I’m disappointed with Hilton. I love the big-picture direction Hilton has taken recently, but the details leave a lot to be desired. Big picture: Hilton is rapidly growing its upscale hotel collection and adding valuable new perks to its elite program. Details: Hilton’s property expansion has led to spiraling award-price inflation (see details here), and its new elite benefits are nearly unobtainable for mere mortals. The destination is looking better than ever, but it’s far beyond reach.
Last year, I wrote that Hilton was winning me over, but that I wanted to see them add suite upgrades and guaranteed 4 PM late check-out. Hilton was listening. Hilton has announced a new elite tier for 2026: Diamond Reserve. Suite upgrades and guaranteed 4 PM late check-out are this tier’s headline features. I should be thrilled. Right?
…Right?
The problem with Hilton’s Diamond Reserve status is that it is absurdly hard to get. It requires 40 stays or 80 nights, AND $18k Hilton hotel spend. The latter part creates a disincentive for Hilton loyalists to use their points because only cash stays will move them closer to that $18K threshold.
Hilton’s Gold and Diamond status levels will remain easy to obtain without setting foot in a Hilton hotel. Get automatic Gold status with a Hilton Surpass Card, Hilton Business Card, or Amex Platinum Card. Get Diamond status with a Hilton Aspire Card. But having Gold or Diamond status doesn’t get you any closer to Diamond Reserve status. For Diamond Reserve status, you’ll still need 40 stays or 80 nights, plus $18,000 in Hilton spend within a calendar year.
The gap in requirements between Diamond status and Diamond Reserve status is too big, and the incremental benefits for doing so are too small. Worse, there are no meaningful carrots along the way. For example, Hyatt offers real, meaningful perks (Milestone Rewards) starting at 20 nights and every 10 nights thereafter. Hilton only offers 10,000 points at 40 nights, and every 10 nights thereafter. You have to reach 120 nights to get a meaningful perk (a Confirmed Upgrade Award).
Hilton’s bar for earning Confirmed Upgrade Rewards and Guaranteed 4 pm Checkout is way too high. Compare, for example, to competing programs:
Confirmed Upgrade Rewards:
- IHG: Earn one at 20 nights, another at 40 nights, and two more at 70 nights.
- Hyatt: Earn one at 40 nights, two at 50 nights, two at 60 nights, and one more every 10 nights thereafter.
- Marriott: Earn one set of 5 Nightly Upgrade Awards at 50 nights and another set at 75 nights.
- Hilton: Earn one at 80 nights (but only if you also spend $18K at Hilton) and another at 120 nights.
Hilton’s requirements for earning upgrade rewards are so far above those of other programs that it’s laughable. Worse, there are no shortcuts to earning nights with Hilton using credit cards, unlike both Hyatt and Marriott.
Guaranteed 4 PM Late Checkout:
- Marriott Platinum: Requires 50 nights (or, simply get the Bonvoy Brilliant card).
- Hyatt Globalist: Requires 60 nights.
- Hilton Diamond Reserve: Requires 40 stays or 80 nights, AND $18k Hilton hotel spend.
Again, Hilton’s bar is set way too high compared to the competition! Yes, Hilton’s version of this perk is better because, unlike Marriott’s and Hyatt’s, it doesn’t exclude resorts. But I can’t imagine wanting this enough to think it’s worth directing 80 nights and $18K in spend towards Hilton each year.
Diamond Reserve is so much harder to get than comparable status with other chains, and such a big leap from Diamond that it may actually discourage loyalty. When currently loyal members look into the details, they’ll see that similar benefits (and sometimes better benefits) can be had elsewhere at a fraction of the cost.
I think that Hilton can fix this. They should introduce meaningful Milestone Rewards. Perhaps, create a single-use 4 PM checkout certificate when we reach 20 nights, for example. And, give us a confirmable upgrade at 40 nights. And, crucially, provide a way to earn nights and Hilton spend dollars through credit card spend. For example, they could award 10 qualifying nights and $4,000 Hilton dollars for every $25,000 spent with the Hilton Aspire card. If they cap credit card spend benefits at $200K, the maximum elite earnings would be 80 nights and $16,000. In other words, even the biggest credit card spenders would still need $2,000 of in-Hilton spend to reach Diamond Reserve. Isn’t that enough?
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
As a lifetime diamond member, that took 10 years to achieve the status, this is a slap in the face.
