Yesterday, I wrote about both the new SPG Great Weeks, Great Weekends promotion and the new Marriott MegaBonus and now Hilton Honors has announced its new promotion for the first quarter of 2018.
The promotion
The new Hilton Honors promotion is called “Points Unlimited” and is launching January 1, 2018, and running through April 30, 2018. Points Unlimited will give Hilton Honors members 2,000 Bonus Points per stay, plus an additional 10,000 Bonus Points on every five stays.
Additional details:
- Members must first register at HiltonHonors.com/PointsUnlimited prior to completing a stay within the Promotion Period
- Members also earn 10,000 Bonus Points every five stays, regardless of tier with no limit on the number of Points you can earn
- Promotion Stay Period runs January 1 – April 30, 2018
- Offer available at over 5,000 hotels worldwide
- No minimum stay requirements, no cap on the Points earned
- Here’s a link to the FAQ
Earning potential
Here are a few examples to show the number of Bonus Points you can earn per stay with this promotion (not including Base Points earned):
- 1 stay = 2,000 Bonus Points
- 2 stays = 4,000 Bonus Points
- 5 stays = 20,000 Bonus Points
- 6 stays = 22,000 Bonus Points
- 10 stays = 40,000 Bonus Points
At .4 cents per point, a normal Hilton Honors member will typically receive about a 6% return on a Hilton stay after earning 10X the points per dollar spent plus 5X the points per dollar spent for signing up for points + points.
The extra 2,000 Hilton Honors points from this promotion are worth about $8 so for a $200 stay you’d be netting an additional 4% return for a total return of 10%. The extra 5,000 Hilton Honors points are worth about $20 which is nice but requires a total of 5 stays to net that value so that’s an average of 1,000 extra Hilton points per stay or $4 per stay. So these are *decent* returns but nothing exceptional.
Keep in mind that you can supplement your earnings further by booking through the Hilton Honors app to get 500 more points for each completed stay through December 31, 2017. You need to register for this promotion here to be eligible for the bonus.
Final word
Overall, this is not the most lucrative Hilton promotion as others have offered double the points per night or triple the points for Diamond members on stays for returns as high as 16%. It’s worth noting that the percentages in returned value are higher for the Marriott and SPG promos though the nice thing about this promotion is unlike the Marriott or SPG promos, you can start earning extra points with your first stay. So in that respect, this promo might work about better for people with infrequent hotel stays.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
