Book the OLD rates before 3/28. Book the NEW rates after 3/28. You can't book the new rates until AFTER they go into effect.

You can book (at least some) properties all the way to March 2015 as have been mentioned here earlier and what I documented as well.

The main issue here though is the possibility that your reward cert will expire before the stay, and cause all kinds of mess.

Stringing a week together with the devaluation
 

If you have the Citi HH Reserve Card which I just got and Silver or higher status you can string a week together using your points

1st to 4th night with points
5th night free with your status
6th night is your annual Citi Reserve Free night


I agree with everyone else that this devaluation is awful.
I'm not giving up yet, but I'll be taking a look at Hyatt
This puts a snafu in my plan that began just January 1st, 2013 to get Hilton points for all my charges. That's why I got the new card so I could charge business and personal.

I still think this is an attempt to clean up the goofy system they created and they are moving to a system that rewards the AIB nights appropriately.

All of these credit card reward points cost them money to purchase and assign/redeem and they do nothing to increase the loyalty. I think they are figuring out there is a large share of their HHonors membership that are loyal to the program who are not loyal to the hotels.

If that is indeed the end game and I pay a higher premium during the correction period, I am all for it. @:-)

This devaluation of points by Hilton has prompted me to sign up to FlyerTalk and this is my first post. I am someone who has HHonors Diamond status strictly from hotel stays not any credit card affiliation/activity and this latest move feels like a real kick in the gut. I have long recommended various Hilton properties to friends/associates and now I really don't feel like doing such. Also, this latest move reinforced my growing sentiment that the difference between Diamond and Gold was really not enough to warrant those extra stays when you could also be building status at one of their competitors. To me that shows there is something wrong.

I'm typing this from the Westminster Park Plaza. I do like the Trafalgar Hilton and that is normally my home for London stays (15 - 20 trips per year).

I tend to redeem for long haul holidays and the odd weekend in London.

With their triple points promotion, my week here will earn me 90k points, within a smidgin of 2 free nights in London.

The equivalent stay at the Trafalgar would earn 40k points, now about 1/2 a night in London.

For me, at least, it's a no brainer.

The "pay for so seven nights and get another one free" sounds like a paid stay to me.

The "stay four nights and get the fifth night free" is part of the new HH reward stay for VIP's.

That pre-supposes they are getting rid of credit card churners and I don't know if they have taken any steps to prevent this in the future.

They wont git rid of a huge cash flow, they will just make it harder and by doing so, make even more money.

Hilton is in the business to make money, I would like to believe that some extensive research went in to this decision.

First and foremost, they may have determined that Diamonds and Golds value bennies like free WiFi, breakfasts, upgrades (particularly for award, leisure stays) more than stays at exotic resorts for below market redemptions. This describes me, I am guilty of playing the credit card game to accumulate Honors points, primarily through Hawaiian Airlines - well beyond Hilton's control.

To compensate for the dilution, I would not be surprised to see more generous quarterly promotions this year, possibly involving partners, like the Q412 promo with Virgin Atlantic. Hilton would also be very wise to "encourage" more properties to participate in quarterly promos, in return for the higher redemption value.

Hilton likely makes big money from credit cards, I do not consider them a primary cause of the change, churners are a small minority, can be dealt with if/when necessary by AMEX, Citi.

Nice point.....but there are many of us I'm sure like myself that were saving their points (1.5M) for future dream vacations. I stay 75 nights at hilton a year (as they say here "BUTT IN BED"). They can make their changes....going forward!!

Don't devalue points I earned sometimes for stays at higher rates than other hotels just so I could keep my Diamond status!!

I strongly feel they should have rewarded loyal Hilton patrons with some sort of equitable adjustment on accrued points.

My example: -- if you earn interest on a bank account and the interest rate goes from 3% to 1%, they don't go back and retro actively take all the intest you earned at 3% back.

Bad buisness and "CORPORATE GREED" is the only way to explain this.

If Hilton wants to save face and win back the clients that SLEEP in their hotels. They will offer PHENOMONAL promos or up the points awarded for sleeping in their hotels, thus we can afford the new requirements and separate us from the card churners

I just made an reservation using an AXON7 reward. I notice the award certificate is valid for a year. Can I stockpile AXON certificates now at the current redemption rate for future use? Due to a cancelled trip I am sitting on 900,000 points and would like to minimize the effect of the upcomming devaluation.

I wondered the same in a different thread. The idea would be to make a few AXON reservatios at hotels where the Diamond Desk must still manually issue an AXON cert (more likely at European hotels) then, later, try to have the cert attached to a different reservation. Whether this will work after 3/28 is anyone's guess. I, and others, think probably not. But there is no downside to trying if you are flush with points. Just be aware that the certs say they are only good up to cat 7s, so, if the certs are useable after March 28, they would be limited to new cat 7s most likely.