Big SLH Redemption: 130K Hilton points for a ~$4,500/nt ranch in Montana

I just redeemed Hilton points for a 5-night stay that would have run $23,833.60 if I were paying the cash rate. I don’t know exactly what to expect when we get to the RiverView Ranch Retreat & Western Adventures in Alberton, Montana, but reviews are excellent and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use points to book a stay at a place that I wouldn’t dream of visiting were it not for award travel.

A member of our Frequent Miler Insiders started a conversation thread in our Facebook group this morning highlighting what appears to be an amazing value: the all-inclusive RiverView Ranch Retreat & Western Adventures in Alberton, Montana is a Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) property that is now bookable via the Hilton Honors program. The entire resort has just nine rooms. Award nights seem to run 130,000 points per night (and remember that it is possible to get the 5th night free with Hilton, effectively paying 104,000 points per night for a 5-night stay).

That represents incredible value versus the cash rates, which run more than $4,766 per night after taxes & fees. This was the total for 5 nights in the “King Lakefront Suite” (which accommodates a family of four) for a different set of dates that had the identical cash rate to the nights I booked.

Instead, we used 520,000 Hilton Honors points for the stay. For those into calculating cents per point, that’s 4.5c per Hilton point as compared to the cash rate, which is well over our Reasonable Redemption Value of 0.48c per Hilton point :-).

It’s worth noting that the cash rate for all of the room types appears to be the same, but the King Lakefront Suite is the only one bookable for the Standard Room Reward rate of 130,000 points per night, so that’s the room you need to find available to book for a reasonable number of points. Alternatively, you can use Hilton Free Night Certificates. This place would be a monster value for those certs.

Before I get into the resort though, I want to highlight the highly-punitive cancellation policy, which notes a 20% penalty of the total stay if cancelled by 2pm local time 61 or more days prior to arrival or 100% of your stay if cancelled within 60 days of arrival.

I suppose that means that I’ll lose more than 100,000 points if I cancel at least 61 days in advance (the terms note the percentage of the total stay, which I’d argue is of the points used for the stay, but be aware that Marriott is known to return points and charge based on the cash rate of the property, which would be an exorbitant amount of money in this case. That said, I’d go on record with my opinion that it would be unreasonable  to do that here based on the verbiage).

We didn’t have enough Hilton points to cover this stay. I ordinarily advocate for purchasing Hilton Honors points rather than transferring from Membership Rewards since Hilton frequently (including through September 24th) offers points for sale for 0.5c per point. However, each member can only buy up to a maximum of 470,000 points in the current sale (for $2,350). Since Hilton allows points pooling with up to 10 people, we could nonetheless buy the 520,000 points required for this stay for a total of $2,600 and pool the points together, which would certainly make for a nice savings over the $23,800+ cash rate.

However, given the current 30% point transfer bonus from Membership Rewards and the 250K Membership Rewards points I’ll have coming over the next couple of months, I decided to go ahead and transfer points from Amex. Given the transfer bonus, you’d need 200,000 Amex Membership Rewards points to end up with the 520,000 points necessary for a 5-night stay. That’s certainly not cheap, but at 40K Amex points per night for a stay with a cash rate of about $4800 per night with taxes & fees, it doesn’t seem unreasonable. That said, since the 200,000 points are essentially saving me the $2,600 that I could have spent buying Hilton points, I’m really only getting 1.3c per Amex point in value even though the hotel would cost far more to book with cash. That’s on the low end of what I’d consider a reasonable redemption of Membership Rewards points, but given that we’ve been replacing Amex points at a decent clip and most of our 2025 travel is set, I was willing to give this a whirl.

So what is it that you get for 520,000 points or almost $24,000?

Stays appear to include all meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). There are a number of dining options, but here are the descriptions of a couple of them:

Guests will experience extraordinary meals- including snacks and packed lunches. Our Sommelier will be pleased to recommend a wine pairing from our complimentary selection of premium house wines and beers. Indulge in our award-winning reserve cellar of premium vintages- premium wines at additional cost. Hearty family-style feasts and mouthwatering multi-course wine pairing experiences await in our magnificent Lodge Great Room using farm-to-table ingredients.

Enjoy an authentic outdoor chuck wagon dinner where the finest offerings are prepared before your eyes. Whether it is Angus prime steak and ribs to bison and the fresh trout you just caught- we assure it will be cooked to your liking. Picture a lake-side dinner with fresh corn and local vegetables grilled over a BBQ flame- scrumptious classics like baked beans- skillet potatoes- and fresh garden salads. You will not walk away with an empty stomach.

There are also numerous activities, which appear to be included such as fishing, horseback riding, archery, paintball, jet skis, whitewater rafting, ATV rides, and a lot more. Early reviews indicate that there are so many activities that you can’t “do it all” within the space of a few days.

Speaking of early reviews, they look excellent overall both on Google and TripAdvisor. I’m somewhat surprised by one negative review that notes an injury/scary experience with horseback riding mostly because management appears to have neither addressed the situation during the stay nor have they responded to the TripAdvisor review, but things look positive overall (and even that reviewer notes that the review would have been very positive were it not for that experience and lack of response).

The setting looks beautiful and according to Google Maps it appears to be a reasonable drive (approx 2.5hrs) from Glacier National Park, so we’ll probably look to combine this stay with a road trip to explore places further afield after our stay. For those curious, Missoula is the nearest airport (according to the hotel website, it’s about a 20-minute drive from the hotel).

Overall, I think it’s pretty exciting that there’s a Hilton redemption within the United States that yields such incredible value as compared to the cash rate. As I noted above, since it is currently possible to buy the points for a little more than 10% of the cash rate, it’s hard to say that this is a true 4.5c per point redemption. On the other hand, I ultimately decided to book because this is exactly the type of situation for which I collect points: to get experiences that I’d never otherwise consider with cash. I’m not totally sold that this is a perfect fit for us since my family lives in the countryside where these types of activities are less “exotic” than they would be for someone who lives in a city, but I’m nonetheless really excited to try out something that we wouldn’t otherwise consider if not for the opportunities opened by collecting miles and points.

Thanks be to Brendan in our Facebook group for a great find!

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