We’ve been bullish on Hilton Honors over the majority of 2024, primarily because of the addition of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) to its portfolio. There’s now over 400 SLH properties bookable with Hilton points and they can often be had at excellent prices when compared to cash rates.
In addition, free night certificates earned through the Hilton Aspire and Surpass cards can be used for SLH stays…and unlike every other hotel program’s free night certs, there’s no cap to the cost of the property that can they can be used for.
Several days ago, folks in a flyertalk thread noticed that many of high-end Hilton properties seemed to have gone up in price overnight. This also affected many expensive SLH properties as well.
Not only that, but Hilton also seems to be expanding its use of dynamic pricing. Previously, almost all high-end Hilton properties had fixed standard award rates, regardless of the time of year. Now, many seem to have peak and off-peak rates.
Quick Thoughts
While this has been widely-reported in somewhat apocalyptic fashion, the price increases that we’re seeing so far aren’t terribly beyond the pale. They seem to affect properties that cost above 80,000 points/night or so, and the largest increase that we’ve noticed is 20,000 points. Most are 5-10K.
The variable pricing that we’re seeing is somewhere between 5,000 – 15,000 points/night between standard and peak seasons.
We don’t ever like to see award prices rise, especially given how recently Hilton added SLH to its program. That said, most of the affected properties are excellent redemptions and remain so even after the prices have gone up. The hotel where these changes were first noticed was the uber-popular Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal. Standard rooms used to cost 120,000 points/night and now the price at 140K:
That said, we peg the average value of Hilton Honors redemptions at ~0.005 per point, so 140K is still a great deal for a room that costs, on average ~$2k/night…and the ability to use free night certificates remains unchanged. Even with these increases, the top-end of Hilton’s portfolio still offers great value on points.
While the vast majority of Hilton’s properties have had (and still have) static rates, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen hotels offer dynamic pricing according to season or demand. However, that’s been extremely uncommon previously and it does appear that Hilton is expanding its usage – there are now many more properties that are showing variable pricing.
While we certainly prefer fixed rates, 5k-10k seasonal variations are fairly tame when we’re looking at properties that cost 100K+ points per night (and again, free night certificate usage isn’t affected by higher peak rates). The bigger concern is whether or not we’ll see this slowly spread throughout the rest of Hilton’s portfolio. A property that varies between 100-110K isn’t a big deal. One that oscillates from 50-80K would be much more irritating.
We reached out to Hilton to ask about the no-notice aspect of these changes, as well as the expansion of variable pricing. We received the following response:
Hilton Honors routinely monitors the program’s performance and recently conducted a series of business-as-usual changes to our standard room Point pricing for a number of hotels across the portfolio. As previously shared, while we won’t be sending updates for each and every shift, Hilton is fully committed to delivering the best value to our members and carefully considers any Point adjustments for Hilton properties.
Nothing enlightening there.
My bet is that we’ll continue to see dynamic pricing creep through Hilton Honors. However, that’s already the norm for almost every other hotel program. As long as the variance is kept to a limited amount around a fixed standard price, it will still be significant improvement for what we sometimes see elsewhere.
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Well I don’t like it but Hilton saying that no-notice devaluations are business-as-usual is really bad for loyalty members but has the benefit of being honest. Contrast that with Marriott trying to lie or spin things and Hilton comes out looking pretty good, which is sad under the circumstances.
I happened to snag the drop of WA Los Cabos Pedregal awards at 120K a week ago before this jump, so feeling lucky there. Hilton’s not letting me swap in a FNC I just earned as they only have standard rooms for my nights when booked as a two night stay, one night is missing availability when split into consecutive single nights. But I’ll take the win on the pre-increase points rate and move on.
Hilton properties previously topped out around 150K – have any of the highest end points rates broken that ceiling with this increase? Or is 150K still the max?
150K is still the max
Used 450K points for 3 night in SLH Fiji recently, easily a $18K cash stay. Working my way out of Hilton points. Reduced their cards down to 1 no fee card. Over them and their service isnt that great at most places. Breakfast voucher is fkn annoying
That seems like an insane number of points to use. Fiji isn’t super cheap, but couldn’t you have just spent $150/night for a nice independent hotel?
Nononono. If the plebs stop believing that 3 nights in Fiji isn’t “worth” $18k, they will stop visiting the Maldives, Bora Bora, and flying first class seats that “sell” for $20K on a 7 hour trip.
At that point (pun intended), the points and miles “game” is over and people switch to a cash-back setup. 450K Hilton points can be bought for $2.25k but people gotta believe in that “$18k value”.
I presume this occurred because I just got my Aspire. Sorry folks. I apologize.
You have Hilton points valued at ~0.05 per point. This is incorrect, it should be either .5 cpp, or $0.005 pp – either way, half a cent a point.
Thanks, missed a zero. Fixed.
Makes me nervous about Wyndham now. Will they do the same thing without notice to their top properties sitting now at 30k? I’m planning on booking a few rooms soon, hopefully there’ll be some warnings if that happens.
Tim, any devaluation is disappointing; however, as you stated, this could’ve been so much worse. Im happy that free night certificates remain unaffected by this and the overall increase in percentage terms is mild. I see the biggest fallout here is it may change my strategy of buying Hilton points for redemptions at luxury properties. This decreases the value of those redemptions when Hilton points are sold at 1/2 cent a point. But, that 5th night free still looks mighty tempting at Waldorf Astoria, LXR Resorts and Conrad properties (plus SLH).
Check out the point prices at the soon to reopen NY Waldorf Astoria. 600k for a base room. I (kid) you not.
I think you’re seeing 600K+ for the deluxe king, and that’s a premium room at this property. The standard room is the regular king room. I see availability for that room at 150K a night from October 28-31. Unfortunately, finding standard room availability isn’t that easy at this property.
Yep, just like any other property the premium rooms are through the roof at Hilton’s ~0.3 cpp rate. Standard rates are a not cheap but not unheard of 150K.
Agree. If we value Hilton points at the 0.5 cpp rate, that means 150K points costs $750. I personally would not pay that much for a nightly stay regardless of the cash rate (I get most of my HH points by buying them directly). The old limit was somewhere around 120K and that was a more palatable $600 a night. Going forward, I’ll be hesitant to use points for less than 5 nights unless I’m coupling free night certificates with points for say a 3-day weekend getaway. For most of my point redemptions, I’ll save the points for 5 nights redemptions to get the 20% haircut to take that $750 down to $600 a night, which is a rate I can more willingly accept to stay at luxury resorts with (hopefully) some benefits recognition, especially at aspirational properties overseas.