Splitting a reservation between points / $
 

Earlier this year, I had 153,000 points in my account, and wanted to book at a property. I looked at the site, and I was looking for a 6 night stay.

The rate came up as 50,000 points per night. I thought - ok, great. I will pay for 3 nights at 50,000 = 150,000, and pay the other 3 nights in cash (or credit card).

Since I couldn't figure out how to do a partial pay online, I turned around and searched the reservation for 3 nights, and -- Uh-Oh! The rate is now 70,000 points per night.

Crap!

So I called in, and it seems there's a 5 night minimum to get the 50,000 point rate. I explained that it's all one reservation, and I'm paying the rest in cash. Reservations said there's no way they could split it between cash and points.

"Buying" the difference in points was not economical as a choice (10 pts per $1)

I ended up spending 140K points on only two nights, and checking out and going to another non-Hilton property for the remainder of the vacation.

Was there a better way to have done this? It's already done and over with now, but asking here because the FTers would know all the tips & tricks.

Well, the lowered rate is because of the 5th night free bonus. When you search for award with 5 or more nights, it automatically give you the discounted points figuring in the 5th night free bonus.

Yes - Understood, but because I couldn't cover the entire reservation with points, and had to split it up, I lost out on the 5th night, even though I would have done so, if I were able to pay part of it as points and the remainder with money.

You do NOT qualify for the 5th night free in any way. You MUST book a 5 night POINTS AWARD reservation to get the 5th night free. It is a bonus ONLY for POINTS awards. The 5th night free does NOT apply to $$ or points/cash award reservation.

If you book less than the 5 award nights, no discounts.

You could have checked to see if there is a discounted rate for the cash nights (MVP, AAA, etc).

As noted by others the 5th night free for diamonds (reflected as a pro rata reduction in points per nite) is only for reward stays.
From HiltonHonors.com:

In this case, the cash rate was -- let's say $150/nt for 7 nights, and the points rate was 50,000/nt for 7 nights.

But, splitting them up, both the points/nt rate and the cash/nt rate both went up. The cash rate went up to $180. In the end, it would not let me book as 50K X 3 plus $150 X 4 to get 7 nights total.

So, I took the 70K X 2 and paid $130/nt at another property for 5 nights.

Checking the same property again, and just using 1 King Standard to work with, my original 7 night stay prices at $230/nt cash or 43,500 points/nt points. Changing things around, going down to 3 days, the rate goes to $310/nt cash or 50,000 points. 4 nights yields a slightly different rate, of $270/nt cash, 50,000 points.

Bottom line - any length-of-stay rate you get will vanish if you try to combine points/cash for your booking.