It can be a pretty good deal if you have plenty of airline miles and you can use hotel stays.

I tend to buy my airline tickets and try to use hotel rewards for high priced cities. For example, a $600 ticket on UA from SFO-SIN can yield nearly 40,000 miles which can be converted to 80,000 HH points. For 100,000 HH points I can get a hotel room for 6 nights with a GLON 100,000 point award. The hotel would typically cost more than $1000 for 6 nights at the lowest available rate.

I find it a good deal because I get my airline ticket, increased airline status, and hotel room for just the price of an airline ticket.

Now with the changes in points required for awards with Hilton in 6 months it will require a recalculation of how good the value is next summer. Right now I rely on conversion of airline miles to HHonors to substantially lower the cost of vacations. I find it a good value and use of airline miles.