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Joe occasionally accuses me of mildly sensationalist headlines, but I fully stand behind this one – it is quite literally the case that you can get four nights at a Hilton hotel, with Gold status so including breakfast, and have that status extended till March 2023, for £43.

That is spectacular value.

Ok, how?

The wonderfully general Hilton “MVP” Honors Gold fast-track option offers an exceptionally good value way of obtaining the excellent Hilton Honors Gold status. You can sign up to the Hilton Gold fast track here. In short, anyone can sign up to it, with no requirement for any evidence of eligibility needed.

However, we like to play by the rules here at InsideFlyer. The terms state this:

For Gold status, member must be an athletic administrator, athlete, or affiliated with a sports entity, sports related company, sports group or event

There are a billion ways you can qualify for that. You can use your imagination but, for example, sign up to the English Football Association for free and thus become “affiliated with a sports entity“. I also strongly recommend if you don’t already, you get out there and run – sign up for a 5K or 10K race and become “affiliated with a sports event“. I love the idea that chasing Hilton Gold also gets people fit!

The Gold status qualification requirement

Once you’re signed up to the Gold fast track, you need to complete four qualifying stays within 90 days of registration. A couple of clear warnings here:

Warning 1: Book direct via Hilton.com. Any other way (save via a cashback or miles shopping portal which flicks you straight on to Hilton) and it almost certainly won’t count (eg Expedia etc).

Warning 2: Note that it is 4 STAYS not 4 NIGHTS. As such, you need to break up the nights at any one Hilton. You can do this by staying at Hilton A, Hilton B then Hilton A again etc, or stay at a Hilton for a night, return home or go to another hotel, then go back to your chosen hotel. The “ticking clock” here is the 90 day requirement to complete the 4 stays.

But how do I do this for £43?

I recently posted about the 21 Hilton hotels you can book for just 5K points per night. We need 4 (separate) nights, so that’s 20K Hilton points.

With the Hilton 100% bonus on point purchases at the moment, you can currently buy points at 0.5 US cents each, so $100 for 20,000.

However, the current Hilton promotion gives you 2K points back on each stay until 2 May 2021, so 4 separated nights at a Hilton 5K hotel will only cost you 3K per night. That’s a total of 12K points at a cost of $60, or £43.

Where are these 5K hotels?

This is where things get a little more complicated. As you can see from my article, they are in rather far flung locations, and bear in mind you cannot stay four days straight – you have to stay, have a night away (or stay at a different Hilton), stay, have a away etc until you’ve stayed 4 separate nights.

Given the sheer volume of hotels in Turkey, one option is you alternate between two hotels there. The Hilton Garden Inn Ankara Gimat, and the Hampton Bolu are less than a two hour drive.

You could also try and factor into any arrangement the exciting seaside town of Izmir, via the Hilton Garden Inn there.

I do understand that these 5K point hotels may not necessarily work for everyone, but there is a serious point here – you can get some really good value 5K, 10K or 20K Hilton stays. If you’re then earning 2 years of Gold status on the back of those stays, the value is increased substantially. Work out what you can do, and try and make the options work for you. The Hilton “Points Explorer” tool is a great place to start, as it allows you to identify the low points hotels in a couple of clicks.

If you are looking for a pure “Gold run”, the DoubleTree Reading and the Hilton Reading are both available from 15K points. I’d also add to the mix the possibility of incorporating one of my three “Best Value Hilton” redemption options.

Sumner’s Final Thoughts

If done literally, this offer is about as good as it gets in the travel world – you’re essentially combining three great value frequent traveller tricks:

• 5K Hilton night redemptions
• Hilton Gold fast track requiring just 4 nights
• Obtaining Hilton Gold – principally due to the free breakfast and frequent (albeit discretionary) room upgrades and lounge access – one of the very best hotel mid tier statuses out there

However, even if you just use the fast track on the back of four 20K redemptions, or simply cash stays, it’s still an excellent opportunity. Just remember that to maximise value, you do need to do this while the 100% points bonus sale is on (unless you have enough points already), and while the 2K rebate per stay applies, i.e. before 2 May 2021 (although a similar promotion will probably be back soon after).