Hilton has made three changes to their loyalty program and all of them are positive. Most guests won’t be affected by these changes, but those that are will appreciate the extra points that they’ll earn.
1) Unlimited Base Points
In the past, you could earn a maximum of 100,000 base points per stay. That’s $10,000 of spend at most of their brands seeing as they earn 10 points per dollar, although it would’ve been $20,000 of spend at their Home2 Suites and Tru brands as they only award 5 points per dollar.
They’ve removed that 100,000 base points limit, so you can now earn unlimited base points. Like I mentioned earlier, this change (and the others) are unlikely to affect many people, but it’ll be good for people that stay at luxury properties or who have (very) extended stays somewhere.
2) Earn Base Points On Up To Four Rooms
If you travel with family or colleagues who don’t care about points, this change will be a nice little earner. Hilton would previously only award points for up to two rooms booked under your account, but you can now earn base points on up to four rooms.
In addition to the base points, if you have Silver, Gold or Diamond status then you’ll earn tier bonuses of 20%, 80% or 100% respectively on all four rooms. You’ll only earn bonus points for one room when it comes to quarterly promotions though, while you’ll also earn elite night credits on only one room.
With regards to elite benefits, you’ll only eligible to get those for one room, so you can’t book four rooms under one person that has Gold status and expect all four rooms to get free breakfast at a Hilton. Some properties might be generous and allow that, but the terms state that you shouldn’t expect to receive any benefits on additional rooms.
3) All Brands Will Earn Points For Incidental Spending
Some of Hilton’s brands – Home2 Suites, Homewood Suites, Hampton Inn and Tru – used to award points for the room rate but not incidental folio charges like food and beverages bought from the pantry. With this change, you’ll now earn points on all charges to your folio, not just the room rate.
This one is actually a positive change for me as it means we’ll earn points when having to pay pet fees at properties that charge them. While we won’t be racking up the points from this change, it’ll be nice to earn points on all spend.
Final Thoughts
These are all seemingly common sense changes that likely aren’t going to cost Hilton much, but which will probably generate goodwill from the minority of guests that this does benefit. It feels like we all too frequently cover devaluations of hotel loyalty programs, so it’s nice to be able to publish good news, even if they’re not changes that everyone is affected by.
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Will I earn points on resort, parking, etc fees?
I think you already do if they’re charged to your room.