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REGISTER NOW: Hilton launches new ‘double or triple points’ promotion

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.

Click here for our article on Hilton’s ‘Points Plus’ promotion which runs from 1st January to 1st May 2024. You can register for the offer by clicking here.

Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here to buy.

Keep up to date with new hotel offers by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

I wrote a piece yesterday about the new ‘points pooling’ feature with Hilton Honors.  Today I want to focus on the new Hilton Summer promotion – which offers double or triple base points – which has just opened for registration.

To give Hilton credit, it is very straightforward with minimal small print:

You will earn DOUBLE Hilton Honors base points for every stay between 1st May and 31st August.  Diamond members will receive TRIPLE base points.

You can register here.

Hilton_Honors_Logo_K

There is no small print except that you need to register in advance via the Hilton website:

There is no minimum stay requirement

Existing bookings still count

All Hilton Family properties (Hilton, Hampton, Curio, Waldorf-Astoria, Conrad etc) are taking part – there is no list of non-participating hotels – except for Hampton properties in China

You can earn the bonus on two rooms per night, as long as both rooms are booked in your name and the bills are merged together (this is important) so that you only pay one bill.

The full rules for the promotion can be read here.

Should you get a Diamond status match for triple points?

If you have top tier status with another hotel programme, Hilton Honors will give you a 90 day free trial of Hilton Diamond status. 

You need to supply a screenshot showing your top tier status in another programme plus a screenshot showing a paid stay in the previous 12 months.

Gold status matches are also available if you have mid-tier status with another scheme.

If you complete eight stays (note it is stays, not nights) during the 90 days you will keep your Diamond status until 31st March 2019.  If you only manage four stays you will receive Gold status until 31st March 2019.

Even if you only had a couple of Hilton stays planned this Summer, you might want to request a Diamond match.  You would ensure Diamond benefits on those stays and you would receive triple points instead of double points.

The downside is that you may lock yourself out of a future Hilton Diamond match.  If the hotels you are visiting are unlikely to give you much for your Diamond status (ie they have no lounge so you don’t get anything from the ‘guaranteed lounge access’ benefit) you may want to hold back.  You may get a better deal by taking the Diamond status match later, assuming Hilton continues to offer it.  You need to make your own call here.

Conclusion

‘Double or triple base points’ is a decent offer and you should make sure you register here if you have any Hilton stays coming up over the next three months.

Whether you move your business to Hilton may depend on your new IHG Accelerate target – see my other article today for details on that.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (April 2024)

There are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Hilton Honors Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and MeliaRewards Gold status.  We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Did you know that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are a great way of earning Hilton Honors points? Two Virgin Points can be converted into three Hilton Honors points. The Virgin Atlantic cards are the only Visa or Mastercard products in the UK which can indirectly earn Hilton Honors points. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with:

and for small business owners:

The conversion rate from American Express to Hilton points is 1:2.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Hilton Honors points. 

(Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Category

Hilton Honors

Comments (125)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Neil says:
    28 Apr28 April 05:23

    If you don’t mind moving hotels during a 2 night visit to many major towns / cities, these can (without too much pain) become two stays.

    Birmingham Hampton Broad Street and Hilton Garden 150m apart, Bournemouth Hamton and Hilton directly next door, Hampton and Hilton in York less than half a mile apart, loads in London I’m sure…

    N

    • RJJ says:
      28 Apr28 April 12:46

      I did the Birmingham hop for 3 nights when the 5000/stay VISA offer was on. The two hotels are literally across the road from each other. I found the HGI much nicer than the Hampton.

    • Adam says:
      28 Apr28 April 17:04

      And for those of a masochistic bent, Woking Doubletree is to be joined by Woking Hilton in a couple of years. Handy for … um …

  • Neil says:
    28 Apr28 April 05:26

    That was Bournemouth Hampton obviously… Links not working as of now BTW.

  • Mycity says:
    28 Apr28 April 05:40

    O/T Sorry, due to fly Man to MCO this morning at 10.30am, got up to find an email giving a scheduled flight time change to noon. Looking at arrivals seems the inbound flight is delayed 98 minutes.

    I’m aware there’s a three hour wait to claim compo, but by announcing a 90 mins late departure time pre check in, what’s the legal position if the flight is delayed 3hrs from the original departure time, would Virgin say no it’s a 90 min delay?

