I’ve done a few stays, I haven’t completed the challenge yet.
My account logs the stays of course, but it doesn’t actually show the fast track criteria on there unfortunately – just the normal Diamond requalification info.
That said, I’ll be VERY surprised (and quite disappointed having done a bunch!) if Points stays don’t count, but will know for certain by early July once I’ve completed all 8 stays.
Really? When I did the Gold fast track my counter definitely updated to say 4 stays to Gold. But you have to click around a bit to switch away from the default, which is nights.
Might not work quite the same for Challenges though…
Yeah, just the normal screen telling me I’ve got to (currently) make 26 more stays to retain diamond – app is the same.
Hilton Garden Inn Istanbul Airport was wonderful last summer. I booked it on points and the restaurant staff went out of their way to serve our family. In-room dining wasn’t overpriced either, whereas the old waiter who delivered it to us was a hoot! I rebooked the same spot for this July because I intend to explore their swimming pool – something on which we didn’t have time a year ago. Besides, the hotel isn’t far from the sea aquariums, I hope to have a thorough look at those too.
Hi George – I agree with you completely. I had a few small hitches because it was completely sold out and I arrived quite late, but if you’res using Points (like I did) the value is remarkable. Very comfortable, just a few quid in a taxi to the airport, good soundproofing, has a pool, nice staff, etc. It’s now definitely my ‘go to’ when arriving late or leaving early from Ataturk.