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Hilton extends Elite Status until 2023, free nights, and lowers requirements
Hilton, like Delta did a couple months back, has decided to be the first in their travel sector to extend elite status through 2022. For the consumer this is a big win. It puts pressure on other brands to follow suit, but reveals the true state of affairs in the travel sector…things aren’t quite back yet. Will other hotel chains make similar moves? It seems unlikely that Marriott, IHG, and Hyatt won’t follow suit with some sort of incentivized status play. Let’s take a look at the press release and my thoughts:
Here are the details from the press release
- Extending status through March 31, 2023, so members can maintain their status perks and benefits longer.
- Pausing Points expiration until Dec. 31, 2022, so members have more time to use their Points towards free nights at more than 6,600 Hilton hotels, exclusive Hilton Honors Experiences, live events, charitable donations and more.
- Relaxing 2022 qualifications around earning Status, Milestone Bonuses, and Status Gifting from 2019 requirements to make these benefits easier to achieve. In 2022, Hilton Honors members will earn the following:
- Status Tier Requirements
- Silver status at seven nights, three stays or 17,500 Base Points.
- Gold status at 28 nights, 14 stays or 52,500 Base Points.
- Diamond status at 42 nights, 21 stays or 84,000 Base Points.
- Milestone Bonuses
- 10,000 Bonus Points at 30 nights.
- 10,000 Bonus Points for every 10 additional nights (after 30 nights).
- One-time 30,000 Bonus Points at 60 nights.
- Elite Status Gifting
- A one-time gift of Gold status for a friend or family member at 40 nights, which can be upgraded to Diamond status at 70 nights.
- Extending Rollover Nights for members of every status level, so all completed 2021 nights automatically roll over and count toward 2022 tier qualifications.
- Continuing flexibility of certain benefits for U.S. Hilton Honors American Express Card Members through Dec. 31, 2022.
- Free Weekend Night Certificates, including those issued in 2022 can continue to be used any night of the week (not just on weekends).
- Hilton Honors Bonus Points earned from eligible purchases on any Hilton Honors American Express Card will continue to count as Base Points toward Elite tier qualification and Lifetime Diamond status through Dec. 31, 2022.
Keys things that I think are worth focusing on
In addition to point expiration getting paused until 12/31/22 I am most focused on the following:
- Current status is extended through 3/31/23 AND they are rolling over nights
This means that if you had 42 nights at a Hilton this year you’d have hit diamond status ( 30 nights in 2021 ), and all of those nights would roll over into next year. You’d qualify for diamond status until 2024. That is pretty awesome if you’ve already hit 30 nights and have more to stay by year’s end – they aren’t redundant and every night may yield status for over 2 years going forward.
- Relaxing 2022 qualifications around earning Status, Milestone Bonuses, and Status Gifting
Status requirements are reduced by 30% from their normal rates and you can gift gold at 40 nights and diamond at 70 nights.
- Silver/Gold/Diamond
- Normal nights required 10/40/60
- 2021 nights required 5/20/30
- 2022 nights required 7/28/42
This pretty much means that Hilton thinks that travel will be better in 2022 than 2021, but nowhere near as heavy as 2019.
- Continuing flexibility of certain benefits for U.S. Hilton Honors American Express Card Members through Dec. 31, 2022.
The ability to use free weekend night certs during the week is clutch for building a cool trip. Remember that Hilton elites get a 5th night free when using points so adding a credit card fee night cert onto a 5 night stay is a lot easier when you can do so any day of the week. The eligible credit card spend counting towards elite status and lifetime status is a nice move, but something that has negligible value for me since my wife and I hardly put any spend on these cards that would qualify.
Overall
Hilton just started the elite status extension wars…
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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