How many current
"real" earned Elites started off with the FT '2000 miles per Quarter' points update deal?
Newer members of FT will not recall, but for a few years Hilton used to give folks nominally 1,000 (but really 2,000) HH points a quarter for changing one aspect of your profile. King bed not Queen. Upper floor, not lower floor. New email address, or phone or cell etc, etc, etc. Took a few minutes and you were set. ^
And I recall you got 3,000 initial miles for each new account you started, if you went in via the link we posted on FT, so you got 5,000 "instant" HH miles effectively for each new account. This was around 2000 and 2001 IIRC. Maybe it ran into 2002 - someone may recall?
Many here used it. I started some long threads on it here, and in what was then "The Buzz" and there were doubtless many 1000s of FT'ers who added 8,000 points a year to their accounts, their wife's and kids etc. (And back then spouse accounts could be merged pretty fast and easily - rapidly doubling the bennies for many.)
It must have meant Hilton pumped out zillions of points to folks who had hardly used Hilton (if ever) to that point. Hilton were pretty clever and probably voided most of those accounts when they totally purged anyone last year who had not generated recent account "activity" last year.
My question is - how many of you reading this forum who are now "earned" Gold and Diamonds but started thinking Hilton directly as a result of this promo? And later changed all, or a lot of your Hotel business to that brand? Myself and partners have spent a lot of money with Hilton due to this promo in the past 5 years, and had never really previously spent a buck at Hiltons.
I suspect there are many in that boat, and am interested to see if these kinds of point 'drip-feeds' do in fact win loyalty in the end from some of those who sign up at the onset, purely for the free miles. Please post here your own personal experience from this promo.
Been a long while since Hilton offered any kind of free 1,000 type deal for anything. I really think they may be wise to try that kind of thing now and again. I will in a few days pass this thread link on to someone at Hilton who might be interested in the responses, and suggest they pass it on to the powers that be.
Seeing Hilton (like Starwood) do police strictly the right to cancel out your account balance entirely if you do not have annual activity, it seems a smart way to get folks thinking Hilton. If they give you 5,000 or eventually even 10,000 miles a year and you do not add to them - they simply void the account. Effectively weeding out the time wasters.
Even if they give everyone new 5,000 or even 10,000 miles up front, or far smarter - in a "drip-feed" over a year, what in PRACTICE can you redeem for that small number of miles (except near non-existent Cat 1 hotels) unless you add to the balance, and the simplest way to do that is start booking Hilton rooms.
Which is what the whole point of loyalty programs is all about of course. Heck even "Point Stretchers" (if you can find any!) very lowest category starts at 12,000 a night.
Hilton have a big advantage over say Starwood, as in reality 3,000 (even 5,000) free Hilton points are for all real purposes totally worthless, but it "looks" like a very impressive amount to a new member and prospective new client. 3,000 Starwood points on the other hand books you a VERY nice $200+ hotel room, as I had last week in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
