We’ve been loving Hilton Honors over the past year, primarily because of the addition of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) to its portfolio. There are 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 they can be used for.
Today, folks in a flyertalk thread noticed that many high-end Hilton properties have gone up in price overnight, the second such increase within the last six months. This again affected many desirable SLH properties as well.
As part of these changes, Hilton also has expanded its price ceiling all the way to 200,000 points per night.
Examples of hotels whose prices have increased
Here’s a list of some of the worst-offending rate increases that we’ve seen so far:
- Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi – previously 150K, now 200K
- Calala Island (SLH) – previously 150K, now 200K
- Riverview Ranch (SLH) – previously 150K, now 200K.
- Hermitage Bay (SLH) – previously 150K, now 190K
- Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal – previously 150K, now 190K
- Canaves Oia Suites (SLH) – previously 130K, now 190K
- South Bank (Turks and Caicos, SLH) – previously 130K, now 180K
- Eichardt’s Private Hotel (New Zealand – SLH) – previously 130K, now 180K
I’m sure that there are many more examples out there, so let us know in the comments what you find and we’ll add it to the list.
Quick Thoughts
OK, this is getting irritating. While we love what Hilton has done with SLH since their partnership, this is now the second time in six months that we’ve seen MASSIVE overnight prices increases on high-end properties with absolutely no notice from Hilton. In that time, the maximum amount that Hilton charges for a free night award has skyrocketed from 120K per night all the way to 200K.
One of the worst examples has been the uber-popular Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal. In mid-December last year, standard rooms cost 120,000 points/night. Then, in late-December, the price increased to 140K. Now, it’s all the way up to 190,000 points per night…a 50%+ increase in less than six months.
We peg the average value of Hilton Honors redemptions at ~0.005 per point, so 190K is still technically a good deal for a room that costs ~$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 good value on points and free night certificates become even more desirable.
However, this price hike double-tap has certainly taken some shine off Hilton Honors as a whole.
The last time that Hilton did this, we asked them about the no-notice aspect of the changes, as well as the increased use of 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.
At the time, we took this to mean “expect more in the future.” But, we didn’t expect it this soon or with these kinds of steep increases in what the maximum price for a Hilton award would be. That’s what’s especially disconcerting. Hiking the top rate from 120K to 200K in less than six months is extraordinary…and certainly seems to indicate that there’s no ceiling that Hilton would consider too high.
This recent change makes me believe that we’ll continue to see price increases creep throughout high-end Hilton Honors properties…and much more rapidly than we originally thought. I would have never believed a year ago that we’d see 200K Hilton awards. What could we have by this time next year? 250K? 300K?
Hilton has seemed to decide that it’s very comfortable with its points being worth around 0.5 cents each in most circumstances. However, we believed that it was also content to have the higher-end of its portfolio offer outsized value by comparison. That seems to have been misplaced hope.
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If hilton don’t want us to prepay with cc swipe revenue, then we should not prepay with cc swipe revenue. There are plenty of other options than hilton, which has they least valuable points in its category.
[…] blogs followed again. Anyway, here are more examples of the steep increase in high end properties: Another overnight Hilton price hike…all the way to 200K points per night. Can’t even get one night at a nice Hilton with a credit card Signup Bonus, how pathetic is […]
[…] Frequent Miler: Another overnight Hilton price hike…all the way to 200K points per night […]
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Unannounced devaluations are a blessing in disguise. No need to deal with the analysis paralysis that pollutes the time period between announcement and effective dates. See: Alaska – Hawaiian where everyone’s had a year to make their decisions and they still don’t know what to do.
Cap Rocat Mallorca (SLH) looks to be all the way up to 190k from 140k also. Just ridiculous.
That’s a shame. I have personally gotten so much value out of Hilton the last few years that it’s a bummer to see that the gravy train might be ending, as I am sure these top-end devaluations are a harbinger of what is to come to the rest of the program. Still a few good properties to cherry pick here and there, though, especially if you can do 5th night free.
A lesson that a lot of must have learned the hard way… every time a program and it’s meaningful benefits become mainstream and easily accessible, the program will lose it’s value quickly… Bonvoy giving out Plat… Hilton Diamond and ability to get so many FNCs….for now, the only program that is relatively difficult to game is Hyatt ($120k spend is difficult for most people not doing MS), so that’s what I am focusing on right now. And IHG as backup (still easy to get diamond through $40k spend).
