Honors Discount Launches at 4,500 Properties Worldwide
 

Hi all,

Over the past few months, you may have noticed a discount for HHonors members being offered at select properties for stays booked directly through Hilton channels. I’m excited to share that we will now be offering this exclusive discount to ALL HHonors members, every day, as long as they book directly with us, at more than 4,500 hotels worldwide. Members will also continue to receive instant benefits like free Wi-Fi, HHonors Points and digital check-in with room selection, along with all the other perks of being an HHonors member that most of you already enjoy. All HHonors members have access to the discount every day for any of our properties around the world, with the exception of bookings made for hotels in Mainland China, including Hong Kong, Taiwan or and Macau.

As always, I’m here for your questions, thoughts and feedback, so keep them coming my way.

Thank you!
Lauren

Lauren, thanks for the update. Is there a list of participating hotels? If so, how does one access it?

Many thanks

My employer just switched to requiring Concur to be used for all bookings. Is there a way to comply with this and still get the Hhonors discount?

As of yesterday, there were 4,676 Hilton properties. Who are the holdouts?

Is there a Hilton-branded hotel in Taiwan? And are you implying that Taiwan is part of China? NOT politically correct. :confused:

lol another "promotion" from Hilton...

I have stayed at the same hotel, 2-3 weeks per month, for the past 6 months. Every time, without fail, the room rate was $109. Regardless of day of the week, regardless of how far booked in advance, $109. Like clockwork.

I just looked at booking for my next two trips. The room rate is now $114 and the new HHonors discount brings it down to $111.

It's like an outlet mall. Mark up the prices and put them "on sale" back to their original prices. :td:

Just re-checked a reservation for next month. $125 with the new discount; $103 with MVP rate.

Based on what I'm reading, maybe it's time to start rethinking my credit cards and steer clear of ones that get me hotel points. What's the point of continuing to use a hotel that raises prices in an attempt to make it appear that I'm getting a discount?

Uh, 4676 is "more than 4,500", isn't it? So who said there were any holdouts? It's just rounding, and admitted as such.

CDG Hilton, in early July... Currently held reservation: 116 Euro. Base rate today: 129 Euro. With HH discount: 116 Euro.

This is death for finding BRG deals.

Note for those not familiar with the program - this a laughable bogus "discount" that is created solely for the purpose of marketing. Based on my experience you are likely to find better rates without it. YMMV of course.

Sometimes these "corporate deals" are not always the best. If you can get a better rate, then you should point it out to your boss and try to book it.

Any normal person/organization would round 4676 to "more than 4600" or "nearly 4700." The question is a fair (and obvious) one.

I would think they don't want to have to change the language on the promo soon, whether they deflag 77 hotels next month (putting it under 4600) or add 25 hotels next month (putting it over 4700). So IMHO it would actually be foolish for them to be a specific as you suggest.

However, I would suggest that it would have been clearer if they had simply said "at all of our over 4500 hotels".

Hi all,

I just wanted to clarify on the number of hotels participating. While we have over 4,600 Hilton properties worldwide, our properties in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are excluded from the discount due to contractual obligations in these territories. This brings the total number of properties offering the HHonors discount to more than 4,500.

I saw a few other questions come through today, but I need to follow up on them - I will be back to post once I have the answers.

Thank you!
Lauren

I just checked the same hotel I mentioned above earlier today.

Prices have gone up $15 across the board. Oddly, every room type (two double beds, two queen beds, one king bed, one king with whirlpool suite, one king smoking) are all the same price.

The HHonors discount is $4 off of all rates... a 3.1% discount.

Still $16 higher than every other week I've stayed here in the last 6 months.

This is an epic fail by Hilton. Companies need to realize that pricing games are not only easily exposed by customers today, but also widely ridiculed via sites such as FT. As a very frequent Hilton customer, I find the numerous examples cited above to be extremely troubling. The fact that the discount applies to all HH members should have been a tip-off. Quite frankly, this thread invites more ridicule than anything and certainly doesn't reflect well on Hilton.

Good to see, wonder if they will implement better rates for elites like Hyatt did.

stackable with AAA or trounced by AAA?
 

For those of us who are AAA members (and/or AARP members), will this rate ever do us any good? AAA discount is typically 10% (and I think at least 5%), so unless the 3% is on top of that, it seems that AAA rate would always beat it.

I guess the only exception would be if the hotel doesn't accept a AAA rate.

Seems to me this program isn't designed to benefit someone like you. I see it as an attempt to get more occasional travelers to join HHonors. Once they join, they might be more inclined to stay at Hilton-branded hotels in the future.

It also sounds like a smart way to incentivize people to book direct and not at sites like Orbitz or Expedia. Booking via Hilton is about as easy as with an online travel agency. Even if it's just $3/night, many people will choose Hilton.

From that perspective, it's not "an epic fail". It's actually a wise business decision.

You completely missed my point about pricing games. See posts above.

I don't think I did...but, you're welcome to believe that. If you want me to believe that Hilton is engaging in "pricing games" at their thousands of hotels worldwide, you'll need to provide more than the anecdotal evidence shown in this thread.

