Hilton has just released the details for its first promotion of 2020 and it’s called “Points Unlimited.” For short, cheap stays this has the potential to be one of the most rewarding hotel promotions that I have seen in quite some time, especially if you have a Hilton credit card. Keep reading below for more details of the Hilton Q1 promotion!

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New 2020 Hilton Promotion

• 2,000 bonus points for every stay
• 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights

Note the difference between stays and nights in this promotion. Check out my analysis of this promotion below to see just how valuable this promo can be. 

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Sign-up link

Like all Hilton promotions, you must sign up to be eligible. You can sign up for this promotion by clicking on this link and following the instructions.

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Eligible dates

Update: This promotion has been extended to September 7, 2020.

• This promotion will apply from January 6 to May 3.
• Members checking in before January 6, 2020 will receive credit for their stay if the stay is completed on or after January 6, 2020 and prior to or on May 3, 2020.
• If you start a stay in the middle of the promotion period and check-out after May 3, you will not receive the bonus.

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Is this a good promotion?

Sometimes these promotions are more favorable to people who are spending a lot of money on expensive stays and other times they are more valuable on shorter, cheaper stays. In this case, this promotion will benefit people more who make shorter stays.

For example, let’s say that you are making ten one night stays and spending $100/night.

You would earn 1,000 base points every night ($100 x 10) so at the end of these ten one night stays you would have earned 10,000 base points. 

Let’s also see that you are a Hilton Diamond member so you earn an additional 10 points per dollar spent. This would leave you with a total of 20,000 Hilton points after the stay but that is before applying this new promotion.

Since you had tens stays you would earn 20,000 Hilton points from the 2,000 bonus points per stay portion of the promotion. Then, since you completed 10 nights you would also receive the bonus 10,000 points.

So your total earnings would look like this:

• 10,000 base points
• 10,000 bonus points from diamond status
• 20,000 bonus points from the 2K/stay promotion
• 10,000 bonus points from the 10 night promotion

That is a total of 50,000 bonus points and if you value Hilton points at half a cent per point that is like getting $250 back. Your total spend for the stays would be $1,000 so this would be like getting 25% back on your spend. 

But let’s also say that you were using a Hilton credit card like the Hilton Aspire. That card earns 14X on Hilton purchases so your total points would be 64,000 bonus points.

• 10,000 base points
• 10,000 bonus points from diamond status
• 20,000 bonus points from the 2K/stay promotion
• 10,000 bonus points from the 10 night promotion
• 14,000 bonus points from the Hilton Aspire

So you’d be earning a whopping 64X per dollar spent on Hilton purchases and getting back 32% for your spend. That would be fantastic!

But see, if instead of 10 individual stays you were just making one long stay of 10 nights then you would only earn 2,000 bonus points instead of the 20,000 bonus points. So you would earn a total of 46,000 bonus points. 

• 10,000 base points
• 10,000 bonus points from diamond status
• 2,000 bonus points from the 2K/stay promotion
• 10,000 bonus points from the 10 night promotion
• 14,000 bonus points from the Hilton Surpass

That would still be like a 23% return which isn’t bad but this is why the promotion favors people making shorter stays. 

Also, if your stays were more expensive like $200 per night that would also bring down the earning rate. For example, with 10 individual stays you would earn 88,000 Hilton points for $2,000 worth of spend, which comes out to 22% back. Again not bad — just not astronomical.

• 20,000 base points
• 10,000 bonus points from diamond status
• 20,000 bonus points from the 2K/stay promotion
• 10,000 bonus points from the 10 night promotion
• 28,000 bonus points from the Hilton Aspire

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Terms and conditions

• Members will earn 2,000 Bonus Points per stay on reward stays.
• Reward stays will also count towards the 10,000 Bonus Point award.
• The 10,000 Bonus Point award can be earned an unlimited number of times
• A stay is defined as the total number of consecutive nights spent at the same hotel, whether or not a guest checks out and checks back in again.

You can read more about the questions here.

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Final word

Overall, this is a nice promotion. But it is especially nice for people making shorter and cheaper stays since the percentage of return through the bonus points will be much higher. If you can stack your earnings with a Hilton credit card you could be looking at returns in the 60X+ range which is just awesome.