United, American, and Hilton all suffered recent data breaches. Indeed, Hilton points have been among the most available for sale on the DarkNet. Starwood was hacked, too.
Hilton accounts have long used 4-digit PIN numbers. That’s not a lot of unique combinations, and Hilton has decided that’s not secure enough.
Three weeks ago Hilton reached out yesterday to let me know that they’re moving to passwords.. At the time they offered 1000 points to get you to update your password. But their IT wasn’t ready for their announced changes. And they followed up with a hold off.
Indeed, about a week ago I checked in and they let me know they were still working on things.
Well, apparently they’re ready to go.
HHonors members will need to update their passwords by April 1. As of this date, members will be required to create a new password upon login as Hilton will no longer accept PINs. Since we know this can be a hassle for our members, and to encourage adoption of this new login procedure, we are offering an incentive of 1,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points if members update their passwords by March 25, 2015.
So 1000 free points for updating a password on your Hilton account by March 25. Starting April 1 PINs will no longer work.
And this time they pinky swear they’re ready!
Is there a specific landing page we need to go to? Or just log in as normal via the HH website?
Thank you
I just logged on with my old PIN and was not asked to change anything …
@colleen @Frank: One needs to actually navigate to the change password tab on your HHonnors account page. One must do this proactively, you will not be prompted at log in.
*HHonors
I thought when this was first announced, there was a special link for it. Is that gone?
wasn’t ever a special link for this
I just called Hhonors and was told to wait for their email regarding this.
Just in time! My HH points expire from non-activity next week!
Gary, please be precise in what we need to do. Thank you!
The T&C are here: http://hhonors3.hilton.com/en/policy/hhonors-security-update-faqs.html
See especially # 3 & 13 – Hurry! The offer expires on March 25, 2015.
I changed my HHonors password a day or two ago in response to the sign-in message about this. Now I learn that it will take SIX to EIGHT weeks before we get the 1,000 points. Ugh!