The Waldorf Astoria New York City first opened in 1931 and immediately set a new US standard for luxury, later serving as the backdrop for US presidents’ birthdays, engagement parties for royalty, and numerous Hollywood movies. After almost 100 years in business, the Waldorf was starting to show its age, and it closed in 2017 for a top-to-bottom renovation. After almost eight years and $1 billion spent, the facelift is done and the hotel just reopened, complete with 375 rooms, a 30,000 square-foot spa, and a two-story restaurant.
2025 award bookings were a hot item last year when Hilton first started accepting them; standard awards at the hotel are pretty much booked solid for the remainder of 2025. However, Hilton recently dropped a ton of availability for 2026. Standard awards are available almost every day between January and May, including most 5-night blocks (meaning it will work for 5th-night free stays).
You can view award availability here, with the search being set for one night using flexible dates. At the time of writing this, effectively the first five months of 2026 are wide open for 150,000 points per night:
This could be a great use of Hilton free night certificates earned from the Hilton Aspire or Surpass credit cards. If you don’t have many free night certificates and/or want to stay a little longer, Hilton offers the 5th night free on award stays for anyone with Silver status or higher. When booking in five-night increments, that reduces the 150,000 points per night cost to an average of 120,000 points per night…pretty good for a property that routinely costs $1200-1500+ per night in cash.
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I have October booked on a FNC will let you know how it is!
…”the hotel just reopened, complete with 375 rooms”
Before the renovation the Hotel had 1,400 rooms. Now it has the 375 rooms and 375 private residences (condos.)
I’ll admit this seems to be a decent redemption at minimum 2cpp if transferring from MR at 1:2 to Hilton. But I for some reason can never seem to be able to pull the trigger on spending so much on one hotel… especially for one in NYC.
I’m always comparing in my head, “well I can get a First Class ANA flight to Japan for 85k points, or business for 60k…”. So I’d much rather spend a night sleeping on a First Class seat to Asia than spend it on a hotel room in NYC. 5 nights, even with 5th night free, would be 300k MR, which I’d rather spend on RT with ANA FC, then 3 nights at some Cat 8 or 5-6 nights at some Cat 5-6.
Obviously personal preference! Great post