Just used 25,000 HHonors points for two rooms, three nights at a property with the cheapest room going $250 a night. No problems with availability and because I was Diamond, even though I was not with family members they upgraded the room. I value HHonors points at $.005 per point in deciding to pay for a room or use a reward. In Norway 10,000 HHonors points at a Scandic Hotel gets me a room priced at $175 to $200 per night, great value there.
Originally Posted by pinniped
Agreed - it's probably not easy to even milk .6c out of an HH point. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, valuing 6 nights at HWV at around a grand or so. Yeah, you can beat that on Priceline, but they did upgrade me to a great ocean-view room and provide free lounge access that we used at least twice a day. So for that week I was glad I used points instead of spending $850-900 on Priceline. (Of course, I got my two ALONs at 100k each, not 175k each.)
Using a 100k ALON at the HHV was a colossal waste of points. Using a 175k ALON there wouldn't even make sense. The hotel is in the midst of a concrete jungle. It is the antithesis of all of the wondrous charm of the other Hawaiian islands. And I think you can Priceline that area for $90/nt. or so.
I piled up 300,000 HH points mostly through 1-night Hampton stays, with an occasional Doubletree or Embassy mixed in. I did a lot of hotel-hopping to get the 16 stays needed for those two ALONs.