    • Lee says:
      28 Apr28 April 05:57

      I think compensation is 3 hours on arrival at the destination not departure.

      • Mycity says:
        28 Apr28 April 06:31

        Hi Leo
        Guess what I’m asking is, what the legal position with Vrgin emailing a note saying a sheduled change, are they building 90 mins in, in case the arrival time is over three
        Hours late

        • TGLoyalty says:
          28 Apr28 April 06:54

          Someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I believe if it’s within 14 days of the flight it doesn’t matter. Compensation would still be payable if it was 3 hours late

    • TripRep says:
      28 Apr28 April 07:23

      If its over 3 hours later than original scheduled arrival at MCO you have a claim if its a valid cause/reason (Weather normally doesn’t count)

      BA sent us a similar email in the middle of the night the morning of our delayed return from the Maldives.

      Have they advised you to check in later? Are you already checked in online? Make sure you get there with plenty of time.

      My guess is VS will ensure they make it a very quick flight to get you there with under 3 hours delay. You can track the landing time on flight stats and flight radar if you like.

      Flytertalk has a good selection of opinion on this by a great user C-W-S

      Above all try and focus on a great trip to FL, hope its awesome, my top tips would be a trip to Kennedy Space Centre and then beers at “Coconuts on the Beach”, yes its as chilled out as it sounds.. 😀

    • TripRep says:
      28 Apr28 April 07:58

      MyCity – Doubt you’ll need this but here’s the link to the FT guide for EU261

      Always handy to file away in your favourites and hopefully forget about
      http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1812051-2017-ba-compensation-thread-your-guide-regulation-261-2004-a.html

      Again please focus on enjoying FL.. 😀

      • Mycity says:
        28 Apr28 April 08:15

        Fantastic replies guys as always. My main concern is/was are Virgin being a little sneaky calling it by email a schedule change and not a delay, clearly that won’t matter.

        thanks all

  • Lee says:
    28 Apr28 April 06:03

    OT. Looking to get the Amex gold or platinum cards for my wife and I. We already have the BAPP.

    Are we better getting the gold for now, earning the bonus and then upgrading for another bonus?

    The referral appears to now be just to other BAPP cards so that is not an option.

    Around 9 and 6 months into the BAPP and companion voucher earned on both.

    What is the best strategy to maximise points?

    • Genghis says:
      28 Apr28 April 06:13

      Max points would be say that Rob refers you for Gold, get sign up for £2k spend, you upgrade to plat and spend £1k, you refer wife for Plat. This yields:
      22+2+20+1+18+35+2=100k MR for £5k spend.

      • TripRep says:
        28 Apr28 April 07:42

        Hi G,

        This is selfishness on my part but inspired by your suggestion, not after max points at all cost but keen on ongoing bonus for small ££ outlay on fees and relatively low revenue spend over time..

        The bit I’m admitted confused by the maxing out method is what happens after your spouse hits Plat bonus and refers you for Plat and you hit that bonus?

        If you cancel your respective Plat cards after hitting their bonus you’d be left with no Amex, or am I missing something?

        Would an alt strategy to keep an active Amex be …
        Gold to Plat upgrade = 20k + 1k
        Plat refer Gold = 9k
        Cancel Plat.
        Gold bonus = 22k + 2k

        5 months after the Gold activation repeat the above for other partner?

        = 54k every 5-6 months but you keep a card?

        Its an open question, certainly not suggesting my idea is better, asking you because I respect your Amex Guru status 😀

        • the real harry1 says:
          28 Apr28 April 07:54

          since both principal & partner can both be main cardholders with supps at the same time, you never need be without an Amex card

          don’t forget the free & premium BA Amex cards etc

        • Ro says:
          28 Apr28 April 08:09

          Yeah as harry says, you can have BA amex or SPG amex running at a different, but overlapping schedule to ensure you arent amex free

        • Genghis says:
          28 Apr28 April 08:10

          Interesting. Let’s explore a little:

          Plat-> Gold internal referral and then upgrade to Plat isn’t as good IMO as straight to plat:
          9+22+2+20+1=54k for £3k spend vs 18+35+2=55k for £2k spend.

