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Hilton Honors launches ‘Points Explorer’ – what does it offer?

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Hilton Honors has launched ‘Points Explorer’.

Hilton Honors is the hotel reward scheme which doesn’t have a reward chart.

That’s not entirely true.  Whilst the charts are no longer published, hotels are still working to the old category caps which set a limit on how much each hotel can charge per night.  What is new now is that, on cheaper nights, Hilton reduces the cost of a reward night so that you are never getting worse value than roughly 0.3p.

Hilton Points Explorer

The problem with not having a reward chart is that members who don’t fully understand the scheme seem to be struggling to know what it will cost to get away.  Hilton has now launched a new tool called ‘Points Explorer’ to help which you can find here.

‘Points Explorer’ can be customised by city, country or continent and can be filtered by the number of points you want to spend.  It shows you two bits of information:

the maximum number of points that the hotel is allowed to charge

the lowest number of points that the hotel has actually charged on any night

Whilst it doesn’t show you the points needed on any particular night, it helps members with smaller balances identify properties which they can definitely afford as long as they have more than the capped amount.

For longer stays, you will need to adjust for the fact that status members (Silver and above) get five nights for the points of four when booking standard redemption rooms.

You can try out ‘Points Explorer’ here.

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 and they come with generous sign-up bonuses. 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 (92)

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

  • Tom1 says:
    16 Feb16 February 07:03

    O/t changing existing Lloyds upgrade voucher reservation.

    Will avios let me change a LHR-KUL/HKG-LHR open jaw, in to a HKG-LHR return later in the year? (Looks like taxes on HKG return is about £200 less than the original rotation)

    If I do that and fly the first leg in March, will I be able to change the return leg after flying the first HKG-LHR ?

    • Yawn says:
      16 Feb16 February 07:44

      Interesting. I didn’t think you could do an open jaw redemption with the Lloyds card (with BA Amex yes, but not with Lloyds). Is this a new feature since we have to book straight with BA? If memory serves, the terms about cancellations and changes were quite strict and onerous.

      • Tom1 says:
        16 Feb16 February 09:34

        Not sure – see my post below, may have been lucky. It was booked through Avios though, not BA.

      • the_real_a says:
        16 Feb16 February 12:56

        No not new, i have done open jaw for the last 4-5 years. You need to call up

    • TGLoyalty says:
      16 Feb16 February 08:25

      Once you have flown the outbound you can’t change the return flight.

      • Tom1 says:
        16 Feb16 February 09:33

        Ok thanks.
        I guess booking two singles would be an option but negates the benefit of flying from HKG. Also not sure if Lloyds work with two singles

      • S**mo says:
        19 Feb19 February 12:03

        I had a LHR-BKK-LHR bnooking using my 2-4-1 a couple of years back.

        While in Phuket, there were the bombs that has exploded nearby, we actually rung up and got a return from HGK-LHR and spent a few day there instead of staying in Thailand.

        Phoned up, and the reservation was changed even though we had flown the outbound flight.

    • Lottie says:
      16 Feb16 February 08:26

      It does depend a bit on the call agent but we just swapped our open jaw lim to scl to scl lim one week earlier and that was pretty easy to do. I’m not sure about changing the return leg after flying.

    • BJ says:
      16 Feb16 February 08:47

      No, you cannot because HKG is zone 7 and KUL is zone 8. It needs to be same zone, same class and within ticket validity. It is still worth a call though since it was open jaw but do,t get your hopes built up.

      • Tom1 says:
        16 Feb16 February 09:32

        Interesting – I might have been lucky in the first place.
        I booked the outbound LHR-KUL (as CW), then added the return HKG-LHR about a week later and applied the voucher – there was some ‘good will’ from avios because I was waiting for BA to refund avios from another booking before I had enough points to book the return. It was all done through the Warrington office.

        • BJ says:
          16 Feb16 February 09:46

          That’s why I suggest it is still worth a call and Lottie states it is CSA-dependent. They have done some very nice things for some people in last few years going by reports here. However, what I stated above is what the CSA stated clearly to be the rules regarding changes when I made my last booking with the Lloyds voucher.

  • Paul says:
    16 Feb16 February 07:33

    BA is no more 100 years old than I am. This is a new low in hyperbole marketing.

  • MDA says:
    16 Feb16 February 07:55

    wow, Points Explorer is quite useful, managed to find some good deals, however, I chose not to book with points yet and went via the cash route.

    • MDA says:
      16 Feb16 February 08:11

      actually, I retract from that statement. Having compared the low redemption rate with cash rate, it was actually better off paying in cash indeed, even with a 100% promo offer (presuming you are paying for the points, you would be approx £47 worse off)

      • marcw says:
        16 Feb16 February 08:32

        Thats the case with Hilton now. Points are OK only if cash fare is very high.

