I Have Only 1000 Hilton Points Left

by Gary Leff

Today is the last day to book under the ‘old’ award chart, before the January 15 devaluation.

I made a bunch of bookings, some for myself, some for others’, and got my account down to almost zero before virtually every Hilton hotel in the world becomes a more expensive redemption.

Now, some of these bookings will inevitably be cancelled, so I’ll get some points back. And I’m not really a chicken little here. I earn and burn pretty much in concert, I want to earn points in one period and spend them in the same period so I’m not really effected by inflation. And I can earn more points pretty well as quickly as I want to. But to get the most out of the points I halready have banked, redeem away I did…

Y’all still have a few hours if you want to do the same.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Gary — (or anyone with a fast response)

    Hypothetically, if I make a booking in the next few hours (b4 jan. 15) for a hilton stay in July & then say in may I realize I need to cancel it…

    I would get a full refund of whatever Points redeemed today, yes?

  3. Thank You Gary!

    I figured as much, but am not all that familiar with Hilton in general.

    Now I got just about 3 hours to figure out how to potentially burn over 500K HHonors Points in 2010…

  5. hi, Gary, I am glad I was here few hours ago because I thought the deadline is TOMORROW!

    I was able to make some changes to my reservation!

    Thanks

  6. The changes are online and reveal the truly worst case for HHonors category shift.

    My initial look at California hotels shows 197 of 243 hotels increased in category.

    16 hotels increased two category levels.

    1 hotel went down 1 category.

  7. I can do you one better – just booked an AXON award at the Hilton Arc de Triomphe and now have a whopping 68 points left in my account.

  8. I did book a Cat 6 hotel for 6 nights at 175,000 to make sure to save 50,000 points after devaluation. However, here is an example of why I am actually looking forward to this change. All hotels now will be given at a discount for over 4 nights booking and in some cases it will be cheaper!

    Cat 4 Hotel right now is 30,000 points/night, no VIP discount. I need 6 nights = 180,000 points. It will become Category 5 Hotel but I can book at 26,250/night = 157,500 points! So in my case it is actually better to wait.

    Of course, I understand that this is not the case for most hotels, but I was very pleased about this as I was planning to stay in this Cat 4 (now soon to be Cat 5 hotel) for 6 or 7 nights anyway.

    Best,

    PedroNY

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