          Without upgrade to plat, I’m happy with the straight in straight out method, generating 92 x 2 = 184k pa for c. £100 in fees. Yes I don’t have an MR card at all times but I’m happy with that.

          Holding an MR card and doing ping pong referrals every 6 months on Plat generates:
          35k+18+35+18=106k pa but at a cost of just over £450 pa (but have year long use of plat benefits)

          Is there a better method to maximise points?

          • TripRep says:
            28 Apr28 April 08:20

            Interesting points… Definitely food for thought, thanks! 🙂

          • Ro says:
            28 Apr28 April 08:58

            Something to consider is that the gold card has some bonus point categories such as foreign spend or amex travel… say the £2k you spent to reach the bonus points was all done on amex travel or foreign spend… then that does slightly increase your points output and could be enough to change strategy

          • Nate1309 says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:24

            Genghis your maths look very good to me. Thanks for all the tips. I was going to refer Plat>Gold>Upgrade link in July but you make a compelling case for straight Plat>Plat.

            My wife’s Plat is via the upgrade link from circa June last year and I can confirm we have not had any type of card fee. Hence we have kept it for the benefits all year and we have travelled quite a bit so it has been useful. (Note upgraded in Hilton Gatwick last night and about to eat a free meal in the grain store).

            Ro also makes good points, I did very nicely out of the double points on the Gold card especially for airline spend as I mainly fly out of CWL or BRS. Also due to so large purchases I hit the £15k spend for yearly bonus points and kept the card tucked away u til they arrived. With the yearly bonus and the double points on some purchases the Gold card does generate more MR per £ for me personally if excluding churning bonuses.

          • Genghis says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:26

            I’d disregard the 2MR points on foreign spend unless you’re not paying the bill (2%-3%=-1%). If not paying the bill, arguably the IHG black offers comparable value on foreign spend.

            So if disregarding fx benefit and taking 1% as a baseline of earning and a MR=1p, by my fag packet calcs you’d need to spend £112k on Amex travel to make ping pong Gold beat in out Plat.

            (£1,840-£100) – (£620) = £1120/0.01

          • Genghis says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:35

            I’ve not included the 10k for £15k spend in those numbers but a £100 of MR points still delivers a similar result

          • Lawro says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:41

            Genghis re 08:10

            Holding an MR card and doing ping pong referrals every 6 months on Plat generates:
            35k+18+35+18=106k pa but at a cost of just over £450 pa (but have year long use of plat benefits)

            Is there a better method to maximise points?

            Might be mistaken but wouldn’t the above actually be 110k once you factor in the £2k spend x 2.

          • Genghis says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:48

            @Lawro. Good challenge. Yes, 110k. Thanks.

    • Genghis says:
      28 Apr28 April 06:14

      Officially you can only refer cards in the same “family”. Ie BA cards to other BA cards but some have reported success referring from Gold/Plat to other “families”

    • Martin says:
      28 Apr28 April 07:55

      Gold costs you no annual fee but worth looking into benefits of Platinum with a larger sign up bonus

    • Mzungu says:
      28 Apr28 April 17:32

      I’m in a similar situation, I’d just like to canvass opinion from the experts here on cancelling BAPP with a 241 earned.

      I’ve just triggered the 241 on my BAPP, and have about 4 weeks to go to renewal. My wife has PRGC (triggered bonus a while back) – I’m thinking of getting her to refer me for Gold, upgrading her to plat etc. Then cancel my BAPP before having to pay the next year’s fee.

      I won’t be able to use the 241 for quite a while, we’ve only just used the one on her account! I think that the accepted wisdom is that cancelling the BAPP will have no effect on the 241, as it resides in the BAEC account? Is there any cause for concern (in spite of what Amex may say when I cancel)?

      Thanks

  • Mike says:
    28 Apr28 April 06:21

    If you have a stay that starts on 29 Ap and extends beyond 1 May, do you still get the double points for the nights from 1 May?

  • Cal says:
    28 Apr28 April 06:46

    I’m staying at the Conrad Tokyo in May for free because of the barclaycard, but I believe there are some taxes to pay. Will the bonus points from this offer, and the bonus 2,500 from the first 4 stays on the card, trigger when paying the taxes?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      28 Apr28 April 06:56

      No base points on taxes are there?

