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Loyalty programs change all the time and barely a month goes by without some airline or hotel updating or changing the features of its loyalty program. The latest is Hilton Honors, which announced a slew of changes to its program effective February 1, 2017. Like all changes it has some good points and some bad points, so here is a rundown of some of the changes being brought in by Hilton.
Name Change to Hilton Honors
The first change comes to the name; the program is now called the Hilton Honors, dropping the second H which stood for Hilton has been dropped. Hilton Honors instead of Hilton HHonors; we like that change.
You Can Pool Your Points
You will be able to share points with family members and friends alike. The new system will allow you to share your points with up to 10 members. Individually, you can share up to 500K points per year, and have up to two million points shared with you.
Mixed Cash & Points Redemptions
Hilton has decided to modify its current points and cash implementation. The new system can be used when any standard room rate is available; you will then be able to make a cash and points purchase. At this point Hilton has not given out too many details on exactly how this new system will work, other than you can do a sliding adjustment of how many points and how much cash you want to use. Great for flexibility, but likely going to make it harder to receive any special value from Hilton Honors points.
As part of the introduction of the points and cash redemptions, Hilton is scrapping their award chart and bringing in a new valuation. Luckily there has been no significant devaluation, and category 10 properties will still set you back 95,000 points.
Keep Your Diamond Status for a Year
This is going to be a great perk especially for members who have their regular stay patterns interrupted by unforeseen circumstances. As a one-time perk, you will be able to extend your status for an extra year. The offer will be open to those who have maintained Diamond for at least three years and have accrued 250 Elite qualifying nights or 500,000 base points.
Use Your Points for Amazon Purchases
Thanks to a tie-in with Amazon, you will be able to use your points towards Amazon purchases. At this point, the valuation of Hilton points with Amazon has not been disclosed.
Conclusion
The changes to the Hilton Honors Program overall don't seem horrific, but it seems like they're gearing towards the direction of a fixed-value for their points. Introducing points and cash awards as well as revamping valuations may end up giving a better value overall; time will tell. Extending Diamond status for a year should prove quite handy to some of their most loyal members; it is nice to see some recognition that life happens.
Source: One Mile at a Time/Ben
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I like the pooling of points for sure. I have been trying to build back up my points with Hilton, but it has been slow going. Being able to pool together will be great!
At least it’s not a huge deval.
As a Hilton Team Member i.e. employee, I got a lot of value out of the Hilton program before but now with these added perks and the employee perks I’ve had for awhile, it’s going to be even harder to build up my loyalty accounts in SPG and Hyatt since Hilton treats me so well. Even though Hilton’s footprint is huge, sometimes I want to stay at a Hyatt or an SPG or a Marriott!
In my mind, the biggest issue is the removal of actual standard room award charts which define prices. Although Hilton claims the most expensive properties will stay at 95k per night, that action does not inspire confidence.
Sitting on a ton of Honor points. Better book something soon….
A clever way for Hilton to get free press coverage, no?
I agree the name change is worth it. I also like the pooling and sharing of points. Interested to see how the point value breaks down.
I don’t really care about the H – I care about the perks of the program
LOL, agreed 🙂
I’m waiting for the details of points and cash redemptions. Before this option was not always available.
The pool of miles also with friends is not bad too.
With the Marriott and SPG buyout, Hilton has one less of a reason to be competitive. Let’s hope that the additional changes later this year would be positive to the customers instead of fattening up exec’s pockets.
Honestly the name change I’m glad. The other name was dumb imo. I also like the fact that pooling is possible but otherwise still a very meh program.
Like the perk of being able to extend diamond status by one more year
I like the pooling option. Wonder if the cash + points option is being devalued.
Double H was pretty silly.
I love the name change. Saying “H-Honor” just never felt natural. But even more, I love the amazon.com component as well as the point pooling. Way to go, Hilton!
I like the name change and the ability to pool points, not sure about the mixed point/mile redemptions.
Hope the name change is not the only thing and it will bring out better things in the future.
Yep this is another devaluation in my mind.
There are a lot of changes, not just in the name.
Unfortunately I don’t think this is a good change. While the points price caps that related the old categories are still there for now, I’m sure they will be gone by this time next year and they will have moved purely to a room price based redemption like Accor. I’m sure the cash value assigned to points for the new version of points plus cash will be the same poor value as currently is offered for Hilton Premium Room Rewards.
hope to see something good coming out of it
Best of all is a possibility to combine points, though I am not great fan of HH cause I always had problem to redeem my points
I like the name change and the ability to pool points together.
The pooling option sounds quite handy for families to go on vacation together.
The name change is a good thing.
I like the changes. It was nice to see that I could use them on Amazon.com but on certain things? ugh. I’m happy they are changing because I hadn’t really used them that much since it took a huge amount of points to do anything. I hope this helps me in the long run on getting rooms, etc. I agree with the extra H. Who thought of that? Can we shorten it to HH? or has someone already taken that? lol!
I always thought the extra H was redundant. Hopefully the lack of award categories won’t turn out to be a bad thing.
Hilton HHonors was an oxymoron, glad to see it gone.
I am hoping for the best, however I cannot remember any award program changes overall which were better for the account holder.
Wyndham?
Well, that’s quite a change! I’m impressed. Not really.