djohannw

Just checked the award-categories for next year's holiday, and came across this nformation:

---cut here!

The following hotel reward chart will go into effect for point-stretcher rewards redeemed starting June 1, 2003:

Hotel Category Reward Code Points for One Free Night

1 PC101 6000
2 PC201 12,000
3 PC301 15,000
4 PC401 18,000
5 PC501 21,000
6 PC601 24,000

The following hotel reward chart will go into effect for standard rewards redeemed starting June 1, 2003:

Hotel Category Points for One Free Night
Reward Code

1 C101 10,000
2 C201 20,000
3 C301 25,000
4 C401 30,000
5 C501 35,000
6 C601 40,000

---cut here!

Seems we now have six categories instead of only five, and that the discounts for multiple nights are history then, too. Changes are to take effect "for awards redeemed on June 1st 2003 or after"...does that mean they honor the old certs until they expire??? This information can be found on the Hilton website after you login, and then go to redeem standard/point stretcher rewards, btw. Above is basically cut and past from the website with a very minor modification (to clarify the type of award, marked in italics).

Guess I have to pull my reward-certs for the summer 2003 (need a TEEN) NOW...;-(!

Greetings - Dirk

jukebox

Thanks for giving us a heads up on this. Did you notice if the ALON or Global award leves were increasing. This puts a new spin on everything.
Aloha

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bamboola

Please let us know where you see the information re: point increase? I just looked at hilton.com and don't see the new point structure.

However, to be on the safe side, I went ahead and redeemed my points for next June today.

The HIlton agent did acknowledge that points were going up and said that current redemptions would be "grandfathered."

djohannw

To verify this information, go to http://www.hiltonhhonors.com , log into your account, click on "Rewards" in the Activity view of your account, click on "Standard, Point Stretcher and Value Point rewards". Then click on the "CLICK HERE" under either Standard or Pointstretcher, and you'll see the new point-structure below the old table...

As to ALON/GLON or any other "specialty" award: I did not see any information about that but assume that these will increase also. The problem is that you cannot book these Online as far as I know, and the onlin-booking is the only place that shows the "new" structure...

Greetings - Dirk

FT wannabe

Thanks for the head-up. It looks like HHonors is only revamping the hotel category structure next year. The point redemption level is still the same. The new "Cat-6" hotel may be only applied to very exclusive hotels.

Starwood program's Cat-6 only includes the very special hotels in Italy and New York. I hope HHonors will limit the expansion to a few selected ones as well. Well, at last, we can compare the hotel redemption level between these 2 major chains directly.

djohannw

Sorry to contradict, but it's NOT the same point level. It seems to me that all the discounts for multi-night stays will be gone (or are added later, but then why post this info re: new point-levels now already). This means a thee-night standard-award in a Classic hotel (assuming that Classic will transform into category 4) will cost you 90000 points vs. 85000 points now, and a six night point-saver at a Premium are going up to 126000 from 117000. That's a 6%-7.5% increase in needed points.

And that's all based upon the same asumption that the hotels will not "just" move up one category to make room for a new low-end chain, which would make the increase much more noticable...

The worst thing in my view about this, however, is that Hilton sends out tons of eMails every month when you opt for their "eMail-comunication", but things of this importance are not covered there. Instead one has to notice this accidentially...

Greetings - Dirk

FT wannabe

djohannw, you are indeed correct. I was not looking at the multi-night-stay point discount (as I have never use a standard nor a point stretcher award).

Let's hope that the "VIP only" award will stay at the same point redemption level.

Sylvest941

Once upon a time, there were only Classic hotels (plus the Waldorf Astoria).
Then Classic were split between Classic and Premium.
My guess is that Classic will be split between C4 and C5 and Premium is to be split between C5 and C6...
What did you say? Rip off ?

amanuensis

I am hoping that discounts for multiple night stays will be added later. Perhaps the powers that be are still deciding precisely how many points to charge for multiple night stays. There is definitely room for tweaking. For example, a six night stay at the Opportunity level presently costs more points than does two-three night stays, and the points required at Executive and Select are the same either way.

IAD777

I agree. I hope they keep the VIP awards at 100K for 6 nights with the exception of the premium levels for 150K.

Hope they are not raising the point levels because of all the transfers from UA

teacher5

you guys are talking over my head ...as we just became diamond and have not paid too much attention to the awards...i had looked at the safari however...i think it was 250,000.did that change??

am i to understand that they added a category thereby enabling themselves to sneakily raise the points necessary for virtually everything...we have about 310,00 points...by the time we get to use it, we will likely need 400,000...i guess that is exactly how they plan to keep is in the hilton family

wonder if there will be any new promotions where we can pick up a lot of points

thanks for everything

FT wannabe

Hilton has been doing bonus point promotion frequently (e.g. CNTU). Besides, even the HHonors AmEx card has been doing 2x points promotion almost constantly... (2x pts in Aug/Sep/Oct this year; 2x pts in Jan next year with qualifying charge.)

Besides, we can burn orphan miles by doing transfers. There are tons of ways to earn HHonors points.

vandesa

I think they pulled the new points information. I went out to the hilton hhonors website and could not locate it the information under the sections identified above.

Can who ever located the original material about the increase in points please confirm if it has been pulled from the honors site.

MIKESILV

NO they did not I was able access the NEW reward requirements as I did went posted yesterday. Time 817 PM EST

Mike

Dave Noble

"Can who ever located the original material about the increase in points please confirm if it has been pulled from the honors site."

It is still there. Go to https://www.hiltonhhonors.com//rewar...dardhotel.asp? and then look at the bottom of the screen after you have logged in

Dave