And, FWIW, I added another 1000+ hotels to the analysis. I now have 1965 rows in the set. Of the 23580 hotel/months I checked 10637 got worse and 6190 got better. The rest are unchanged. Roughly the same rates still.

For those interested in Europe, Germany took a hit but Italy mostly got better. Spain is unchanged to slightly higher. Poland is mostly cheaper.

I still haven't received the email from Hilton. :rolleyes: Time to do some platinum/diamond challenges with SPG and Hyatt!

I'm in the same boat. I've got the free Hilton card and a Chase Sapphire. I'm thinking about changing all my spending to Chase (once they raise my credit limit), and switching to the Costco card or maybe the SPG card.

Does the Amex 1k booking bonus stay with these devaluations?

SPG's changes are rationale and reasonable and they gave a breakdown state by state and country by country. ^

Covered upthread. And in another thread, devoted to the change.

I think the problem is that most people have gotten used to the EXTREMELY good deals available in the past. For a moment, let's all pretend that HHonors doesn't exist and evaluate it fairly as a new program. For the moment I can basically purchase HH points through VR / CVS for $4 / 3000 = $.0013 per point at the current 6X rate, but for this example let's go with the more conservative $4 / 1500 = $.0027 per point at the default 3X rate. Under the new HH plan, I will be paying at most $.0027 x 95,000 = $256.50 per night for the most expensive room they have. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, especially considering that with other chains like Marriott you are lucky to get $.01 per point when cashing in and their CCs only give you 1 point per dollar on everyday spend.

Of course everyone wishes the old HH rates would remain, but we are looking at it from a spoiled point of view. Be fair, throw out the past, and evaluate HH as if it were a new program.

+1. Yes, a parting "gift" to those of us butt in beds types would have been nice. I certainly don't have any warm fuzzies for Hilton now, that's for sure.

I think Hilton basically dumped on the Amex relationship (or vice versa in negotiations) when it went with the citi branded cards. It will be interesting to see whether Amex fights to keep the business. I guess one would have to know how many Surpass card holders are out there. Amex still has a lock on SPG and that may be its priority. Other than the citi Hilton card, Chase seems like it has everyone else.

GLON gone???
 

HI all, this is dispicable. It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't increased the thresholds for the various tiers too, without telling anyone I might add!

Anyway, is GLON gone? I just tried to make a GLON booking for 5 nights in Hilton Cape Town in November and its saying there is a "technical fault" right now.....suspicious!

I forget which blogger wrote it, but his take was that Hhonors was basically taking the Southwest approach -- using points as cash. He calculated that Hilton points are now roughly worth a half cent accross the board, when he compared how many points it will now take to book a standard room versus how many dollars it would take to book that room.

How much longer do you think that's going to last?

Except it's not a new program and people are not starting from scratch. Travelers chose to stay at Hiltons and points were earned based on existing redemption rates, some of which have skyrocketed.

I think if they were truly fair, they'd inflate our HHonors points to match the increase :P

But seriously, inflation is reality; however, the rate of inflation Hilton has made is ridiculous. And why should customers view it as a new program if they spent money earning it under the old one? Would you consider your wage to be equally subject to such rapid loss in value and feel that it is as simple as throw out the past?

I am afraid this will be the ultimate direction all airlines and hotels will go... DL just introduced their dollar spend criteria (MQD) as part of elite status; they supposedly will have the other shoe drop when they implement Fare Based Award Travel Redemption (FBATR) where redemption amount will be tied directly to fare value. Jet Blue pioneered this and Southwest RR 2.0 really made this a common concept (given their wide presence).

Everyone is tying points/miles to dollars spent... forget the loyalty aspect of it.

I am truly hoping I am wrong (and Delta sucks dirt), but like all these additional fees popping up, it's likely the trend.

That makes sense, although IMO it never made sense to do anything else. Five UR points equals 5 flexible, immediately transferable points/miles in the UA, Hyatt, Amtrak, etc. programs (where returns of 2-3 cents/pt are not hard to come by). I'd say 6 HH points wasn't competitive with that even before the Great Disemboweling we've just witnessed.

4 credit cards. Transfers from Hawaii and Virgin. 6x bonuses. Hilton caused their own devaluation and we are simply caught up in it. It is now making full sense why the credit cards are changing their bonus spending structures 2 months after HH changes redemption rates. HH is trying to reel back in the billions of points that are out there from non-frequent hotel guests. As pissed as I am about these changes, I will be even more upset if they don't learn from this. As a gold, I shouldn't have accumulated more points last year from spend and CC bonuses than I did from stays.

That's why I used the more conservative 3X rate in my example.

And I will be taking maximum advantage of the 6X rate until May. ;)