Hyatt’s low footprint and arbitrarily higher cash rates give an illusion of great redemption value when it’s actually not unless it’s a Globalist redemption. Yet another mental hurdle for people to jump through.
agree on limited footprint, but it works for all our planned travels in the next 2 years. Not so sure about “arbitrary cash rates”. I doubt any hotel or chain is setting high cash rates to give an illusion of “great redemption value”. The cash rate is a reflection of what the market will pay.
Actually…you might have answered your doubts based on your comment below. You rightly pointed out that hotels are reimbursed for award stays based on some combination of cash rates and occupancy rates. If a hotel has a high occupancy rate, they will be reimbursed close to or at the asking cash rates.
A lot of these aspirational, high end hotels are asking ridiculous cash rates which would be difficult for them to sell rooms at. They could release additional space for award bookings to boost their occupancy rates. At hyperinflated cash prices, these hotels look like bargains and offer the opportunity to receive “outsize value”. Thus, by mainting high occupancy rates, they will receive reimbursements close to the cash rates; even if 100% of the bookings are award bookings. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more they raise cash prices, the more attrative award redemptions becomes and they get reimbursed higher rates. No need to actually sell rooms for cash.
Ex. The Hyatt Paris Vendôme consistently “sells” for $1.2k+ per night. It is a fan favorite of Hyatt CPP maximizers. Except…there’s data points on Reddit of insiders booking at nonpublic corporate rates of around $300-$500 per night. That is closer to comparable hotels in the area instead of the $1.2k+ range. But hey, at $1.2k+ that is like 4 CPP right?!? Amazing “value”!!
Those of us in this game would like to believe that we’re just a drop in the bucket for these programs but there’s literally hundreds of thousands of us. We made US Bank nerf the Smartly card in 6 months. We’re not that small, and if we find a chance to obtain “outsize value”, we will easily flood it.
Personally, I gave up with hotels a long time ago. I just book small, independent, non-chain hotels that works for my trip.
Bonvoy in USA…
outside…still good. Very logical reason for this –> most members are USAians!
And plat by c/c only available to Americanos!
Of course when i sign up the hilton aspire offer now they want raise rates
I have to throw the penalty flag on yall for saying crackpot things like transfer Amex to Hilton with a bonus in order to fill 90 minutes of podcast weekly airtime
Do you really think we purposely give bad advice in order to have more content? That’s ridiculous. First, we’d never ever ever do that even if we “needed” more content or if it somehow advantaged us to do so. Our goal is to always put listeners/readers first! (You know that). Second, we NEVER need more content. We usually shoot for doing a one hour show and it always ends up being much more than that. Third, I made a big speculative transfer myself during a recent transfer bonus.
I’m not alleging something so nefarious. I’m saying yall have bathed yourself in an information ecosystem/stew/bubble bath that is so inward facing as to be able to talk itself into a corner. A deal that you’d have to squint VERY hard to make sense of (turning a Membership Reward point with a street cash value of at least 1.1 cents into 1.25 cents of Hilton points) with extremely limited upside becomes a “could this be something?” after 90 minutes of navel-gazing. I hope you are able to make use of your speculative transfer. An average listener who is slapping together 4 weeks of PTO and doesn’t travel for sport, not scored by judges like an ice dancer, would have a very very hard time eking out value from an Amex to Hilton bonus, and I thought your analysis at that time was a bit credulous. But no, I am not saying you give bad advice to fill time. It has more nuance than that.
I agree with Fred 100% that you are straight shooters. You are the highest quality blog in this space, bar none. Bar none!!! I’m asking you to think how your aim got so cock-eyed as to trick yourself into thinking you were shooting straight.
Wow, it’s hard to say how odd I find your take. I can’t disagree enough with how much you take for granted that AMEX-Hilton transfers were a bad deal because of these high-end property devaluations, that now Hilton points are bunk, or that Greg and Nick’s opinion was somehow due to having “bathed themselves in an information ecosystem/stew/bubble bath that is so inward facing as to be able to talk itself into a corner.” If the standard for not having bathed oneself in an inward-facing ecosystem is that devaluations will never happen, then every piece of points and miles advice is in deep trouble.
What you call “navel-gazing,” I call sensible analysis. Greg, Nick and FM as a whole were early advocates of the possibilities of the outsized value of Hilton points when booking SLH properties (and Hilton’s own high-end properties). I’ve enjoyed the fruits of that analysis personally, as have many people who were able to get way more value out of their Hilton points than if they they had waited to use them at the Newark Doubletree. At the time that Greg and Nick talked about a speculative transfer, there were very clear that it was a risk, but it was a risk that they might willing to take…because they found the properties so desirable. Since then, they’ve both taken advantage of Hilton points in numerous high-value ways.