Great topic. Do you really think loyalty programs from hotel groups can be successfully executed when 80%+ of the hotels in the U.S. and 40% of the world hotels are franchised? There is little management happening between Hilton and a local hotel owner. This is why you don’t get consistent service from hotel to hotel. It would be like airlines outsourcing their flight attendents and expecting them uphold the company values and service processe. Why would they care? They don’t want to give you water, free food, upgrades, extra services. It just impacts their own P/L.
Last year my wife and I went on the most amazing dream trip of our lives thinks to Hilton points. I remember thinking that I might ONLY stay in Hiltons going forward if I could help it. Fast forward to today, and I can’t imagine staying at any high-end Hilton location except with free night certificates, and the remaining Hilton points I have in my account feel like dead weight. What a difference a year can make!
This is probably targeted to people like myself who have many stays across many programs. It’s not going to change my staying habits, unless I start getting less benefits, or diluted benefits, in which case I’ll simply stay elsewhere.
Calling Marriott’s NUA’s a “confirmed upgrade award” in the same the same paragraph as Hyatt’s and Hilton’s is a gross error.
A suite that is confirmable at booking vs one that *might* clears 5 days out has completely different utility. You can plan around having a suite upgrade at Hyatt and now Hilton. That is not true at Marriott.
As a corp traveler, which is who this status is targeted (not the points community), if you’re willing to consider Hyatt, then this offering isn’t competitive. Hilton is aiming this at Marriott and has created something you could argue is better but far from a no brainer. In my opinion, Hilton needs a small spoonful of Hyatt’s “underdog so we must be better” humble soup and a willingness to make it clearly above titanium, not just slightly, given the enhanced requirements
My view’s a bit different — it’s that all the other hotel programs at present are insanely overvalued (from the point of view of the program, not us, of course). The notion that you can “enter” a program with no loyalty to the chain and have almost all your stays upgrade to valuable suites, with valuable benefits, simply by timing a bit of credit card spend (or even just having a credit card) seems overly generous to me.
As we’ve seen these programs become so much more generous over the last five to ten years (remember when points stays never counted towards status?) we’ve seen the real-world value of the benefits erode through exempt hotels, exempt brands, dollar limits, etc.
If Hilton wants to have a top elite level for customers that really, truly engage with them in a monetary way (that is, people who actually pay for hotel rooms) then I think that’s probably a good idea for them. As a non-brand-loyal person who almost never stays in chain hotels I don’t engage with these programs (and when I have dabbled, I’ve always been disappointed) but I’m sure there are plenty of mid-range Hilton-loyal customers who will be pushed into making two or three additional stays, or staying at a nicer (more expensive) property in order to make it over this threshold — and the ones who already meet this threshold will be less likely to move to another chain.
I disagree. I think hotels (and airlines) have realized the value of credit card spend – much higher margins on a customer who spends on their co-brand card and occasionally stays/flies on points (even while receiving elite benefits!) than an average customer who does not. These programs are very good at pricing their awards to maximize the revenue they earn on the activity a customer did to earn points while minimizing their cost on redemptions.
I agree with @LarryinNYC. The obvious goal of Hilton here is to get a bigger share of business travellers spend with “heads in beds”. I can see Hilton adding extra benefits to Diamond Reserve. Like guaranteed room awards, or even better award pricing or revenue stay pricing. I think you miss that the other chains will copy this. The giveaways on credit cards are going to get smaller.
I think that loyalty programs should, and do, recognize the value of indirect revenue through people collecting their points. But I also think that these companies will not be supportable if all direct cash transactions disappear. I also think that airline and hotel loyalty programs have fundamental differences in that the airlines are responsible for delivering (and paying for) the benefits they promise, while hotel loyalty programs promise benefits but require the hotels to deliver them, and there are usually one or more “changes” of ownership / management between those entities.
Hilton’s ill advised allowance of Diamond Status with a credit card led to this craziness. They flooded their elite ranks and diminished the program’s benefits by distributing (formally) top tier status to anyone with a pulse and a spare $550. Now they seemed to have tried to address this misstep, but instead have tripped and fallen.
They didn’t really want to offer suite upgrades. This is just a way to say they do it without actually having to do it for anyone but a small percentage of people that they probably upgrade proactively already.
We clearly aren’t the target audience for this, but I am not sure who is. If you are a business traveler who is restricted to Hilton, maybe this makes you feel slightly less angry about that restriction.
