rebadc

I have friends who used points for stays of a week in some cases at HI's in Florida following the storms last month.

Thats one painfull way to use points.

Tomphot

When I go overseas, I can always find a very good hotel for a very low price on Priceline - the problem is then when to use the points.
On my last 3 trips to Paris, we have stayed at the (priceline) 4 star LeMeriden for $100 per night. On all 3 occasions, we were with friends who didn't have points and didn't want to spend the big money to stay at a Hilton while we stayed for free.
We just booked a 6 night stay and are using points as we are traveling on our own, even though we can still stay for $100 where we have stayed before. I have 705,000 in bank and want to burn some points instead of spending the $$ on this trip.
Unless your set on staying at a specific property, it's not always a choice of points or $$$ when you can often find a comparable property using a bidding site.

pinniped

It totally depends on your other potential near-term uses for HH points and your pattern of earning/redeeming points in general. If you have an upcoming trip to Europe (see others' posts about Rome, Scandia, etc.) then you can get a bigger bang for your buck. You may not choose to value a bed in Rome at 300+ euros, but in any case you'd realistically value it high enough to make that redemption very worthwhile.

But if you have no international vacation plans, a half-cent a point at the HHV might not be a bad redemption. I did a 6-night ALON there for 100k when I could've otherwise gotten a resort-quality room in the Waikiki area for about $100/nt. Roughly 7/10ths of a cent per point for a pretty nice property...I thought it was worth it.

JDiver

We've enjoyed the 10k stay at Scandic in Brussel and Brugge... they seem to be growing southward! A true bargain!

Another we use from time to time is the Hilton NRT (Narita International Apt. near Tokyo,) another 10k stay.

MKEbound

I tried search, but couldn't get the answer I was looking for...

I value airline miles at about $.01 to $.0125 each based on the airline, etc
I value Starwood SPG points at about $.0125 each
I -THINK- I would value an HHonors point at about $.0033 each (or 1/3 of a Starwood point)

Any thought out there on a good value of an HHonors point to compare vs Starwood?

I am planning a two night award stay and have an HHonors property and Starwood property right next to each other and am not sure which is a better deal....

troyintn

I value them at .005 . I figure a normal room 20,000 pts should cost $100. The higher award stays are the worst value 40,000 pts for a hotel should be $200, but those hotels weekend rates drop to $99 all the time. SPG has the same issues though 7,000 or 10,000 pts for a room on the weekend that is $99. I would factor HHonors pts versus SPG at 5:1 20,000 versus 4,000 SPG. I do value my SPG points and HHonors much higher then airline miles, since I do not ever worry about Bankruptcy with them. Overall I would look at what catagory the two hotels are. That is the key, a lot of the hotels overvalue themselves. A hampton at cat 3 is a joke and all the Westins are cat 3 or 4 versus a nice sheraton at 2.

Grog

I personally put 18,000 HHonors points at $100. (so, that's about 0.0055)

I do see your logic as to the $.0033, but with my patterns and properties involved, combined with Hilton Gold / Starwood Gold, I personally value Hilton points higher than I value Starwood points or airline miles.

kedcr22

It depends on how you use your points. I personally only use 175000 pts for the 6-night deal at any category 6 hilton.

So...

175000 pts/6 nights = 29167 pts per night

Assume ~$200-$250 per night at most category 6 hotels:

29167/200 = 146 pts/$
29167/250 = 116 pts/$

Take the inverse for $ per point:

$0.0068/pt - $0.0086/pt

so anywhere from .7 cents to .9 cents a point is the value to me; but it totally depends on where you want to stay and the rate they will charge.

pinniped

So far, my redemptions have been as follows:

- 6 nights, HWV, 100k. Reasonable value for an HWV room plus breakfast & afternoon snacks - $175/nt. So, a little over a penny a point.

- 6 nights, HHV, 100k. Reasonable value for an HHV room plus breakfast - $150/nt. So, a little under a penny a point.

- 1 night, Cincinnati Hilton, 20k. This one is a bit subjective because most hotels were sold out that night. I would've otherwise booked a room for $50 out by the airport and driven downtown. So I'm loosely calling this one a $150 value: I wanted to be exactly there, Priceline had nothing, and the hotel treated me wonderfully. 3/4ths of a cent - even on a last-minute one-night award.

- 1 night, Madison Hilton, 25k. I'll call this one $150 as well. Again, I wanted to be in that property (for a wedding reception), not wherever Priceline would send me or some random Hampton by the airport. So a little under 2/3rd of a cent...

So, given that the Hawaii awards are no longer 100k, I tend to think of my HH points as about 0.7 cents each. I expect my future HH redemptions to look more like those one-nighters and less like Hawaii, so I think that's a reasonable expectation for my uses.

FWIW, I value a Marriott point at about a penny and a Starpoint at about 3 cents.

gregorygrady

I value Hilton points at 0.5 cents.
I value SPG points at 1.5 cents.
I value Hyatt points at 1.0 cents.
I value airline miles at 1.0 cents.
And I value SWA credits at $20 per credit.

BTW, these are my lowest values and take into account lost point gaining possibilities if I am redeeming instead of paying. I normally get more value for each of these when redeeming, sometimes as much as 3X as much as I value them at, but that doesn't mean I would personally pay that much myself.

Artie

I spend most of my points in Europe. I find cat. 5 hotels (esp. Conrad) have rooms that cost 300 euros and up. 300 * 1.25 = $375. That comes to 1.1 cents per point. Now, I usually get upgraded to better accomodations say 375 euros. if you factor in the upgrade, a HHonors point is worth even more. And of course B'fast with our devalued dollar frequently costs >$30 in Europe, so that makes the points worth still more.

I guess the moral is, Dont redeem at HI.

jabrams72

With the ongoing Walk for Hope program, you get 5000 points for $25 (only two of the walks really vary from this) which is 20000 for $100--straight purchase basically, as you're not getting them from hotel stays. So using that as a basis rather than the value you get from them, which is inconsistent, I'd say $0.005 per point.

pinniped

Actually, some HI's in the 7500 or 10000 point level can be decent awards. They're still in the half-cent to .75-cent range.

For my trips to Europe, I have (fortunately) never had a case where I needed to be in the Hilton, Marriott, or Starwood. I've always had the flexibility to select from one of the many nice boutique hotels in whatever city I've been in. Usually a 3 or 4 star place for 150 euros, give or take. So a Cat 5 award at the 375-euro Conrad is really worth well under a half-cent per point to me. I'm better off saving my points for the rural Hampton Inn.

gregorygrady

I don't know that this is a fair assessment of point value. Cat. 5 = $300 Euro is a fair assement of value I would say, however I don't think you can add on the other 75 Euro for the upgrade plus 60 Euro for breakfast for two. You would get the same upgrade possibility (actually probably better) and free breakfasts if you had simply paid 300 Euro for the room. But HH points are definitely more valuable in Europe if you were actually going to stay at a Hilton anyway, but like the above poster stated, there are better options sometimes than 300 Euro hotels.

Bam Man Emeril

So the Walk is an even exchange with a donation to charity?