Maybe that analysis was bad, maybe it wasn’t. There’s still plenty of value to be had with Hilton’s high-end properties and with SLH outside of the 25-30 notable properties that were affected here. The Conrad Tokyo, in my opinion, is just as good a deal at 100K as it was at 95K. Same goes for dozens of other properties. To throw out Hilton points now is a mistake. I wouldn’t be stockpiling them speculatively knowing what we know now, but I also wouldn’t have a difficult time at all finding a great way to use them.
In retrospect, many will say that they “always saw this coming.” To be frank, we hear that all the time about most deals in points and miles…especially after they end. Folks will always have different tolerances for risk, but if there’s one truism in points and miles (which Nick always repeats), it’s “strike while the iron’s hot.” Everything devalues, all deals eventually end. Others take their place. The idea is to take advantage while you can.
I’ve heard waaaaay more commentary from appreciative readers who took Nick and Greg’s advice and booked these properties BEFORE the devaluation than those who speculatively transferred millions of points to Hilton for a specific redemption and are now stuck.
It’s perfectly understandable to disagree with their previous take on transferring, but to say that this was an example of “cock-eyed aim” and self delusion is, to me, a little much.
You got Frequently Fedora’d (a knock off of Bonvoy’d)
Stvr, you are just plain wrong. The FM team are straight-shooters. Whether or not I agree with them on something, I know that what they say is their honest belief. In general, transferring points to (almost) any hotel program is a bad idea. But, in the case of SLH properties, they have made the case for exceptional value.
As for the volume of content, as Greg noted, they have an over-abundance of content. They don’t need padding.
On some of Hilton’s high end but not tippy-top of the points range properties the dynamic point spread on standard awards appears to have increased by a significant margin. A number of examples in the Mexican resort destinations and Hawaii if you compare peak dates like Christmas or New Year’s with the majority of the calendar:
It’s possible I just missed these not looking for a Christmas stay, but I’m pretty sure these weren’t that big a gap before. I’ve been looking to stay at the Conrad Tulum at some point and that one in particular sticks out with the 50K spread between “regular” and “peak” standard awards.
Glad I booked WA Pedregal when availability popped up at 120K. Any return trips are going to be on FNCs.
Wow, that WA Riviera Maya increase is brutal…as is the Grand Wailea.
I agree, these properties have basically become FNC destinations for me. I can’t imagine kicking out 450-600K for a three-night stay.
To be fair those peak holiday dates that jumped to 150K awards had cash prices approaching $2,000 which is still a great value for Hilton points. But I worry about how widely “peak” pricing might slowly spread across the calendar. Some of the Hilton all-inclusives had 130K peak dates peppered across multiple months, not limited to the very outlier holiday weeks.
Uncapped FNCs continue to trend up in value while regular Hilton points are slowly losing their outsized value opportunities. The tea leaves seem to point to burning Hilton point balances as quickly as they are earned.
easy – avoid Yucatan coast and Hawaii. Problem solved!
It would be easy! That’s the tradeoff of those being easier destinations to get to I suppose (for those based in America). Pay less in airline miles and time than traveling to Asia, but pay more in hotel points.
fair note.
But then go elsewhere…in the same time zone and similar lat!
Lots of beaches all over Central America and other areas of Mexico.
But I won’t make any recommendations…the more folks go to those two places..less in other places! Mas tranquilo para mi!
Be careful what you “wish for” — you just might get it!
Yes, Cancun is awesome & affordable! WA Pedregal is the bestest property ever. Hawaii is the bestest ever! Never go anywhere else. Filled with criminals, beach beggars, and rough sand.
Like moths to a flame.
Ive given up on hilton
As long as travel and revenue remain strong, the programs have no reason to not continue on their paths of devaluation. Both points and benefits. For every person who leaves program X, program Y or Z picks up a new member. It’s a numbers game.
Glad we just booked Calala Island (300k pts plus 1 FNC) when we did. Now that we closed on a house, may add some more Hilton personal cards to optimize for FNCs (and play the upgrade game).
With these high SUBs from Hilton x Amex. It’s only a matter of time that this will happen
This isn’t talked about enough
High? The regular SUB couldn’t even get 1 night at some top hotels even before this round of deval.