News in brief:
Nine days left to claim your Hilton Honors Diamond extension
One of the new features brought in by Hilton Honors recently is the ability for Diamond members to extend their membership if they have had a slow travel year.
If you dropped from Diamond to Gold, you can request a one-off bounce back to Diamond. The conditions are:
- You have current Diamond status
- You have three total years at Diamond status (years do not have to be consecutive, status-matched years do count)
- You have at least 250 nights (paid or reward) OR 500,000+ earned Base Points since joining Hilton Honors
This is a ‘once per lifetime’ opportunity so you may want to think twice before asking.
Requests must be made by 28th March so that your extension can kick in from 31st March. You can find more details here on the Hilton website.
PS. Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Hilton Honors points. That page is regularly updated with the latest special offers and will still be accurate even if you are reading this article months after publication.
Hilton’s three global flash sales end today
Here is your final reminder that the three current Hilton flash sales all end today, Monday 19th.
Remember that many American Express cardholders have a new offer of £50 cashback on £250 of spend at selected hotels in Europe – click here for details. This should combine with the sale. Here are the three sales and the relevant stay dates and discounts:
UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa – book here
Save 25% on Best Available Rate at Conrad, Waldorf Astoria, DoubleTree, Hilton, Canopy and Curio. A smaller discount of 15% off Best Available Rate is available at Hampton and Hilton Garden Inn. You must stay between 16th March and 31st August. Three day advanced purchase required.
US, Canada and Latin America – book here
Save 20% on Best Available Rate, except at Conrad and Waldorf Astoria where a lower 15% discount is available. You must stay between 25th March and 9th September. Three day advanced purchase required.
South East Asia and Australasia – book here
Save 35% on Best Available Rate or Bed & Breakfast rates. You must stay between 18th March and 31st December. Five day advanced purchase required.
Remember that rooms booked under this offer are non-refundable. This means that, whilst it is correct to say that the discount is based on Best Flexible Rate, this is not your actual saving. Non-refundable rooms are generally 10% cheaper than Best Flexible Rate so the genuine sale discount is probably around 10% – 25%.
The sale will combine with the current Hilton Honors promotion for 2,000 bonus points per stay plus an extra 10,000 points if you can manage five stays (and for every 5th stay thereafter). This is valid for stays until 30th April. The main Head for Points article and registration link is here.
If you collect Lufthansa miles, see this article for an excellent Miles & More bonus offer which works alongside the 2,000 bonus points deal if you change your earnings setting to ‘points and miles’. It ends on 25th March.
YOTEL launches a non-loyalty scheme
YOTEL has launched My YOTEL. This is advertised as a ‘membership scheme’ but, oddly, has no benefits whatsoever for frequent guests.
What you can get is a discount of ‘at least’ 10% when you stay at the Yotel New York (pictured above), Yotel Boston or Yotel Singapore hotels. No other properties are included.
If you thinking about staying at any of these hotels then it is worth registering – the link is here.
(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Promos’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
OT. I have the Amex plat card. I haven’t used the status benefits at any hotel chains yet as I don’t have any upcoming stays. Is there any benefit to waiting to signing up? Will the expiry date line up with when I first get status or the anniversary of the card date?
Thanks in advance.
If you think you may use them, you should sign up. Some can be a bit slow to process – it can be 2-3 weeks at worse – so if there is a risk that your employer may send you to a Hilton / Melia / Starwood / Shangri-La etc with less than 3 weeks notice you should do it now.
I have not done Melia or Shangri-La as I know it is unlikely I will be at one at short notice.
Thanks Rob.
I wont be using Hilton/Starwood/Marriott at all until later in the year earliest. Probably more next year. Thats why i was wonderingnwhen the expiry is, aligned with platinum renewal or a year from when you activate?
Likely to cancel card in July so was thinking of holding off. As long as SPG/Marriott dont change to 2019.
Hotel status is not like BA status. The schemes all run on a calendar year basis and status is on a calendar year. You can only be downgraded at the end of the calendar year (possibly with a stub period like Hilton, where you are downgraded on 1st Jan but your old card still works until 31st March).
OT – Received a IHG email offering 100% bonus. Not sure if targeted.
When you purchase a minimum of 5,000 or more IHG® Rewards Club points through March 22, we’ll match it with a 100% bonus!
So double your earnings and reach rewards twice as fast — but hurry. This offer ends Thursday.
We have it on both our accounts! I always buy when it’s 100% bonus and redeem for better value in the USA.
[email protected], I prepaid my EDF energy for the year with amex. It went through ok and helped me hit 270k for a Marriott travel package in perfect timing so thanks again for tip 🙂
That’s great! I would love to try one of the Marriott travel packages but we never stay long enough in one place! I have 45k SPG pts so far but will probably just redeem for hotels in the USA next year.
Plan at the moment is to tour Spain next spring so will probably use the 7 nights as an add on for some sun in the Canaries. Not the best use I guess but works for us and keeps it within cat 1-5.
Actually the full amount is $90 less than last year.
And the £ has gone up 🙂
OT, but Iberia gift cards on sale again, must purchase by today, book by 31/3, travel between now and 31/5 or after 31/8:
https://www.iberia.com/tarjeta-regalo/
€500 gift card for €250 is pretty lucrative.
Any idea if these gift cards are valid for any airline booked through their website? Is if a book a BA flight on Iberia.com, is it valid? Having trouble deciphering the T’s and C’s
The 500€ gift card has pretty strict rules: One leg must be on Iberia, connections on Iberia Express and Air Nostrum, you need to start in Spain, you can only make one booking per voucher, high demand routes are excluded and you can‘t pay in cash and avios.
…. which is why I’m giving it a miss.
+1. Can’t understand Spanish and doesn’t seem to appear on the Iberia website