The Hilton Conrad is a great resort to be a Hilton Diamond or Gold member. You’ll get a number of welcome gifts, free breakfast, and some other nice perks like complimentary happy hour and afternoon tea, which are aimed to provide lounge-like benefits (since there is no executive lounge here). Here’s a review of these benefits so you’ll know what to expect for these perks and for other things like upgrades when you visit.
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Conrad Maldives Gold and Diamond benefits
The unique elite benefits for Hilton Gold and Diamond members are very similar for the Conrad Maldives and the only difference is that Gold members receive a bottle of wine while Diamond members receive a bottle of sparkling wine.
Gold members
- Bottle of wine
- Chocolate and fruit amenities
- Daily Happy Hour at Vilu restaurant for you and sharing guest in same villa from 17.00 – 18.00 hours
- Free breakfast
- Afternoon tea
Diamond members
- Sparkling wine
- Chocolate and fruit amenities
- Daily Happy Hour at Vilu restaurant for you and sharing guest in same villa from 17.00 – 18.00 hours
- Free breakfast
- Afternoon tea
- Complimentary 15 minute spa treatment (not sure if Gold members get it to)
Note: Not all of these benefits are published on the official Hilton website.
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Hilton elite status
You might be wondering how to achieve Hilton Gold or Hilton Diamond so that you can take advantage of these benefits at the Conrad Maldives.
Here’s how you could obtain either Hilton status:
Hilton Gold
Gold status can be achieved in a couple of ways:
- 20 stays in a calendar year, or
- 40 nights in a calendar year, or
- 75,000 Honors Base Points in a calendar year
You can also obtain it via credit card with:
- Platinum Card from American Express
- Hilton Honors Ascend card
To learn more about Hilton Honors Gold Status, click here.
Hilton Diamond
Diamond status can be achieved in a couple of ways:
- 30 stays in a calendar year, or
- 60 nights in a calendar year, or
- 120,000 Honors Base Points in a calendar year
You can also obtain it via credit card with:
- The Amex Hilton Aspire
The Aspire card comes with all sorts of benefits but one relevant perk here is the $250 resort credit which can be used at the Hilton Conrad Maldives for not only things like spa treatment but also even room rates.
To learn more about Hilton Honors Diamond Status, click here.
Do you need Diamond or Gold?
For many people, simply achieving Hilton Gold is more than enough because it offers the core benefits like free breakfast, upgrades, and late check out. You can read more about these elite levels here.
Upgrades
Officially, Hilton does not offer upgrades for Gold and Diamond members at the Conrad Maldives. However, that does not mean that you can’t get upgraded to a better room with your status.
If you book a beach villa you can often get upgraded to the Deluxe Beach Villa or even an over water villa. See this Flyertalk thread for data points on upgrades for Diamond members.
If you can’t score an upgrade, the hotel often offers reasonable rates for upgrades so consider paying with cash to secure a room you’d prefer. In order to upgrade, simply contact the hotel once you’ve made your reservation and you can upgrade well before you arrive at the hotel. I’m not sure how good availability is for upgrades when requesting at the time of arrival.
Welcome gifts
As soon as we walked in, our welcome gifts were awaiting us in the entry of our retreat water villa. Since we are Hilton Diamond members, we were given the sparkling water and fruit along with the chocolates.
I liked the bottle of bubbly but the sparkling wine Michelle isn’t exactly premium, you can find it at Target for $12.
The chocolates were fantastic though and I gobbled those up.
Conrad Maldives happy hour
The Hilton websites lists the happy hour benefits as being from at Vilu restaurant for you and a sharing guest in same villa from 5pm to 6pm. However, when we visited, the happy hour was held at the Quite Zone Lounge Bar. Thus, the happy hour location could be subject to change but you can count on getting free drinks for one hour somewhere at the resort.
Here’s what the menu looked like for Hilton Honors members which included wine, sparkling wine, beer, spirits, and juices.
There’s a long bar area with plenty of seats but most people were more interested in the seating areas located on the beach.
We ordered our first round from the bar but they did come around asking us if we needed any help. We first took one of the day beds in the shade looking directly to where our retreat water villa was on the main island. It’s a beautiful to relax though there’s not a lot of privacy as you’re very close other patrons on the day beds.
Then we moved to one of the tables located on the beach where we were served with some tasty canapé, which consisted of some cheese, meat, and smoked salmon along with a beet dish.
We also went for one more round.
The Quite Zone Lounge Bar is located right next to the Quite Zone pool, too. It’s a smaller pool but can be a romantic spot if you’re able to get it all to yourself. By the way, these are supposed to be adult only areas but at least person had brought a kid with them to the happy hour. Thus, I don’t know if the no-kids policy is truly enforced or not.
Afternoon tea
We made it out to the afternoon tea during one of our visits, which are held everyday from 4pm to 5pm.
The wasn’t near the level of other teas I’ve had like at the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, but it was still okay and a nice way to hold yourself over for a more substantial meal later on in the day. Here are some of the highlights which included some very tasty scones.
The happy hour and tea time are nice experiences but they each only last one hour and their offerings aren’t the most premium. So while I enjoyed both of these Hilton perks, it does feel like there’s a little room for improvement.
Hilton Gold and Diamond breakfast
As Gold and Diamond members, you’ll be able to enjoy a complimentary breakfast at the Conrad Maldives. This is a huge way to save money. Also, the breakfasts offered are pretty solid so you’ll be able to really look forward to a high quality, free breakfast each morning.
We ate two of our breakfasts at Mandhoo at then one at Atoll. We much preferred Mandhoo not just because it was closer to our retreat water villa but because we just liked the vibe better. the foods are somewhat similar but it’s smaller and located right on the water so we just preferred that more.
There was a very solid line up of fresh pastries.
The fruit was excellent and the passion fruit was especially fresh and tasty.
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Atoll breakfast
Atoll wasn’t bad but it just wasn’t as good as Mandhoo to me. It’s a very open restaurant that’s much larger and comes with a bigger buffet. You have many more options, including seafood options, more cheeses, etc. so it’s great if you have a very expansive appetite. But if you want to just keep things simple, you might want to go with Mandhoo.
Complimentary 15 minute spa treatment
We were given a complimentary 15 minute spa treatment as Diamond members but the catch was that we had to book a “real” spa treatment to take advantage of it. We didn’t end up taking advantage of this, so I can’t comment on it. I’m also not sure if this is given to Gold members or not.
Final word
The Hilton Conrad is a great place for Hilton Diamond and Gold members to visit. With the free breakfasts, you’re saving a lot each day and then the welcome gifts, happy hour, and afternoon tea perks are just the cherry on top.
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.