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:
          16 Feb16 February 09:01

          Depends how much you value cash and how easy you find it to accumulate points. Sit on a load of points and you are just storing up devaluation problems

    • Tom1 says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:38

      Does the filter work for you?

      Whatever points limit I choose it seems to give the same list of hotels regardless.

      • Anna says:
        16 Feb16 February 15:12

        If you set it to show by number of points low to high you can then see the “cheaper” ones first.

  • Rob says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:38

    OFF TOPIC.

    Implications for using VA MasterCard linked to curve to pay AMEX balance?

    Looks like it has gone through, but had some calls from virgin asking what I was doing and they said it was fine?

    Rob

    • Thomas Howard says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:06

      Its against the Curve terms and conditions and might stop them increasing your limits or potentially closing your account. Specific to Virgin will be whether they treat the transaction as a cash advance and charge you interest.

      • Rob says:
        16 Feb16 February 09:40

        Thanks!

        How do I know how it has been treated?

        It says purchase on the pending virgin transaction.

        Rob

        • Shoestring says:
          16 Feb16 February 09:54

          When you get charged

        • Rob says:
          16 Feb16 February 10:00

          Thanks Shoestring.

          Went through as the amount charged so looks like no fee was added.

          I assume it would say cash advance or something if it wasn’t classed as a “purchase”.

          Rob

        • Mark2 says:
          16 Feb16 February 10:44

          You will not know definitely until you have seen the statement.
          But in my experience the answer is no charge.

  • Crafty says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:42

    OT: At a Hilton hotel where it’s enabled, is digital check in sufficient for a mattress run (i.e. not turning up at all)?

    • Oh Matron! says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:37

      Good question. I still turn up to let my key, and then leave immediately, just in case. Don’t have the balls to just not turn up!

    • John says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:41

      The hotel needs to give you the digital key, not just online check-in.

      Theoretically they could audit use of the digital key to see if you really turned up.

    • The Jetset Boyz says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:47

      The enabled hotels all have a dedicated Digital Checkin desk. I believe there is a legal requirement in the UK for you to at least sign the checkin form. If there was any suspicion that you hadn’t arrived and entered the room they would easily be able to check door logs to determine at what times during your stay you have opened your door. If you’ve not opened your door they could possibly claim you’ve not stayed and therefore not award you any Honors points or stay credits.

      • John says:
        16 Feb16 February 11:02

        I haven’t needed to sign any forms at UK Hiltons where you can get a digital key through the app. If using public transport, or parking is free to everyone, I have stayed without interacting with a single staff member. (If driving, and parking is only free to guests, then I go to the front desk to supply my reg plate, but have never been asked for anything else.)

        Where digital key is not available but online check-in is, you have to go to the desk anyway.

      • Keith says:
        16 Feb16 February 13:27

        But are unable to check to see who has entered your room if something is stolen from your room? I think you’re making a few assumptions here.

      • Keith says:
        16 Feb16 February 13:30

        That was a reply to the JetSet Boyz. However many of them and however unjet set they clearly are.

  • Matthew says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:58

    “hotels are still working to the old category caps”…

    Except the 120,000 cap quietly introduced this week for the new Maldives property…..!

  • Jimbob says:
    16 Feb16 February 09:28

    OT – anyone else had a delay with the Creation IHG credit card crediting points this month? Usually get them on the 10th if every month, but nothing so far

    • Sandra says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:57

      Not this month but every so often there is a delay, last one was a couple of months ago.

    • Genghis says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:41

      And I thought everyone got them 22/23/24/25 or so of the month.

    • Matt says:
      17 Feb17 February 00:12

      I’ve always received the points in my ihg account on my credit card statement date (around the 10th of each month) but I’ve not had them this month….

  • xcalx says:
    16 Feb16 February 10:29

    OT Arriving into LHR on BA CE flight onwards domestic in econ will I get lounge access.

    Thanks.

    • Rob says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:40

      Yes

    • BJ says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:43

      Yes, BA allows this.

    • xcalx says:
      16 Feb16 February 10:46

      Thanks Rob and BJ

      • Matt says:
        16 Feb16 February 15:59

        Were BA correct to refuse access after arriving into MAN on Finnair J, but connecting onto a BA Y flight to LHR on a separate ticket.

        I thought I’d give it a go but wasn’t sure of the policy so didn’t challenge the refused entry.

        Would be good to know for future thanks.

        • BJ says:
          16 Feb16 February 18:59

          I’m afraid so because if you are connecting fom a One World partner flight it needs to be same day (or overnight) longhaul so HEL-MAN didn’t count. I am not sure what the rule is had that been a BA codeshare and your boading pass had a BA flight number; in such circumstances I would like to think that access would be allowed.

        • Matt says:
          16 Feb16 February 23:37

          Hi BJ interesting thanks. I was arriving off a same day BKK to MAN Helsinki J flight therefore should I have been allowed access?

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