Exactly. Mainland China does not include Hong Kong, Macao, and especially Taiwan.

Assuming the property raises it's prices by $X across and offers a small discount back under this. You may feel the property is "cheating" but they are just making a pricing decision. They do still have to compete with neighbouring properties / competitors. An overall higher pricing will hurt them if that is not acceptable to its guests and not all of them are members. Why all the anger. Continue with your practice in searching for rooms. Ignore the discount if it makes you feel better. Ultimately, they (some properties) decided to raise prices across as a revenue measure. The point of this is members gets better pricing than non members.

^

Adding another tier of fake higher rates that no one is dumb enough to book does not make the regular rates a "discount".

I agree. It's misleading and may even be illegal in some markets if they haven't let the rates settle long enough before the fake discount.

This is not the same as increasing price and then running a "sale". Even if some properties happened to raise their prices, the price increase is 100% across all customers but a small % aka members gets a discount for their loyalty. The two scenarios are different. As a guy who tries to view the glass as half full, I see it as "gee.. Prices have risen but boy am I glad that the new discount allows me to keep the old pricing / soften the increase." You honestly believe most guests are Hilton members? Lots of guests are members of none. I am willing to bet No and probably a lot are on tour packages which will get hit with the increased pricing even though the increase is not clear.

I guess thats why the Hilton representative wrote it isn't valid in Mainland China and HKG/Macao/Taiwan, as the later three areas aren't part of Mainland China - if you write "Mainland China", you don't mean HKG/Macao&Taiwan, and if you write the easier term "China", some people will think that HKG/Macao&Taiwan aren't included. Thus, writting Mainland China including HKG/Macao&Taiwan is the easiest way to make it all clear what you mean.

Similar with "not valid in the US (excl. & incl. Hawaii/Alaska), or 48 continental states, etc. - to make it clear that something isn't valid in Puerto Rico, for example.

But.. back to topic:

I just checked the discount offers today for an upcoming stay.

Somehow the "original" rate is now about 20% higher than what it used to be 3 days ago. The discount is a few % off. The new "discounted" price is quite a bit above what the old price was. Ummm, "thanks".

Despite being HHonors Gold, my money will go elsewhere on this booking.

Some corporate deals offer discounts that are contingent on business volume, so the corporation may push local managers to accept a higher price to achieve a corporate-wide savings. Not so good if you're the local manager who is also charged with P+L responsibility. :(

Most ppl booking via orbitz etc can get cashback more that this so called "discount".. nothing wrong with hilton playing this marketing game but again in most cases tjis is just fluff and smart customers can realize better savings through other means.

Dynamic pricing. Room rates on several of my reservations have gone up, so I'm glad I made the reservations when I did.

I doubt the rollout of HHONORS Discount has anything to do with rates increases. We all have choices when we make our reservations whether we like the rates or go elsewhere.

I was able to take advantage of this HHONORS Discount recently for CDG Hilton for March, rate still the same, and July, Discount rate has gone up 30 euros.

It is what it is. If we don't like the rates, then go somewhere else.

My loyalty to Hilton still depends on the biggest discount off of whatever rate I'm paying: Complimentary breakfast at Gold.

Thanks for your question, amanuensis. You will still be eligible for HHonors Discount when booking directly through preferred corporate travel partners and approved travel agents.

Should anyone have questions about a specific program, please PM me the details.

Lauren

How will this work ? I know our system passes along my HHonors number reliably. But like the other poster, I must book through our corporate booking tool.

Hi ptownca,

You can try contacting one of the Travel Agent Professionals at your corporate travel program. Travel Agent Professionals have access to the HHonors Discount rate and they can assist in booking these rates.

Lauren

Post #1 says:

"with the exception of bookings made for hotels in Mainland China, including Hong Kong, Taiwan or and Macau."

That's what people commented on. IMO it's similar to saying "with the exception of hotels in the U.S., including Canada. :)

Post #16 is better:

"our properties in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are excluded."

Akin to "our properties in the U.S. and Canada are excluded."

I think even the AARP rate beats this discount. Even worse for Hilton, Marriott has 30% discounts for Golds/Platinums, so that beats any discount HH could ever do, so I had to cancel my HH reservations and book with Marriott.

Huh? At every Marriott program property? Details where? I've never heard of this before, and I've been a Marriott Platinum for a few years now, and have been following the Marriott forum on FT for even more years.

Checked for a few of my upcoming stays. Unless otherwise indicated I didn't see any difference in the AAA rate from when I booked a month ago to today.

Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder: $94/night (AAA rate); $96/night (hhonors rate)
Hampton Inn Los Alamos: $89/night (AAA rate); $89/night (hhonors rate)
Hampton Inn Alamogordo: $117/night (AAA rate at original booking); $127/night (AAA rate now); $120/night (hhonors rate)
Homewood Suites Albuquerque: $89/night (AAA rate); $91/night (hhonors rate)

Yawn.

Neil