Many airline and hotel loyalty programs offer the opportunity to redeem miles or points for experiences. Those are sometimes run as auctions (which require an astronomical number of points) and other times as fixed-rate redemptions (which also require an astronomical number of points).
There are some exceptions. My wife and I enjoyed a fantastic experience in Times Square for New Year’s Eve last year which we booked with 25,000 United MileagePlus miles each. For that we got a four course dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak with wine pairing, an open bar, hors d’oeuvres, champagne toast, a $30 Uber voucher and the opportunity to watch the ball drop without having to be crammed into a pen for 7+ hours with no restroom access.
Choice Privileges sometimes offers noteworthy experience redemptions and another exception is Hilton Experiences. There are some substantial savings on offer through this program if you dig a little more deeply into it.
You can access Hilton Experiences here. On that landing page there’s a button to ‘Browse All’ and if you click on it you’ll see a bunch of experiences. At the time of publishing this post, there are 24 experiences ranging from Formula 1 experiences in Italy to dancing experiences in Colombia to golf experiences in Virginia to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade experiences in New York and more.
The thing is, ‘Browse All’ doesn’t mean that you’ll see all experiences bookable through Hilton Experiences. Instead, it returns a list of all current auction experiences. There are actually dozens more fixed-rate Hilton Experiences you can book, some of which provide excellent value for your points – you just need to do a little extra clicking.
At the top of the Hilton Experiences site, there’s a menu bar with a search tool, dropdown options for ‘Destinations’ and ‘Categories’, a link to Hilton’s partnership with Ticketmaster and more. To see the hidden experiences, you can filter by destinations or categories. I suspect for most people, destinations would be the one that makes more sense.
Don’t choose ‘All Destinations’ from that list as it’ll return the same list as the ‘Browse All’ button does. Instead, select a specific country from that list to see what’s available there. For example, in Australia you can redeem 25,000 points for a ‘Rejuvenating thermal stone massage in Surfers Paradise’ which lasts 60 minutes. Based on this brochure, that treatment normally costs AUD160 (~US$105). That means you’d be getting 0.42cpp (cents per point) of value which is a little less than our Reasonable Redemption Value.
Meanwhile, in Singapore you can redeem anything from 25,000-50,000 points for all kinds of dining experiences at different Hilton properties.
Some of the best value redemptions can be had in the Maldives. Due to you being a captive audience on whichever island/resort you’re visiting, transfers, food, drink and experiences can prove to be very expensive.
That cost can be mitigated by Hilton Experiences, but the value can vary widely. If you’re staying at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, the seaplane transfer costs $675 round trip per person. That can be paid for via Hilton Experiences by redeeming a whopping 269,500 points per person which equates to only 0.25cpp of value. We’re staying at that property soon, so it’s a shame that we can’t (or more like won’t) take advantage of that redemption.
However, if you’re staying at the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi, booking your shared yacht return transfer through Hilton Experiences can be a much, much better option. That’s because it only costs 100,000 Hilton Honors points versus the $1,020.80 cash price charged by the resort. You’d therefore be getting just over 1cpp of value which is excellent considering Hilton frequently sells its points for 0.5cpp. If you bought points during one of those sales (assuming you didn’t already have enough points), you’d only have to spend $500, so you’d be saving just over 50%.
Another experience that might be worth it is Cocktails Under the Sea at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island which includes light canapes and a glass of champagne or non-alcoholic mocktail. I believe they charge ~$125 for that experience normally, or you can redeem 25,000 Hilton points. That’s 0.5cpp of value which isn’t bad, so it could be worth it if you already have a stash of Hilton points to save your cash. It wouldn’t really be worth buying points for 0.5cpp to save 0.5cpp though because charging that experience to your room would give you the opportunity to earn even more Hilton points, especially if paid for with a Hilton credit card.
There are a few important things to be aware of with Hilton Experiences. One is that as of the time of publishing this post, experiences are valid for redemption through December 31, 2024. If you’re planning a trip for next year, you might therefore need to wait until January 1, 2025 and hope that they renew the experience you’re interested in.
Hilton Experiences also limits you to five total packages per year. I doubt many people will hit that limit, but if you do there could be an easy workaround. Hilton lets you transfer points for free, as well as pool points with other Hilton Honors members. If you max out your limit of five and have a partner or family member who’s willing to assist, you could transfer points to them and have them redeem points for the experience on their account. The terms do state though that, among other things, the winning bidder may not “otherwise transfer or dispose of an experience without obtaining Hilton Honors’ prior written consent.” The safest option would therefore be to redeem those additional experiences on the account of a person you’ll be traveling with.
Be sure to check the terms of the offers as well. Some packages are valid for only one person, while some others are valid for two.
Question
Have you ever gotten good value from Hilton Experiences? Are there any other hidden gems you can see that are currently bookable? Let us know in the comments below.
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Do you have a resource page that links to all of the airline and hotel experience redemptions? I am aware of Hilton, Marriott and now Qatar. I am wondering which airline or hotel programs have these; when they are a good value and how often to check for updates. Is this something you look at as part of your trip planning to see if there is anything of value or interest for you during your time at a given destination? Or does it sometimes make sense to add on a destination to a trip in order to take advantage of a unique experience.
[…] relation to Pepper Rewards) over at Frequent Miler I changed my tune and have bookmarked the site. Hilton Experiences might be a better deal than you thought. I see a beachfront romantic candle-lit dinner in a private tent at the Hua Hin Hilton Resort and […]
I think the easier way to see these is to just select ‘Destinations > All Destinations’ and then just use the filter on the left and choose ‘Auction Type > Redemptions’.
I’m also staying at the Conrad Maldives soon! The experiences there aren’t super great value but agree if you have a lot of points, could be worth it. I hope to see your review before we go out there!
hope they have done something about the thoroughly bleached reef
I don’t plan on snorkeling at the house reef. I’ll be diving nearby.
Great!! You sound like you know what you’re doing!!
Didn’t do Hilton but have done two with Marriott (pre pandemic) and they were worth it!
The always available ones are weak. I spent around 200,000 hilton points for two night hotel, plus tickets for two to the Ryder cup in Rome last year. The tickets weren’t really VIP, it had access to some garden area where you got 3 beers and one portion of food. But the hotel was worth it.
Yes, I got excited by the post. I can’t do the Maldives, but the Maldives stuff piqued my interest. But there was very little else offered under Music, Culture, or Dining. And what little there was didn’t interest me at all.