sinister2c

just got this email. its a bunch of crap.

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Southwest Airlines Partnership Changes

Dear Sinister2c,

To keep you informed on the latest news from Hilton HHonors™, we wanted to share an important update. Effective January 1, 2012, Hilton HHonors will no longer offer Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards® Points for hotel stays. You can continue to earn Rapid Rewards Points for completed stays through December 31, 2011.

With Southwest Airlines as your Preferred Airline Partner, on January 1, 2012 your account will automatically default to our Double Dip® HHonors Points and HHonors Points reward option — which earns members free stays the fastest. To continue earning points and miles after January 1, 2012, you may update your HHonors Account Profile with one of our more than 50 airline partners. A complete airline partner list can be found here.

We understand that earning rewards is important to you. Hilton HHonors is proud to be the only program in the hotel industry to offer its members both hotel points and airline miles for the same hotel stay without capacity controls or blackout dates. Throughout the year, there are also many opportunities to earn additional HHonors points, such as the current Fast Ways to Free Stays global promotion, taking place now through the end of the year.

Thank you for your continued loyalty to Hilton HHonors.

Hurlba

I agree!
The is a major bummer to me as I hotel hop.

Who's decision was this, anyone know? May have to patronize them a little less.

ktchup

Lame
Must be southwest seeing they also split with Priority.

kaszeta

Yeah, this is pretty irritating to me as well, since the combination of Southwest for travel and Hilton for stays worked really, really well with my travel patterns. I got some decent upgrades from Hilton, and got a lot of free travel.

sinister2c

I'm thinking hhonors tried to make them give 250 RR points which is what legacies get which is crap since hhonors points are so damn diluted already. Getting 0.5 credits or 600 RR points now is a great deal plus the diluted hhonors points is a bonus. Other chains only give one or the other not both.

jamesteroh

Hilton (with the exception of Hampton) gives 500 miles on a legacy. At the other chains I have stayed it it was 500 miles on another airline or 1/2 credit on WN, just like Hilton. Before RR 2, I used to have WN as my partner. I feelthat with RR 2.0, it was an AWFUL reduction to the program (more so than with HH Points or skypesos), and I basically stopped using WN on any paid flights and dropped them as my partner. I don't think any other major hotel chain gives you 1 mile per $ spent for an expensive stay if you want that option.

HH is doing the same thing with Delta for the MQM program. Last year you could get variable MQMs or 500 MQMs per stay. This year it's only 250 MQMs. But Hilton is the only chain I know of that ever gives MQMs

Michael El

There was a time I would have been pee ohed about this. Now that I'm not flying WN I really don't care. I'm still going to double dip with HH and US though.

jamesteroh

I agree, I would have been upset if they still had RR1.0, but seeing I don't fly WN anymore doesn't concern me, but I can understand people who still fly WN being upset. I am p**sed that that you only get 250 delta MQMs this year with the promo. The promo in past years was much better.

I wonder if WN increased the price the partners pay them for points. Priority club recently announced they are no longer a WN partner either.

Deemus7

I would love to know who initiated this change. Right now, I'm not sure who I'm more pissed off with. While RR 2.0 had it's downsides, I still loved the fact that a double-dip stay at a Hampton (the majority of my HHonors stays, courtesy of a less-than-generous corporate budget) still earned the full 600 RR points. I am about to embark on my second year of a companion pass with WN courtesy of partner credits (I only fly half a dozen revenue flights each year, preferring to keep my upper-level status on DL).

Now that this change will take effect, I will continue to double-dip through the end of the year, but I now have ZERO incentive to credit anything through WN. Big for both groups involved, and I will have to look hard at sticking with Hilton (I've been Diamond with them for 4 years) if this premium reward BS continues...

Not happy...

jamesteroh

I also have a CP on WN (although for me it's a useless benefit, I wish they still had the deal where you could exchange it for 7 RR tickets or even if they would give me a-list instead) and had I believe 8 RR 1.0 tickets last year on WN and only flew them on two revenue flights the entire year (and they were cheap DTW/MDW fares when WN had a promo for four credits for RT's on those flights). The rest was through partner credits at Hilton and with Chase primarilly. but I can understand WN making the change, with me I was flying a lot of DTW/LAX and DTW/SFO flights for free at least eight times a year while only giving them less than $1,000 in flight revenue.

I am saying it probably both Hilton/Priority Club refusing to pay any more for points and/or wanting to pay WN less money for points and Southwest wanting more for the points. Something people need to remember is that hotel credits have only been around about a decade with WN. I know as late as 1999 the only earning partners they had were diners club, chase, and MCI phone service.

Hilton isn't the only partner they lost. They also lost PC, I think there was another hotel partner they lost last year, and they lost Am Ex rewards over a year ago.

shoreline

For SPG we can no longer transfer to WN either. I think it ended in March or April of this year.

bsdstone

This might be a deal breaker with me and Hilton. I typically stay at Hampton Inns and do one night stays and qualify for diamonds at ~30 nights. That used to net me about a free flight a year...without that, I think I'll look towards Marriott as I like their high end properties better for redemption.

jamesteroh

Not sure if this is still the case, but at one time Fairfields (which is like Marriotts version of HI's) stays didn't earn WN credits. NOt sure if that is still the case or not, but if you switch to Marriott and are going to stay at Fairfield you might have the same problem there. And remember Marriott doesn't allow you to double dip.

If you are staying at just hamptons on your paid stays the diamond status isn't realy giving you any benefits anyway other than the bonus points.

jamesteroh

I thougth SPG just started partnering with WN last year????? They dropped their partnership already?????

shoreline

I guess it didn't last long, huh? We can no longer transfer SPG points to WN for airmiles.