The Hilton Honors loyalty program just unveiled an explorer to discover hotels where you could use your points. Overview.
Unlike Marriott Bonvoy, as of 2017 Hilton Honors no longer publishes a fee schedule with clearly defined categories. All we know is that the maximum cost of a room will be 95,000 points per night for a standard room (although some hotels may have higher prices due to their local specificities such as the Maldives).
While some geographic sweetspots are known(in Malaysia, Poland or Egypt), it is difficult to know how much a room will cost in Hilton Honors points, especially since the rate can change for the same hotel depending on the time of year or the number of guests.
To remedy this problem – somewhat – Hilton Honors has just released aPoints Explorer:
To perform a search, all you have to do is:
Then the results will be displayed and you can filter them:
For example, I selected the Millennium Hilton New York One UN Plaza hotel (whose explorer shows a rate between 35,000 and 80,000 points) to show you how the points rate can vary from date to date (for a business hotel next to the United Nations):
Over a fortnight in February 2019, the rate ranges from 42,000 to 62,000 points per night.
In Canada – unlike the United States – we do not have credit cards affiliated with the Hilton Honors Program.
Only the American Express Membership Rewards program allows you to transfer Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors points BUT the transfer rate is not very attractive (1:1). Use sparingly.
On the other hand, we have a card, the American Express Platinum Card, which allows us to obtain the Hilton Honors GOLD status… a particularly interesting status since it allows us to have free breakfasts in almost all the hotels that are part of the Hilton Honors program (even luxury hotels like Waldorf Astoria).
Here are the advantages of being “GOLD”:
In addition to these various benefits, you receive other brand-specific benefits with your Hilton Honors Gold status:
So you can see that for many hotels, thanks to the Hilton Honors GOLD status, you will get an upgrade, as well as free breakfast!
And this benefit is the most interesting: the breakfast. This used to be possible with Marriott Gold status, for example, but it’s no longer the case! Now, American Express Platinum Cardmembers must turn to the Hilton Group hotels for free breakfast.
Savings are here: