Apr 2, 2023, 5:01 pm
Last edit by: cblaisd
Hilton Properties Devalued 5k → 10k & 10k → 20k for standard award:
[NAME] [OLD RATE] [NEW RATE]
Loyalty Lobby Article with the List of Hotels that Changed: https://loyaltylobby.com/2019/06/17/hilton-honors-award-chart-changes-june-2019/
[NAME] [OLD RATE] [NEW RATE]
Loyalty Lobby Article with the List of Hotels that Changed: https://loyaltylobby.com/2019/06/17/hilton-honors-award-chart-changes-june-2019/
Consolidated "Points Devaluation" thread
Mar 9, 2017, 12:44 pm
#1186
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Posts: 10,003
With the old system the hotels were allowed to pick and choose if/when they activated availability on P&C nights so unfortunately in the eyes of Hilton they have done nothing wrong.
With the announcement of the changes they have obviously looked at it and seen that they are going to make more from the changes and excercised their right to not offer P&C at that time.
From a business point of view I can't say I blame them. From a customer perspective it's pants but in terms of what they have to do as per franchise contract they have done nothing wrong.
With the announcement of the changes they have obviously looked at it and seen that they are going to make more from the changes and excercised their right to not offer P&C at that time.
From a business point of view I can't say I blame them. From a customer perspective it's pants but in terms of what they have to do as per franchise contract they have done nothing wrong.
Mar 9, 2017, 8:17 pm
#1187
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,763
Exactly. The old version was a backdoor way of selling discounted rooms without seeming to. Since the new version is so transparent as to the underlying value of Honors points, they would not want to continue to use P & C for that purpose. I expect Priceline and Hotwire to soon get greater room inventory from Hilton-branded properties.
Would be interesting to see how this thing plays out in the next 6 months - it may not turn into something what the management of Hilton Corp has hoped for.
Mar 10, 2017, 3:51 am
#1188
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: coastal Croatia
Programs: BAEC Gold, M&M Senator
Posts: 2,181
I tried to do a spreadsheet to figure out what our credit card spend (i used $38K per year) would get us with this new devaluation. Generally, I think HH is giving poorer value than before and poorer value than the competition, but this depends on the city. Our annual spend is small, but this should be scale-able.
So for our spend (taking bonus categories into account) we would get 40,500 Starwood points (=121,500 Marriott points using the SPG Amex) or 54,000 Hyatt points (Chase) or 149,500 Hilton points (we have the Citi reserve).
For that earn, I looked at burn in five cities--Seattle, Chicago, Berlin, Bangkok and Sydney. In general Hilton only came out ahead in Bangkok in terms of value. Berlin was more or less even for all the chains. And for the other cities Hilton definitely came up short in terms of number of nights for the points.
For example, in Bangkok, I could redeem my credit card spend for three nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the W or five nights at the Hilton (six in some months). So I think HH comes out ahead here.
For Berlin it was 3 nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the Westin, or three nights at the Hilton (or the Waldorf Astoria in low season). To me this is more or less even.
For downtown Chicago, I could get three nights at the Hyatt Regency or four nights at the Hyatt Place, three nights at the Aloft or four nights at the Tremont (both SPG) or two nights at any Hilton family property.
For Sydney I could get two nights at the Hyatt Regency, three nights at the Westin or either one or two nights at the Hilton, depending on the season (I looked at a June weekend and an October midweek).
And for Seattle, I could get three nights at the Grand Hyatt (or four nights at the Hyatt Place), three nights at the W or four nights at the FourPoints, or two nights at the Hilton, DoubleTree or HGI.
To be fair, since I had low spend, all properties had points left over at various times that with a higher spend might not be as much of a factor. I also did not include the annual free night (category four or less) at Hyatt or the annual free weekend night at Hilton for credit card spend of $10K, so that could add one more night to each chain, depending on several factors (Hyatt's cert, for example, couldn't be used at all in Sydney because the lowest category hotel there is a category five).
All in all, this is just one analysis for one spending pattern for two time periods for five cities, so it's certainly not the definitive analysis. But I do think that generally speaking, this devaluation doesn't work to make Hilton more competitive. In fact, I would argue that it makes them less competitive in most cities, especially ones where the cost of hotels is higher.
So for our spend (taking bonus categories into account) we would get 40,500 Starwood points (=121,500 Marriott points using the SPG Amex) or 54,000 Hyatt points (Chase) or 149,500 Hilton points (we have the Citi reserve).
For that earn, I looked at burn in five cities--Seattle, Chicago, Berlin, Bangkok and Sydney. In general Hilton only came out ahead in Bangkok in terms of value. Berlin was more or less even for all the chains. And for the other cities Hilton definitely came up short in terms of number of nights for the points.
For example, in Bangkok, I could redeem my credit card spend for three nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the W or five nights at the Hilton (six in some months). So I think HH comes out ahead here.
For Berlin it was 3 nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the Westin, or three nights at the Hilton (or the Waldorf Astoria in low season). To me this is more or less even.
For downtown Chicago, I could get three nights at the Hyatt Regency or four nights at the Hyatt Place, three nights at the Aloft or four nights at the Tremont (both SPG) or two nights at any Hilton family property.
For Sydney I could get two nights at the Hyatt Regency, three nights at the Westin or either one or two nights at the Hilton, depending on the season (I looked at a June weekend and an October midweek).
And for Seattle, I could get three nights at the Grand Hyatt (or four nights at the Hyatt Place), three nights at the W or four nights at the FourPoints, or two nights at the Hilton, DoubleTree or HGI.
To be fair, since I had low spend, all properties had points left over at various times that with a higher spend might not be as much of a factor. I also did not include the annual free night (category four or less) at Hyatt or the annual free weekend night at Hilton for credit card spend of $10K, so that could add one more night to each chain, depending on several factors (Hyatt's cert, for example, couldn't be used at all in Sydney because the lowest category hotel there is a category five).
All in all, this is just one analysis for one spending pattern for two time periods for five cities, so it's certainly not the definitive analysis. But I do think that generally speaking, this devaluation doesn't work to make Hilton more competitive. In fact, I would argue that it makes them less competitive in most cities, especially ones where the cost of hotels is higher.
Mar 10, 2017, 12:44 pm
#1189
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,763
You are making it way too complicated.
All the pages of discussion basically miss the very basic point - Honors has gone REVENUE-BASED program. And Hilton has assigned a fixed value range to their points, that the required points are directly tied to the room rates of the dates you want. It is just like how Southwest or JetBlue program works.
Just use the simple rule - the HH pts are now worth between $0.004 to $0.0055 in 95% of the case. The remaining 5% would be either an extremely poor below $0.004 value or a rare case above $0.007 value (happened to our upcoming stays in Poland at airport Hampton and HGI).
Gone are the days when one could get value close to $0.007 or above.
So use this as your yard stick on how much intrinsic "value" you would earn by your spend on the targeted cards then decide whether it is worth it or not to cumulate Hilton points.
For the majority of folks I would venture to say, it no longer makes any sense to purposely acquire Honors points because the intrinsic value is now at a very low $0.004 to $0.0055 range. This makes it even worse than IHG pts which traditionally has a low value but yet the chance of finding double of that in IHG program is now bigger especially in some European locations due to IHG still on a fixed point level chart.
Once the points have an assigned value by the program, almost all the arbitrage value is wiped out. It is just as simple as that. But we have to give it to Hilton to masquerade this as a big "enhancement" to now let you freely choose how many points to use....
All the pages of discussion basically miss the very basic point - Honors has gone REVENUE-BASED program. And Hilton has assigned a fixed value range to their points, that the required points are directly tied to the room rates of the dates you want. It is just like how Southwest or JetBlue program works.
Just use the simple rule - the HH pts are now worth between $0.004 to $0.0055 in 95% of the case. The remaining 5% would be either an extremely poor below $0.004 value or a rare case above $0.007 value (happened to our upcoming stays in Poland at airport Hampton and HGI).
Gone are the days when one could get value close to $0.007 or above.
So use this as your yard stick on how much intrinsic "value" you would earn by your spend on the targeted cards then decide whether it is worth it or not to cumulate Hilton points.
For the majority of folks I would venture to say, it no longer makes any sense to purposely acquire Honors points because the intrinsic value is now at a very low $0.004 to $0.0055 range. This makes it even worse than IHG pts which traditionally has a low value but yet the chance of finding double of that in IHG program is now bigger especially in some European locations due to IHG still on a fixed point level chart.
Once the points have an assigned value by the program, almost all the arbitrage value is wiped out. It is just as simple as that. But we have to give it to Hilton to masquerade this as a big "enhancement" to now let you freely choose how many points to use....
Mar 10, 2017, 3:08 pm
#1190
Join Date: Jul 2015
Programs: HH Diamond, HGVC, WN RR, National Exec, Avis Preferred
Posts: 1,057
I'm thinking that this "enhancement" will have me only using points in some 5th night free situations. Can burn through points and possibly salvage some value. I'll also keep my Surpass for awhile to keep the free breakfast at HGI's, where I stay frequently.
Mar 10, 2017, 3:12 pm
#1191
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: MCI
Programs: AA Gold 1MM, AS MVP, UA Silver, WN A-List, Marriott LT Titanium, HH Diamond
Posts: 52,575
One other stealthy part of this devaluation: room types that were part of the Diamond Standard Award category are now gone.
Prior to March 1, I held a reservation for 2 nights at a Homewood Suites in a 1-bedroom suite. It was listed as "DIA STANDARD AWARD", 60,000 points per night.
Today, I changed that particular award from 2 nights to 5 nights. The 1-bedroom suite is still available, but is 106,000 points per night. The Studio Suite is 48,000 points per night (e.g., 5th night free).
Not a huge complaint for this particular award, as the square footage of studio vs. 1-bedroom at Homewoods isn't really worth losing sleep over. But it's disappointing to see that go: there have been many cases in the past where I've booked the "DIA" room, one category above a base room, as basic assurance of something like a high floor, good view, etc. I found that helpful in this no-upgrade environment these days...
Prior to March 1, I held a reservation for 2 nights at a Homewood Suites in a 1-bedroom suite. It was listed as "DIA STANDARD AWARD", 60,000 points per night.
Today, I changed that particular award from 2 nights to 5 nights. The 1-bedroom suite is still available, but is 106,000 points per night. The Studio Suite is 48,000 points per night (e.g., 5th night free).
Not a huge complaint for this particular award, as the square footage of studio vs. 1-bedroom at Homewoods isn't really worth losing sleep over. But it's disappointing to see that go: there have been many cases in the past where I've booked the "DIA" room, one category above a base room, as basic assurance of something like a high floor, good view, etc. I found that helpful in this no-upgrade environment these days...
Mar 10, 2017, 7:50 pm
#1192
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Paradise
Posts: 1,617
One other stealthy part of this devaluation: room types that were part of the Diamond Standard Award category are now gone.
Prior to March 1, I held a reservation for 2 nights at a Homewood Suites in a 1-bedroom suite. It was listed as "DIA STANDARD AWARD", 60,000 points per night.
Today, I changed that particular award from 2 nights to 5 nights. The 1-bedroom suite is still available, but is 106,000 points per night. The Studio Suite is 48,000 points per night (e.g., 5th night free).
Not a huge complaint for this particular award, as the square footage of studio vs. 1-bedroom at Homewoods isn't really worth losing sleep over. But it's disappointing to see that go: there have been many cases in the past where I've booked the "DIA" room, one category above a base room, as basic assurance of something like a high floor, good view, etc. I found that helpful in this no-upgrade environment these days...
Prior to March 1, I held a reservation for 2 nights at a Homewood Suites in a 1-bedroom suite. It was listed as "DIA STANDARD AWARD", 60,000 points per night.
Today, I changed that particular award from 2 nights to 5 nights. The 1-bedroom suite is still available, but is 106,000 points per night. The Studio Suite is 48,000 points per night (e.g., 5th night free).
Not a huge complaint for this particular award, as the square footage of studio vs. 1-bedroom at Homewoods isn't really worth losing sleep over. But it's disappointing to see that go: there have been many cases in the past where I've booked the "DIA" room, one category above a base room, as basic assurance of something like a high floor, good view, etc. I found that helpful in this no-upgrade environment these days...
Mar 11, 2017, 1:21 pm
#1193
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 156
You are making it way too complicated.
All the pages of discussion basically miss the very basic point - Honors has gone REVENUE-BASED program. And Hilton has assigned a fixed value range to their points, that the required points are directly tied to the room rates of the dates you want. It is just like how Southwest or JetBlue program works.
Just use the simple rule - the HH pts are now worth between $0.004 to $0.0055 in 95% of the case. The remaining 5% would be either an extremely poor below $0.004 value or a rare case above $0.007 value (happened to our upcoming stays in Poland at airport Hampton and HGI).
Gone are the days when one could get value close to $0.007 or above.
So use this as your yard stick on how much intrinsic "value" you would earn by your spend on the targeted cards then decide whether it is worth it or not to cumulate Hilton points.
For the majority of folks I would venture to say, it no longer makes any sense to purposely acquire Honors points because the intrinsic value is now at a very low $0.004 to $0.0055 range. This makes it even worse than IHG pts which traditionally has a low value but yet the chance of finding double of that in IHG program is now bigger especially in some European locations due to IHG still on a fixed point level chart.
Once the points have an assigned value by the program, almost all the arbitrage value is wiped out. It is just as simple as that. But we have to give it to Hilton to masquerade this as a big "enhancement" to now let you freely choose how many points to use....
All the pages of discussion basically miss the very basic point - Honors has gone REVENUE-BASED program. And Hilton has assigned a fixed value range to their points, that the required points are directly tied to the room rates of the dates you want. It is just like how Southwest or JetBlue program works.
Just use the simple rule - the HH pts are now worth between $0.004 to $0.0055 in 95% of the case. The remaining 5% would be either an extremely poor below $0.004 value or a rare case above $0.007 value (happened to our upcoming stays in Poland at airport Hampton and HGI).
Gone are the days when one could get value close to $0.007 or above.
So use this as your yard stick on how much intrinsic "value" you would earn by your spend on the targeted cards then decide whether it is worth it or not to cumulate Hilton points.
For the majority of folks I would venture to say, it no longer makes any sense to purposely acquire Honors points because the intrinsic value is now at a very low $0.004 to $0.0055 range. This makes it even worse than IHG pts which traditionally has a low value but yet the chance of finding double of that in IHG program is now bigger especially in some European locations due to IHG still on a fixed point level chart.
Once the points have an assigned value by the program, almost all the arbitrage value is wiped out. It is just as simple as that. But we have to give it to Hilton to masquerade this as a big "enhancement" to now let you freely choose how many points to use....
Mar 12, 2017, 6:46 am
#1194
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: coastal Croatia
Programs: BAEC Gold, M&M Senator
Posts: 2,181
So we're looking at "good value" for HH points only when the cash rate is so high that the new (seemingly higher) level of max points is still over 1/2 a cent a point. And by "seemingly higher," I'm thinking, for example, of NYC where most of the Hampton and HGI, etc. hotels went up from 60,000 max to 70,000 max after the new system was implemented.
And most of us expect this to go away eventually based on the wording of the new program ("currently no more than....") And then it will be simply transactional--1/2 cent per point for standard rooms and somewhere around 1/3 or 2/5 of a cent per point for premium rooms? Going forward this will be the new norm and there will not be any bargains to find, just a flat redemption rate (which will [or may] vary based on whether we're redeeming for standard rooms or premium rooms).
And most of us expect this to go away eventually based on the wording of the new program ("currently no more than....") And then it will be simply transactional--1/2 cent per point for standard rooms and somewhere around 1/3 or 2/5 of a cent per point for premium rooms? Going forward this will be the new norm and there will not be any bargains to find, just a flat redemption rate (which will [or may] vary based on whether we're redeeming for standard rooms or premium rooms).
Mar 12, 2017, 8:34 am
#1195
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: MCI
Programs: AA Gold 1MM, AS MVP, UA Silver, WN A-List, Marriott LT Titanium, HH Diamond
Posts: 52,575
It may have been the hotel adjusting the suite category. I've seen quite a few Homewood Suites classify either the full king suite or the 2 bed suites as "premium rewards", while just the studio suite is labelled standard. This has been happening for years, so can't really blame the new system for that. While it's only a small percentage doing it; it does make you wonder if all will follow soon enough.
Then, the entire HH value prop will be hitting big promos and using the CC just enough to lock up Diamond. This program will eventually be like IHG with its inflation and promos-upon-promos to keep people coming back. Well, minus the IHG pointstretchers, which are often exceptional value.
Mar 12, 2017, 9:42 am
#1196
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Posts: 10,003
So we're looking at "good value" for HH points only when the cash rate is so high that the new (seemingly higher) level of max points is still over 1/2 a cent a point. And by "seemingly higher," I'm thinking, for example, of NYC where most of the Hampton and HGI, etc. hotels went up from 60,000 max to 70,000 max after the new system was implemented.
And most of us expect this to go away eventually based on the wording of the new program ("currently no more than....") And then it will be simply transactional--1/2 cent per point for standard rooms and somewhere around 1/3 or 2/5 of a cent per point for premium rooms? Going forward this will be the new norm and there will not be any bargains to find, just a flat redemption rate (which will [or may] vary based on whether we're redeeming for standard rooms or premium rooms).
And most of us expect this to go away eventually based on the wording of the new program ("currently no more than....") And then it will be simply transactional--1/2 cent per point for standard rooms and somewhere around 1/3 or 2/5 of a cent per point for premium rooms? Going forward this will be the new norm and there will not be any bargains to find, just a flat redemption rate (which will [or may] vary based on whether we're redeeming for standard rooms or premium rooms).
Mar 12, 2017, 11:29 am
#1197
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Norway, Maine
Programs: United Silver and HH Diamond
Posts: 1,474
Mar 12, 2017, 11:53 am
#1198
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Manhattan NV
Programs: Hilton LTD, Hyatt Glob, Marriott LTTE, AA LTP, Avis PC, National EE, Seabourn DE
Posts: 3,030
Mar 12, 2017, 4:57 pm
#1199
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,763
Though I suspect such high value redemption would be very rare with the norm being at $0.004 to $0.0055 most of the time.
Those who saw the point level dropped were missing an important point - the point levels in the past in those scenarios were so high and cash rates so low, nobody would use points but rather use cash booking. Now the same cash bookings can be "paid" with points at the fixed range of the value.
Mar 12, 2017, 5:15 pm
#1200
Join Date: Dec 2010
Programs: Hilton Diamond, Marriott Titanium, Radisson Gold, Hyatt Globalist, M life Gold, IHG Spire
Posts: 918
It may have been the hotel adjusting the suite category. I've seen quite a few Homewood Suites classify either the full king suite or the 2 bed suites as "premium rewards", while just the studio suite is labelled standard. This has been happening for years, so can't really blame the new system for that. While it's only a small percentage doing it; it does make you wonder if all will follow soon enough.
Then, the entire HH value prop will be hitting big promos and using the CC just enough to lock up Diamond. This program will eventually be like IHG with its inflation and promos-upon-promos to keep people coming back. Well, minus the IHG pointstretchers, which are often exceptional value.
Of course, the first casualty of inflation is always savers. Anyone here on FT saving a big pile of HH points ought to burn them as soon as possible. Thank goodness I never put spending on one of those Hilton credit cards.
Last edited by jn in ca; Mar 12, 2017 at 5:28 pm