Eujeanie

Since no upgrades are ever guaranteed, I would take that out of the equation.

The Aspire card will give you Diamond status, as you know, which means that anything you spend on Hiltons will earn 14x points. It also means you will get a $250 resort credit. And if you are not currently Gold it will give you a $25 pp f&b credit per day (up to 2 people). There are other benefits that may not directly apply to this trip for you, but can be used otherwise (airline credit, free night certificate).

Until and unless they make any changes to the card benefits, I've felt it has been worthwhile to have for several years now.

GiraffeGlove

You'll definitely get your money worth if you have the Aspire on this stay. Charge everything to your room and get 14x points per dollar. The $450 is well made up for by using the $250 flight credit as well as the $250 resort credit. Not to mention you'll get a $25 a day per person in food and beverage credit (another $250 if you're 2pp staying 5 nights). You might not get an upgrade, but you'll definitely come out ahead of the AF.

edit: forgot about the free night credit for use at anther Hilton in the future!

dascc

I doubt you would get a free upgrade to Napua Tower with diamond status. I think it would be worth it though, you'll get diamond status which will probably get you a modest room upgrade, say you booked a standard award which would be Terrace view, you might get bumped to Ocean view.
$50 food credit per day for two.
$250 resort credit applied to the card if you use it during your stay
You'll also get a free night certificate which you could try to swap for one of your reward nights and save 110,000 Hilton points.
There's also the $250 airline incidental credit which could be used for your flight to the island.

Michael19887

Unfortunately, it is probably more likely for you to win the lottery than be upgraded to a suite in the Napua Tower.

BlueZebra

True, particularly since upgrading to the Napua Tower is against the T&Cs.

mball

Our 5 night stay is coming up in a couple of weeks.

I'm curious how folks have felt about the breakfast/bunch buffet options?
Obviously, they're steep resort prices but given that, were they enjoyable. And if anyone has recently done the Rosé Brunch, did the extra options feel (relatively) worth it?

Also, as a data point. I got quoted $700/night to upgrade to Napua. Passing on that one for just two of us. We'd definitely save some on food, but not quite that much!

One other thing I realized: The concierge is totally happy to book/charge to the room more activities than are listed on their site. When emailing, they gave me a much larger list, including one of the ones that I almost booked independently.
Personally, I prefer booking things myself usually, but given the Hilton points and other card offers, it actually should save quite a bit of money this way.

jazz12pg

Before knowing we got upgraded to Napua we planned on doing at least one resort breakfast buffet, and had considered doing the Rosé brunch. Then after we still were thinking about doing at least the Rosé brunch since we had a resort credit for the week, but on an the elevator ride with a another family where there was an ad for the brunch, they saw us looking at it and said they did it the Sunday prior and really weren't impressed for the cost. They said 70% of the food was the same as the regular breakfast with maybe 1 or 2 different breakfast items and the prime rib was the only "hot" lunch item. We were already on the fence so we decided to pass, but still could have justified going since we never went to the regular breakfast so the whole menu would have been "new" to us.

That's a great point about booking activities through the concierge to maximize Hilton points. I didn't see any of the things we wanted to do on the site, so booked them myself, but wonder if that expanded list you mentioned would have had something that we did. With our crew of 7, everything we did was $$$ and would have been awesome to get 34x points on my Aspire card for them.

kirkwoodj

Last stay we went & had a look at the breakfast buffet out of curiosity (were staying in Napua so breakfast was covered). Not impressed at all, especially for the price (which I don't recall). Better off getting something from Loulu or the supermarket next door!

Eujeanie

The past 2 times we were in the condos but we still did the breakfast buffet twice (last year ) - the very first morning and the very last. It's our family tradition to bookend a trip with something "special". And while it was not the most extensive buffet we've ever been to, the choices were nice and we all enjoyed it. Neither day was the Rose, just the regular.

The year before the buffet was closed but we did Humumu for breakfast on the first and last day, again to bookend the trip with a splurge.

Sitting on the patio at the buffet or in lovely Humumu just added to the occasion.

Rest of the time was Loulu or purchased food like Kirkwoodj mentioned.

eh9

DP: 5 night stay on points
Hilton gold
upgraded to ocean view morning of stay (usually deluxe as Diamond)

at check in asked about Napua. $300/night for ocean view, $400/night for deluxe.

loved Napua and worth it for that price. I got a chance to see the deluxe room and I would’ve done that because the view is really nice.

Also got an email 1 week out offering Napua for $600/night so best to wait until Check in. Although last year check in offer was $800/night

kirkwoodj

Fantastic deal!

Seph87

I know this is from a few weeks back so you might have had your trip already, but I found the breakfast buffet to be extremely lacking. The price was extortionate ($55/person) but that's to be expected and not the reason why I found it disappointing.

My main disappointment was from the lack of creative and/or local options. I'd say about 95% of the food was bog standard breakfast buffet options (pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc.). Even the fresh fruit, which should have been a slam dunk in Hawaii, was very basic with things like strawberries, blueberries and melon. Very little tropical fruit - I think they just had mango when I was there.

The one creative dish they had was kalua pork eggs benedict, but unfortunately the pork was dry and chewy.

Even if the price was $20/person I'm not sure I'd recommend going there to be honest.

Zolor23

Anyone here that was looking probably already made plans or was already checking daily as I was, but in case anyone needs it - they just opened up standard room availability for the week of Christmas, which I haven't seen since the summer.

mball

Thanks, and yes we had our trip. Sadly, I think I pretty much agree with this. The kicker was that we ended up with one of those 15% off HGV cards for talking with the rep for ~5 minutes. They wouldn't accept it for breakfast, which felt deliberately...I don't know, captive? Almost all the other food places we tried honored the 15% off. Service was good, but $80 for two after credits was just too much.

Speaking of HGV -- I really want to rail against the fact that having reps /next/ to the concierge desk intercept and upsell you is the EXACT opposite of luxury. At the same time, the 15% off card is a useful discount and meant the F&B credits did go a bit further (about $60/day), which was nice. And we did take them up on a 100K pts offer for a sales presentation in Kihei. Ultimately, we got lucky: Spent 30 minutes waiting, they were overbooked, then released us and deposited 100K points in my account within hours. So, part of me finds this all very annoying, and would have had a perfectly enjoyable trip regardless. But, given that I also redeemed 21 nights of points stays this year...I also enjoy being able to play the game.

atojbk

Have they finished renovating all the rooms yet? How do they look