Hilton HHonors - Old Oz/NZ Award - Still There/Gone - Need to Know by 5/31 - Checking for Friend

Hi there. Was at biz dinner tonight & a friend mentioned he had AmEx/Hilton card (is that right?) & had been saving his points because they used to have some total award that included Australia & New Zealand for a zillion points.

So - he has the zillion points; wanted to redeem for Jan 2004 (he knows nothing about award levels going up, btw). Calls, they say the award was discontinued, but he might be able to do it dif.

So he's confused - does it or does it not exist, if so, what's the award code, if it doesn't, what was the itinerary as he has enough points to book the same thing doing individual certs, etc, and try to plan the same trip.

I mentioned award redemption is going up in points as of Sun, so I told him I'd post here & see if I could get any info from the "experts". I'm not familiar w/ the "package" he was trying to book previously.

Any info appreciated, and I'll pass along asap to him. Thx.

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Sharon

One possibility is that your friend was talking about a VIP-only award (unless I'm mistaken, the code was GLOA) that included 6 nights at a HH property worldwide and two air tickets to get there. I used that award to go to Australia a couple years ago. It costed 350K points (400K if you wanted a Premium property) until Jan. 1, 2003, when such awards were disontinued. IMO, that was a very good value (2 UA tickets to Oz from anywhere in the US and 6 nights at the Hilton Sydney).

I got the impression there was more than one property involved, but I could be wrong. He was rather hazy about it; just that he saw it before & had been hoarding his points to get to 500,000 & go. He mentioned the Kenya award (he's not doing that one) so thought it was in the same category, which might be what you're referring to Eugene?

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Sharon

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SkiAdcock:
He mentioned the Kenya award (he's not doing that one) so thought it was in the same category, which might be what you're referring to Eugene?</font>

No, if it was in the same category as the Kenya Safari award, then it was a different thing altogether (and not a good value to begin with, so he shouldn't have any regrets of it being gone now).

There used to be a couple vacation rewards "Discover Down Under", CPDU5 - Five free nights in Cairns, and SPDU5 - Five free nights in Sydney. They did not include airfare, and at 250K a piece for a 5-night stay, they represented a very poor value (even with a few perks thrown in, like a catamaran tour in Cairns and Blue Mountain tour in Sydney, and airport transfers).

You can do all that for much less than 500K HH points!

[This message has been edited by Eugene (edited 05-30-2003).]

Eugene, that's the one he was referring to! (Discover Down Under). Thanks for the update & I'll let him know he can do the same thing for less/better use of points. Since he's been getting/hoarding the points forever & not paying attention to the fact that things are going up on the 1st, he has a bit of time to put things together - well, actually not that much since he wants to go in Jan.

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Sharon

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SkiAdcock:
he wants to go in Jan.</font>

Sharon -- Just keep in mind (and perhaps let your friend know) that Sydney Hilton is currently closed for renovations until mid-2004. If your friend still wants to go in January, and wants to stay in Sydney on HH points, then he'd have 2 options: one is Sydney Airport Hilton, and another one is a new property, not real Hilton, but according to FT reports, it does participate in HH now, I believe it's called Grace Hotel.

Hiltons in Sydney and Cairns are now Category 3, so it's 25K points per night (unless you manage to score a Point Stretcher), so 10 nights would cost 250K instead of 500K through "Discover Down Under".

eugene, thanks. he didn't know (nor did i) that syd hilton was closed. i'm going to email him this thread - i told him about ft & hilton forum on thurs eve when we were discussing his trip. i also suggested he do some searches in travelbuzz & the australia forum for general info.

i need to get my own derierre in gear since i'm hoping to redeem for a few days at the auckland hilton (dif trip than my friend's) in jan.

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Sharon