wbl-mn-flyer

My days as a diamond are soon to be over, having very few stay and nights and base points for the year. If I'm lucky they'll just reduce me to GOLD but even then, I won't be eligible to redeem points for the VIP awards, right?

So I'm wondering. Should I cash in my chips now, sort of like I did back before the devaluation of the ALON and GLON? I can always redeposit, so I'm tempted to do this.

Also my airline status is not long for this world, and the points I had have been squandered on a "first class for 4" trip to hawaii, so I'm thinking the ALON2 is not the right choice for me. Next "tropical vacation" will most likely be Florida or California. Which makes me think GLONP or maybe just GLON.

Thanks one and all for your advice.

Westcoaster

Will you have enough stays to be Silver? Diamond, Gold and Silver can all redeem the VIP awards.

nako

Unlike most airlines, I don't believe that HHonors drops one level if you don't requalify - they'll reassess you at the level that you qualified for. So they can drop you down as far as Blue if you didn't have the four stays required to keep Silver.

That said, VIP awards are available for all three VIP tiers - Silver, Gold, and Diamond - as Westcoaster mentioned. As long as you maintain the minimum of four stays per year, you can save your points and redeem the VIP awards when you want to.

Mike

wbl-mn-flyer

thanks guys this is all good news. I think that I'm guaranteed silver no matter what, since I have the Hilton Amex card.

tinkybelle

Also If you book the stays while still Diamond the good chance is that you will have Diamond in your profile so still get the upgrades.
This happened to me a few years ago when I dropped to gold in MAY then as I was on a 35day hilton extravaganza I got Diamond back.

Westcoaster

Just FYI, when I got the Hilton Amex they said that I got Silver only for the one year. It didn't sound like I'd be forever at least Silver with the Amex. Maybe you have a different situation, but you might want to verify that your Amex will take care of Silver for you if you're not going to have 4 stays. (Depends on how long you've have the Amex, of course.)

wbl-mn-flyer

thanks. looks like I'm good for 2005, for silver at least.

Current Year Stays: 4
Current Year Nights: 11

pathetic, I know. But you should see the points in my "frequent daddy" account.

amanuensis

It was true that Silver used to be for only one year when you got the AMEX card, but now it is for as long as you keep the AMEX account. That is the only thing that kept me from dropping from Gold to all the way to Blue. We have twins that are seventeen months old in our family, so I have done very little traveling the last 20 months or so.

infinityplusone

Good to hear that others enjoy the "daddy points" as well.
Those Daddy Points have better perks and very few blackout dates, unless you want to book something in the teens.

Rut Dog

Good information here worth summarizing:

1) VIP awards are for all VIPs

2) You can get Silver eternal (for now at least) by having HHonors Amex

And I'll add:

3) Gold eternal (so far for me) is easily found by following promos published in this forum (See this thread for current news, INCLUDING the point of view that publishing such codes is bad form).

4) And even though it seems moot to the OP, I'd like to comment on the original question, "ALON2, TEEN2, GLON2 or GLONP2?"

If you are unfamiliar with the rewards, read this page closely, and you'll soon see that ALON2 and TEEN2 are entirely redundant and in some cases not even the best value.

At 175K points, they are the same cost as GLONP2 for five nights at ANY Cat 6 property, including the ALON2 and TEEN2 properties.

For that matter, of the 8 TEEN2 properties, two (The Pointes) are Cat 5, and the DT San Diego Golf Resort is a Cat 4. So a GLON2 is a better deal for these.

Bottom line: If you ever want to cash out, get a GLON2 or GLONP2.