Originally Posted by
Raffles
Hampton Sheffield UK remains 10k and frankly that is far more likely to be a hotel the average traveller would use than one in an odd corner of Russia.
Where is Sheffield? Lol. Those cities "in an odd corner of Russia" are hosts for FIFA 2018. And of course, Krakow is far more likely to be visited by any kind of tourists than some unknown for most location in the UK.
Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Who owns SPG now? Oh yeah, that company that just devalued your points at 1,082 properties (I helpfully linked to it) and that's going to kill of the SPG program once and for all at some point relatively soon.
But hey, if you're getting great value out of Marriott, IHG, Hyatt or whatever, go for it, the programs aren't looking out for your interest, only you can do that. If you want to ditch Hilton for another program, be my guest. If you want to seriously argue that SPG is a good long term proposition... well.... okaaaay. If you think Hilton's some unique proprietor of evil, I submit you're not paying attention.
Hilton has been notorious for devaluing its loyalty program for years, you can`t deny it. I believe Hilton started that war of playing "Zimbabwe currency" with reward redemption (and it is still the leader of all requiring the max number of points for Standard Reward). Now it devalues between official announcements.
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
Of the hotel programs in which I’ve had elite status for the majority of the FT years, Hilton’s devaluations of hotel points have been the worst of the hotel program lot. In large part, Hilton’s awful points devaluation history is why I don’t pick Hilton hotels for massive point accumulation and only use the Hilton hotels without regard to the Hilton points.
It might be the time to start booking via third party sites, especially if the same benefits apply to all regardless of status such as Hampton. This way (all hotels) loose $$ to pay the middle men - it is getting to the point with all those very frequent devaluations when getting points is not that valuable. Cash is king, not the points
Btw, a few hotels which jumped up in this silent devaluation are operated by Hilton, and they are not franchised. So it was Hilton`s move.