My employer restricts me to Hilton or Marriott unless I have a compelling reason to stay elsewhere, and Hilton is the preferred hotel for the place I fly for work most frequently, but I am a very casual business traveler so this has zero impact on me as I will never hit the spend or the nights on work travel.
Otherwise, I cannot see who this incentivizes. The casual business traveler has no extra incentive to pick Hilton and very few leisure travelers are spending $18k at a single hotel chain without using points.
I think they just wanted to have some new status for those who are mindless status chasers.
$18k / 80 nights = $225 per night. That’s who they’re incentivizing. Not the high spend per night traveler. 20 nights in a $2500 per night suite for $50k per year gets you Silver. And, it’s not enough to warrant Hilton’s invite-only status.
Right, but why would that 80 night, $225/night traveler pick Hilton vs. Marriott or Hyatt? Those same number of nights and spend gets you so much more with Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG.
Obviously, if you are locked into Hilton and don’t have the option to use a different brand (or if you are a true road warrior and will get status from more than one of these brands), this is positive for you, but why would most road warriors pick Hilton over Hyatt, Marriott, or IHG with this incentive if they have the choice?
Right, I think that’s the crux of their miss here. Sure, if you’re already locked into Hilton and hitting those numbers, this is a nice bump, but those people are already locked in, so it doesn’t help Hilton at all.
They’re clearly trying to incentivize a group of people, but who? Maybe they’re seeing attrition with their high spenders? Maybe they are hoping to convert a mid-spender to high? Maybe they are trying to pull people from Marriott? It just seems like in all of those cases, these incentives won’t be enough to move the needle.
Certainly this entire activity was data driven and I guess they’ll see what happens in the next 6-18 months and perhaps need to adjust the incentives. For now, this feels like a nothingburger for almost everyone.
Hilton is creating its version of Marriott Ambassador and is choosing to grant these benefits to only that elite level. Funding the benefits requires revenue. I’m not certain this is the best answer but something different was needed.
A handful of business travelers who are trapped in the Hilton system for some reason or another will achieve the top-level status. I would guess a number of business meeting organizers and corporate contract approvers will also be ‘gifted’ this level, but overall, it’s just a carrot for the rest of us and an IQ test to see how dumb we are that we would pursue it in place of other hotel programs in many cases. I like Hilton, but their points are so devalued it’s not worth it to me.
Bingo! Who, in their right mind would give Hilton that much business? One would get so much more from Hyatt!
If the requirements are shocking, then it’s clear the program is not tailored for you. Business travelers staying 40x a year will hit this easily and not have to get lumped into people who got their status from a credit card.
In that case, why should a business traveler bother going with Hilton when other programs provide more benefits more quickly at lower thresholds?
Right. If I’m a road warrior (with the caveat that in this hypothetical I’m a big city road warrior), I’m picking Hyatt 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Not only are the benefits at 60 nights arguably more compelling than Hilton Diamond Reserve, it’s also easier to get, particularly if I also have a World of Hyatt card that I’m using to make my bookings. Assuming the same number of nights and no credit card, I’d need to have an average nightly rate of $300 staying the same 60 nights to make Diamond Reserve. And that’s also assuming that those 60 nights are at least 40 stays for the Hilton side of the equation.
Hyatt is simpler with better benefits! Who is this for!
I agree with your sediment, but don’t think the Hyatt comparison works. Hilton really should be compared to Marriott or IHG, more similar sized programs. As someone who did the road warrior thing for a while, Hyatt just isn’t an option in many cities.
This is the real comparison – Hilton is not trying to compete with Hyatt, they are gunning for Marriott. I’ve traveled for work to smaller towns that often have a Hampton Inn (and Holiday Inn) but no Marriott options and the closest Hyatt is hours away. I wonder if this is partially a play to get those who already spend a good number of nights at smaller city Hiltons to then choose them when travel goes to a location with more options. A margin play to shift 5 – 20 nights a year in more competitive markets.
Bulkhead seat author ever a pretentious jerk. Maybe if you had a better attitude you’d be able to hold a job for more than 2 years at a time.
(comment removed by admin)
No lol, because I have enough of a life that I dont need to make traveling on other peoples’ money and looking down my nose at people my entire personality. I hope you can have that for yourself someday.
Just a reminder to keep the discourse civil and respectful, regardless of whether or not you agree with someone.
Three words not f worth it oops
This was meant as a way to separate real diamonds from fake ones (like me).
Diamond gets you the best room in the house. What’s the matter with you people?
Ha, good one