      • Rob says:
        28 Apr28 April 08:24

        Are there flat taxes? Off the top of my head I can’t remember. The 23% VAT and service charge is 23% of nothing so there is no payment due.

        • Cal says:
          28 Apr28 April 09:36

          So would any spend during my stay trigger the bonus points? From either from this promotion or the bonus from the barclaycard?

          • Rob says:
            28 Apr28 April 09:54

            If you charge a beer to your room and pay with the Hilton credit card then it should trigger the 2500 points. You’d also get double points, but double points on a beer isn’t going to change much!

          • Jimmy says:
            28 Apr28 April 12:49

            There are no extra taxes/charges (for the Conrad Tokyo….or anywhere else) when using the Barclaycard free night certificate.

          • Rob says:
            28 Apr28 April 14:08

            You would get hit with any tourism tax which is flat rate, eg Dhs 20 in Dubai.

          • Scott says:
            28 Apr28 April 13:59

            I did this fairly recently at Conrad Tokyo. Bought a Cappuccino to trigger the spend. Bye bye £10!!

          • Rob says:
            28 Apr28 April 16:09

            They were £10 in the IC Hong Kong as well. I was grateful for the pile of free drink vouchers they gave us at check in!

  • Jon says:
    28 Apr28 April 07:55

    Hi all.
    An easy question to answer hopefully- I’ve got several Hilton rooms booked over the summer in the US- but they are reward nights, paid for entirely with Hilton points. Do you get any points (plus promotions like the above) when you book and pay using only points? Thanks.

    • Genghis says:
      28 Apr28 April 08:22

      You don’t get points on reward stays paid fully with points. 3 x 0 = 0

      • Rob says:
        28 Apr28 April 08:25

        You would with the current 2k per night promo, but obviously not with this new one. You also get status points, so for eg I got 5,000 points for 2 nights in Beijing despite it being a reward and having a final bill of £0.

  • Lady London says:
    28 Apr28 April 07:57

    It would be great if Hilton would let us log in with our email address or other username instead of requiring the membership number to be typed in. Who remembers their membership number? It’s a barrier to going onto the site and making bookings.

    • TripRep says:
      28 Apr28 April 08:12

      LL – sadly I do..

      Have you emailed customer services with that good suggestion?

      Of course if you have the smartphone app that avoids the need to login each time..

      • Rob says:
        28 Apr28 April 08:26

        The password memory function in Chrome is very good. More importantly, Chrome copies it across your computers so whichever of the 3 home and office PCs I use, all the paswords are available on all machines.

        • Nate1309 says:
          28 Apr28 April 10:47

          I also let chrome remember things for me. It also works if you login to chrome on any computer, just remember to logout.

        • RussellH says:
          28 Apr28 April 12:11

          Firefox does exactly the same, and IIRC has done since long before Chrome was a glimmer in Sergey Brin’s eye. Of course I do ban FF from remembering anything to do with direct banking sites, obviously.

    • Sundar says:
      28 Apr28 April 09:16

      You can login to Awardwallet on the browser and then click on the Hilton login. This shall log you in.
      Granted, it is one additional step but no need to remember any of your user-ids or membership nos.

      • Sundar says:
        28 Apr28 April 09:21

        Alternatively, create a username and use it to login. Just did that.

    • Dale says:
      28 Apr28 April 09:25

      Hilton number is only 9 digits, email address is usually far more than that!

      • Genghis says:
        28 Apr28 April 09:28

        One’s email address is used multiple times a day to login to stuff and so is very easily remembered. Can’t same the same for my HH no.

    • RussellH says:
      28 Apr28 April 12:12

      I have logged in to Hilton using a username for years.

    • Melvin says:
      28 Apr28 April 12:43

      You need LastPass – I couldn’t live without it.

      As well a browser plugin, it works on ios and android apps too.

    • Rashad says:
      28 Apr28 April 17:31

      you will find that safari remembers your login credentials as well so need to remember anything

    • Alan says:
      30 Apr30 April 20:42

      I *do* login with a username – can’t remember if it’s something you can still pick of if it was a historical option. I’m more annoyed by it rejecting your login as you haven’t ticked the CAPTCHA when they never showed you it in the first place!!

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