Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
At .5 cpp, I get around 10-20% back as rebate on HH if there's a promo (there almost always is). It's competitive with hotels.com. What made it better was getting 1 cpp on spend for some money + points redemptions.
The thing is you don't get 1/2 cent per point per dollar spent with Hilton (that's just wrong). You would shoot for .5 cents per point when SPENDING your points (preferably more).
The baseline for OBTAINING points is 10 points per dollar, plus 5 more if you take points and points, plus any promos, plus any status bonus, plus anything like Gold/Diamond amenity (which you can take as points), plus any bonuses for Hilton credit cards.
During one promo, I figured as a Gold I was getting 27.5 points per dollar I spent- so let's call it a $100 hotel room. Oh, and I was getting the 1000 point Gold amenity. So 2750 points + 1000 = 3750. OK, so at .5 cpp... that's $18.75 effective rebate on a $100 hotel room. Or 18.75%. Right around that 10-20% range I'd get for hotels.com.
So like I said, with the right set of promos it's pretty easy to net 10-20% rebate (even easier now that Hilton makes EVERYONE play ball). The thing is hotels.com doesn't lock you into Hilton. That's why I might be giving up on Hilton if the value for money + points is evaporating, because getting more like 20-30% on Hilton (when I get value closer to 1 cpp instead of .5) was more attractive than being able to be a free agent, but if it's net-net the same-ish with hotels.com... why be locked in?
What I find interesting is that some cash back portals lower cash back rates for Hilton bookings based on how high a status the Hilton customer has in the Hilton "loyalty" program.
Counting on promos to get value out of being locked in with Hilton is more of a gamble than counting on the value from the program absent promos and not being as locked in.
I must say that of Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott and Starwood, Hilton has been the most egregious in devaluing points during the course of my posting on FT. 100k-150k points as a Diamond used to get me a 6-night award stay at even the most expensively priced Hiltons. Now that same 100k-150k points may not even get me more than one night at some of those hotels, even as the cash price for those hotels has generally not increased by 500+% in the same time period.