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It’s the season to be generous in the Hotel Loyalty stakes. Hilton appears to have taken a leaf out of Hyatt’s book and announced (sort of) that they’re willing to match status from other hotel loyalty programs – and you don’t even need to have made any stays with that program.
The Hilton HHonors representative on FlyerTalk posted this message yesterday:
We’re winding down for the Thanksgiving holiday and, as a heads up, I will be out of the office until Monday, but I wanted to let you know about our status match program…
We’ve been receiving a number of requests and yes, we do match status from other programs and we’d love to be your travel home.
We are matching status for 2016. To make sure you’re all set for the year, please submit your request by January 11, 2016. You’ll enjoy that status through March 2017.
All you need is something that shows your elite tier in another program and an HHonors number.
Email us at HHonorMyStatus@hilton.com and we’ll help get you started.
Please note it may take a couple of days to process given the Thanksgiving holiday. We promise to process requests as quickly as possible and any request submitted prior to January 11, 2016, will be processed in time to enjoy your new status for the entire year.
It would seem that Hilton doesn’t want to be left out of the rush to snap up disenchanted elites from elsewhere đŸ™‚
With the Hyatt status match offer, applicants had to show at least one stay with their current loyalty program, but there’s no mention of a similar requirement with the Hilton – and that could lead this to be an even more useful offer than the one Hyatt announced last week.
Conrad Maldives Rangali Island – image courtesy of Rohan Vyas via Flickr
What you need to know about Hilton Status
The Hilton HHonors loyalty system is a bit of an oddity in that the most useful status to have is their mid-tier Hilton HHonors Gold status. There really aren’t too many extra perks that you get for pushing on to their top-tier Diamond status.
The only discernible differences between the Hilton HHonors Gold and Diamond tiers are the following:
- 25% more Hilton HHonors points earned on stays.
- Hilton HHonors Diamond gets Executive Floor Lounge Access
- Hilton HHonors Diamond status holders have a better chance at room upgrades
- Hilton HHonors Diamond status holders get an extra 1,000 HHonors Bonus Points per stay at Hilton Grand Vacations properties.
That’s pretty much it.
That’s not a lot extra for the effort and cost of having to do 10 more stays, stay 20 more nights or earn 45,000 more Hilton HHonors base points and that’s why Hilton HHonors Diamond status isn’t exactly coveted in the miles & points game.
The biggest benefit of having Hilton HHonors status is the free breakfast benefit and you get that at the Gold status level.
Why could this status offer be better than the Hyatt offer?
Hyatt have some truly fantastic hotels around the world but their biggest issue is that they simply don’t have that many hotels in total. They have some very large gaps in their portfolio and that can make it hard to stay loyal to the Gold Passport program when your travels (for work or pleasure) take you to various parts of the world without a Hyatt property.
There’s no such issue with Hilton. Hiltons are everywhere (as of March 2014, Hilton brands encompass 4,112 hotels with over 680,117 rooms in 91 countries) so, if you’re happy with what they offer, it’s very easy to keep staying at their properties and maintain status that you’re gifted through a status match.
On top of that, this status match should be a lot easier for most people.
First and foremost, as I highlighted earlier, you don’t appear to need to show that you’ve made any stays with the hotel system that you’re matching from – and that means that you’ll be able to match any status you’ve been given courtesy of a credit card to Hilton HHonors even if you’ve never stayed at that chain.
As most credit cards that bestow hotel status give you mid-tier status you should be able to match any of those statuses to Hilton Gold which, as I’ve already established, is the sweet spot in the Hilton HHonors system.
Here are a few examples:
- Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Card holders automatically get Club Carlson Gold Status
- IHG Rewards Select Mastercard holders automatically get IHG Platinum status
- The Hyatt Visa signature card from Chase bestows Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status
- The SPG Amex card bestows SPG Gold status after $30,000 in spend in a calendar year
- The Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit card bestows Gold status in the first year.
If you have the American Express Platinum card you already get Hilton HHonors Gold status as a benefit with that card so this status match probably isn’t all that useful to you.
Overall
Hilton HHonors Gold status is definitely a useful status to have because you never know when you’re going to need it. The free breakfast benefit can save you quite a bit of money on a trip and, with Hilton properties just about everywhere, there’s a reasonably good chance that you’ll find yourself booking into one sooner rather than later.
Most people reading this blog will probably have at least one of the credit cards I mentioned above so you should be clear to status match over to Hilton right away and, as far as I can see, there really isn’t any downside.
