Hilton HHonors - Successful ALON Use

Howdy, folks! Redeemed 100K ALON award on 05-30-03. Immediately began to seek two (2) free round-trips. Found exactly one (1) date pair on NW which would accomodate a six (6) day stay. Held my breath and called HHV to see if award dates would match free air tickets.....and they did!!!! Mid-April next year is a go. Total costs were: 70,000 miles for the two (2) round-trip tix [SFO-SEA-HNL-SEA-SFO], 100,000 for the hotel, $46.00 for the airline fees and $197.00 [inclusive of all fees and taxes] for an intermediate rental car [will try Priceline in Jan or Feb]. Much work to still do including a request for Gold upgrade to Rainbow Tower. Should any other FT's be in the neighborhood 04-14-04, to 04-20-04, please drop me a line. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

We'll miss you by 3 weeks. I nailed one (much to my surprise) during the Canadian March school break. Reservation agent advised it was filling up fast.

Good catch, YYZ!

I guess the rush of ALON redemptions will make availability tight from now until May 2004. I have done two ALONs in the past year - HWV in Summer 02 and HHV last week, and I got the exact dates I wanted as a Gold on the first phone call. (Obviously, I've never tried to do one during the winter, when I'm sure they are next to impossible to get.)

Frugal, you'll get that midsize car for $16-18/day on Priceline. Subscribe to Alamo.com's Hot Deals: they occasionally go ever lower. About twice a year, they send out a "50% off your next rental" code, which could drop your Hawaii midsize rental to under $100/wk without needing Priceline. It dropped my Maui SUV rental to $133/wk. last year.

Thank you for the excellent advice, pinniped!

I'd also add that for those of us doing the ALON during February school vacation break, now is the time to ask. I was able to get 2 award tix and the ALON then. Since we're flying in coach on American, we also specified that we wanted a powerport seat in each direction.

I was told that awards were going quickly for the last week of February.