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What do you think the most expensive Hilton Points redemption in the world is? The Conrad Maldives for 95,000 per night, maybe? Or, perhaps the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi for 120,000 per night?

Wrong.

It might actually be a Hilton Garden Inn, located a couple of miles outside Manchester City Centre…

Pardon?

Yep – let me explain.

I (finally!) managed to get hold of some tickets to watch England play in the Cricket World Cup, and thought I’d have a quick look to see if there was any hotel availability near the ground in Manchester. I wasn’t expecting to see any space at all at the Hilton Garden Inn connected to the Old Trafford Cricket Ground, given that the match is in a couple of weeks.

To my surprise, there was availability.

To my even greater surprise, the points rate was a mere 3,166,000 Hilton Honors Points per night:

I like cricket, and a room with a view of the pitch would be great, but more than 3 million points per night is clearly insane!

Intrigued, I clicked through to see what the cash rates were like:

£5,049 is certainly a little steep, but the breakfast inclusive rate was a relative snip at £424 per night.

This is silly

Partly, yes. I admit this is a rare situation due to a big event (the standard points rate for this hotel is 20,000 points per night), so to argue it’s the most expensive Hilton redemption in the world is perhaps unfair.

That said, as well as the shock/comic value of a Garden Inn requiring more than 3 million points per night, there is a more serious aspect. The way Hilton Honors prices ‘premium room’ redemptions can be quite strange.

The general idea is that the amount of points required reflects the cash rate – and as you can see here, a cash rate of ~£5,000 requires over 3 million Points, valuing each Hilton Point at about 0.016p. That’s a truly terrible deal. I normally look to get ~0.4p of value per Hilton Point!

The really interesting thing about this example though, is that MUCH cheaper cash rates are actually available, but the ‘Premium Room Rewards’ points rate is still derived from the absurdly inflated Best Available Rate. Getting 0.016p of value per Hilton Point was awful enough, but the reality is much worse, because there are cash rates from as ‘little’ as £424. Therefore, the real value you would be getting per point is a minuscule 0.000134p per Point. 

Bottom line

Redeeming Hilton Points for Premium Room Rewards is usually a bad deal. If you are tempted to do so though, make sure you check the various cash rates carefully, as the first rate listed might not be the lowest. Only then can you work out precisely how bad the deal you are getting is.

Can anyone beat 3,166,000 Hilton Points for a 1-night stay? 😉