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Back in February, Hilton announced that it was buying Graduate Hotels, a relatively small hotel chain with attractive-looking properties in many large university towns and cities.
There’s more good news on that front as Hilton has now incorporated the brand into the Hilton Honors loyalty program which means you can now earn and redeem points on stays at Graduate Hotels properties, receive elite status benefits, etc.
I’ve long been interested in staying at Graduate Hotels properties, but the cash pricing has never worked out in the past versus our other hotel booking options. Now that they’re bookable with Hilton Honors points, there’ll hopefully be some good value opportunities for our future travel to the 34 cities where Graduate has a presence.
Seeing as Hilton Honors uses dynamic pricing on award nights, the number of points required for a stay can vary greatly depending on where and when you’re staying. For example, Graduate Hotels Nashville costs 80,000 points per night on the random midweek dates I checked, with cash prices at ~$500 when including taxes and fees.
As another example, on some dates I searched for Graduate Hotels Iowa City, there were award nights bookable from only 34,000 points per night. However, non-refundable cash rates were also available for as low as $117 before taxes and fees, so redeeming points isn’t necessarily a no-brainer versus paying cash.
Seeing as these properties can be booked with points, you can take advantage of Hilton’s 5th night free benefit on award stays. Some Graduate Hotels locations charge a resort fee, but that’s waived on award stays. For paid stays you’ll earn 10 points per dollar which is in line with the majority of their brands.
Those with status in the Hilton Honors program will also receive their regular benefits on stays at Graduate properties. In the US, that means a food and beverage credit for those with Gold or Diamond status; for their UK properties you’ll get complimentary breakfast. You’ll also be eligible for other status benefits like room upgrades, but it remains to be seen how generous Graduate properties are with those.
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With a Graduate hotel walkably close to my parents’ senior care facility, it is taking a lot of will power to not transfer over some MRs during the transfer boost to use for a Graduate stay.
I noticed a Graduate property on the Hilton site the other day when looking for a room near Berkeley for my son’s graduation next May. I thought maybe I had just overlooked it before. The cash price for rooms on graduation weekend is over $600 a night and I was able to book 2 nights for 60K Hhonors points a night. The hotel is right by the campus and easy walking distance to the ceremonies so this a big win!
Kudos to Hilton. While Graduate isn’t the greatest (their initial concept was redeveloping old and distressed hotels) and some of their properties don’t even have a breakfast restaurant, on the whole it gives Hilton customers a lot of options in markets where the only chain hotels are a Best Western, Holiday Inn and Courtyard. Hyatt sure screwed up. Graduate would have been a great addition to Hyatt under JdV or Unbound. Hyatt should have also bought Radisson’s USA brands. It looks like the next obvious acquisition is Omni.
OMNI feels like a natural fit for Hyatt, based on only a couple stays with them.
Loews and Grand America are other possibilities. Outrigger would be a good fit too, given Hyatt’s focus on beach resorts and all-inclusives. It’s too bad. Graduate would have given Hyatt’s domestic USA footprint a huge boost.
I could see Loews fitting in well with Hyatt. They seem to overlap for almost every city so not sure it gives them much of a boost on footprint, but it would give some higher end and resort options in areas Hyatt may only have more limited service properties. Graduate hotels would have been better for that but Loews could fit in as boutique properties.
Hyatt should have bought SPG, 6 years later I still haven’t made pace with the Marriott acquisition. Worst thing ever to happen in the world of hotel rewards in the last decade.
It’s easy to look back at SPG as the good old days, but let’s not forget that Starwood wasn’t that great. Sure, it had St. Regis and Luxury Collection. And sure it had Westin. But it also had Sheraton, which was (and remains to this day) a tired brand with no consistent identity or brand positioning. Even some of the Westins under Starwood were pretty hit-and-miss. I agree that Starwood’s SPG program was better. But the overall standard portfolio-wide across all brands wasn’t much better than today.
The Marriott acquisition of Starwood should have been blocked on antitrust grounds. But Arne Sorenson played to the Democrats and then you had the Marriott family and Mitt Romney, an on-again, off-again Marriott board, buying it goodwill with Republicans.
I’m excited for this pickup – while it’s niche the focus on college towns with prime locations close to university campuses will make Hilton more appealing to those who follow college sports. Most of the time it might just be nice to get a free breakfast and use up a $50 quarterly Surpass credit on a paid night, but I could see the capped points pricing potentially working out to good value during major events (like UM vs Ohio St in Ann Arbor).
Will be interesting to see the mix of properties. For the three I’m most familiar with:
I’m personally very excited about the Tucson hotel, rates have seemed pretty reasonable prior to the Hilton integration and I almost stayed there a few weeks ago (got a good AAA rate at the Loews Ventana Canyon instead). It has an awesome looking rooftop pool with pretty much unobstructed views to the North since it was built in an infill area with residential housing past it. And again new construction in a really good location – most hotels in town are older business ones and you roll the dice on if they’ve been maintained well or not.