The notion that “there really aren’t too many extra perks that you get for pushing on to [HHonors] top-tier Diamond status” is bogus and indicates that you should either do your homework or avoid writing about matters that you are not qualified to write about. The claim that “HH Diamond is only marginally better than the HH Gold”, which is often heard in the travel blogosphere echo chamber is antiquated. Perhaps as a result of hearing that claim repeatedly HHonors began some 5 years putting real distance between their Gold and Diamond levels, first with the introduction of suite upgrades as a Diamond but not Gold perk.
If one’s notion of good elite benefits is limited to free continental breakfast and free wifi, which I take for granted as a HH Diamond, then I can see how such a person might feel that HH Gold is about as useful as HH Diamond. However, for savvy and discriminating travelers, suite upgrades and the ability to “force” standard revenue or award room availability at overbooked properties, which HH Diamonds can do when the chips are down through “HH Diamond Force”, are infinitely more valuable benefits. Because you may not be familiar with “HH Diamond Force”, please visit the following link for jaw-dropping demo of what it is:
https://milepoint.com/forums/threads/hhonors-diamond-force-even-for-award-stays-is-alive-and-well-and-better-than-ever.114710/
Had you done your homework, would have included in your list of differences between HH Gold and Diamond benefits:
a) Suite upgrades are not a written HH Gold benefit
b) HH Diamonds have access to premium wi-fi whereas HH Golds get on standard wi-fi
c) HH Diamond Force, a powerful perk that can save the day, is not available to HH Golds.
Anyone who repeats the claim that “HH Diamond is only marginally better than the HH Gold” cannot and should not be taken seriously because they either have no idea what they are talking about and are not providing their readers with all the info that they need to make an informed decision about which loyalty program may be suitable for their particular situation…
Besides, if the only benefit you care about is free breakfast, you would be better off with a Hyatt GP Diamond status because the claim out there is that Hyatt offers their Diamonds a free FULL breakfast rather than continental breakfast, which HHonors offers to their Golds and Diamonds. From that angle, this whole post is pointless since the argument should be reverse and be that Hyatt Diamond status match would be better because one would get free FULL breakfast!
Firstly thanks for your comment and the detail you added – I’m sure some people will find it useful. Secondly, the blog is my opinion (and one you’re more than welcome to disagree with) and I stand by my belief that Hilton Diamond isn’t that much better than Hilton Gold for most travelers. You may well get great value out of the benefits you list out but I don’t believe that most travelers will. Do you think that most, non business travellers, care about the difference between premium wifi and standard wifi? How often do you think the “HH Diamond Force” perk will be used by the non-business traveler? And, as far as upgrades go, I’m delighted that you seem to get them regularly enough to consider them a great perk but most people I know who have (or have had) Hilton Diamond status don’t seem to share your success.
Anyway, that’s more than enough from me as I’m pretty sure I’m just feeding the fire here. I’ve enjoyed your comments on other blogs who have dared to disagree with your love of HHonors Diamond but it’s nice to see someone with a passion for a loyalty program. Safe travels and may your suite upgrade success at Hilton long continue.
One’s Opinions can be wrong, especially when they are not supported by empirical evidence or facts. If full breakfast is one’s preferred perk, one would be better off getting a HGP Diamond status and the free FULL breakfast that comes with it. It is simply not correct to push to notion that HH Diamond and Gold levels are not too different when that’s based simply on your picking and choosing perks that you consider important and ignores many others that do, in fact. differentiate the two levels. Since the contention is that the levels are not different, a valid demonstration of the claim would have to compare all the perks and not just the one that you consider important, since others may not share your preference (I am often sound asleep at breakfast time!).
As for suites upgrades, it has always been a mystery to me when I hear HH Diamonds claiming that they have never gotten upgraded once or that they have a poor success rate. I suspect that they probably simply expect that such upgrades will come automatically, but that’s not how complimentary suite upgrades are supposed to work. A HH Diamond will ALWAYS be offered an upgrade to the executive floor, which is usually the cue that one should make a pitch for suite upgrade instead. With that simple formula, I have cleared better than 85% of my suite upgrades since 2012, including 12 of 12 or 100% last year: https://milepoint.com/forums/threads/diamond-suite-upgrade-reports.67743/page-2#post-2513107
Glad to hear that you have read some of my comments elsewhere. I will return the favor and start visiting and commenting here as well đŸ™‚
G’day!