ericgartner

I don't see this anywhere on Flyertalk, but I am sure I will be told if it is.
I ran across this while doing some research.
One Free Night
Only Hilton HHonors® lets you earn Points & Miles® for the same stay and enjoy hotel rewards with No Blackout Dates. And that’s not changing. However, for the first time in six years, we do have an update to point redemption amounts and hotel categories beginning January 15, 2010. You can still make hotel reward reservations at the current levels if booked by January 14, 2010*

Click here to review the new Redemption chart updates for 2010. It does not have cat 7 listed yet. The link to the new rewards doesn't work yet either.

http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/...s/freenight.do

And here is a new VIP award chart at this site. It has a cat 7 listed.
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/ts/en_US/..._9-25-2009.pdf

OB one

I don't see any opportunity category in the 2010 chart so perhaps they have renumbered opportunity to 1 and bumped the rest up by one. if that is the case, it seems as if current category 5 for 6 nights will rise to 180,000 vs 150,000 currently and current category 6 for 6 nights will rise to 225,000 a 50,000 point devaluation, but the award charts says nothing aboout glon2/glon2p/alon etc.

MichaelColey

Two positives I see:

* GLON awards for 4 or 5 days (at a higher rate)
* Slightly cheaper GLON awards for categories 1-4 (although probably still not worth it).

I'm not excited about the devaluation, but at first glance it looks like it's still a better value than other programs.

Hopefully only some properties will change categories.

Churnman

Starwood made the mistake of increasing category for certain resorts and then after they saw those resorts weren't highest category quality and huge drop in redemptions they lowered them back down to their previous category #. I hope Hilton doesn't over-glorify some of their properties and move them from category 6 to 7 without them really being worth it.

ericgartner

How funny....click on the first link and the wording is gone!! I guess they didn't want it known yet. Oh wait the doorbell just rang, it is a bunch of guys in dark suits with sunglasses and hilton tags

christianj

What a way to ensure customer loyalty during these hard times for the hotel industry! Rates are down and these _ _ _ inrease redemtion rates. Just making Starwood and other chains more attractive with their hotel quality and promos. Unbelievable! Depending on how much more expensive redemptions get and how many hotels change categries I will give up onHH and make Hyatt my second choice behind SPG! Love the marketing spin on the thing.... no changes in 6 years.....what about all the increases a couple of years ago.

luv2go

I sort of though the WA properties were like a Cat 7. Now we will have WA and a category 7?

zachary

This could be a really big deal, and not a good one at that.

I'm concerned that GLONPs are going away, and being replaced with the awards on the chart that can be reached by clicking on the bottom link the OP's post. This would mean that category 6 hotels are going from 175K to 180K for a 6 night stay. Obviously, that wouldn't be too bad. However, if lots of the category 6's go to category 7 (think HHV, HWV, Bora Bora, Barbados, most New York City properties, etc.), you're looking at going from 175K to 225K (as noted above) for a 6 night stay. This would be a huge devaluation and one would certainly have to look at whether HH makes sense anymore.

sdcarver

It looks to me more like increasing the amount required for each category (as posted by OB One) compared to adding a new category--just replace opportunity with Level one and go up from there. My guess is that category 7 (or old Category 6) will jump to 50,000 points or more a night.

It is a shame that we are are seeing a category (or points) shift at this time. This will help me to decide to make Starwood Platinum my #1 and drop to Hilton Gold from 4 years as Diamond.

sdcarver

christianj

Now they will just spring it on us with 2 weeks notice or so! Classy! Hopefully the HH Flyertalk rep can shed some light on this issue since they swept it under the carpet online real quick....probably because someone from HH reading FT alerted them. SPG Lurkers would clear this up pretty fast so let's see what the HH rep has to say.

OB one

And that is why you read Flyertalk. Make your reward reservations now and if you don't make the reservations, at least start thinking about how you might use the points. If you don't use the rewards, you can always redeposit the points. I remember when the 100,000 points for 6 nights at any Hilton property went away and made several GLON reservations to lock in the old price. got some great deals.


an aside, it is only conjecture on my part that the categories are simply being renumbered to make opportunity properties into cat 1, but since the Waldorf awards are still there, that seems to make sense to me. I certainly hope they are not making some current cat 6's into cat 7's and doing away with all opportunity awards, even if I have only made one opportunity reward redemption in my life anyway.

Bmoney

Just great -- first they devalue the service at many of the high end WAs and Conrads and now they want more points. So in less than 18 months, we lose Rome's Cavalieri great peaks and now the Maldives wants money for the room upgrade. Next I can see rewards only good at Hampton Inns

Forget that; time to move over to Starwood. At least I know I'll get the expected perks instead of always fighting for the upgrade or even lounge access.

zachary

So true. I've never once read anything on the Starwood board where promised perks did not materialize.

Look, I don't like this either, but let's not get carried away.

azepine00

Seems consistent with "screw a loyal guest" strategy adopted by HH a couple years ago. The strategy also appears to be recession-proof.

MisterNice

The Blackstone Group (BX) owns Hilton and its stock is currently at 15 down from 30 five years ago. Seems like BX is doing something wrong.

MisterNice