Guide to the Hilton Honors program

As the company’s loyalty program, Hilton Honors allows members to earn points for hotel stays, credit card purchases, car rentals and more. Those points can then be redeemed for free stays at more than 4,800 Hilton properties or for other travel services or entertainment options. Points can even be used to shop on Amazon.

In this Hilton Honors program guide, we’ll review everything you need to know about earning and redeeming points, but first, let’s take a quick look at a few of the program’s pros and cons:

Pros of the Hilton Honors program:

• Multiple point earning opportunities
• Redemptions at thousands of properties worldwide with no blackout dates and no resort fees on reward stays
• Guaranteed member discounts and late check-out

Cons of the Hilton Honors program:

• Reduced points offered for stays at Home2 Suites and Tru properties
• High redemption rate necessary for premium rooms
• No standard award chart is available

There is no cost to join Hilton Honors, and anyone can become a member. Once you join, your points and stays help you earn elite status. Earning a higher status level comes with a number of valuable perks. Here’s exactly how to gain status and what you get at each tier:

Hilton Honors Elite Status

Member (awarded to everyone who joins Hilton Honors)

• Guaranteed member discounts on non-reward stays
• No resort fees on reward stays
• Digital check-in
• Ability to select rooms
• Standard in-room and lobby Wi-Fi
• Second guest stays free
• Free points transfers and pooling
• Late check-out

Silver Status (awarded after 4 stays or 10 nights)

Includes member benefits, plus:

• 20% bonus on base points earned
• 5th standard night free when booking a reward stay of five or more consecutive nights
• Two complimentary bottles of water
• Opportunity to rollover nights toward elite status for the following year

Gold Status (awarded after 20 stays, 40 nights or 75,000 Hilton Honors base points)

Includes member and silver status benefits, plus:

• 80% bonus on base points earned
• Space-available room upgrades up to executive room types
• Complimentary breakfast at all hotels
• Unlimited milestone bonuses which provide extra points every 10th night, starting at 40 nights

Diamond Status (awarded after 30 stays, 60 nights or 120,000 Hilton Honors base points)

Includes member, silver, and gold status benefits, plus:

• 100% bonus on base points earned
• Additional bonus points at some properties
• Premium in-room and lobby Wi-Fi
• Space-available room upgrades up to one-bedroom suites
• Executive lounge access
• Opportunity to extend diamond status one time for a year past its expiration date
• Opportunity to gift elite status to someone else
• 48-hour room guarantee

Beyond hotel stays and base points, there is another way to earn elite status. That’s through a co-branded credit card. We’ll talk more about those later in this Hilton Honors review.

There are two types of Hilton Honors points:

1. Base points
2. Bonus points

Base points are earned through hotel stays, and these count toward gold and diamond elite status. Most properties award 10 base points per dollar spent on stays. However, you’ll only receive 5 base points per dollar at Home2 Suites and Tru properties.

Bonus points don’t count toward elite status, but they can be redeemed for reward nights and other benefits. You can earn bonus points in a number of different ways, including:

• Bonus point promotions for hotel stays
• Vehicle rentals through partners such as Alamo, Enterprise and National Car Rentals
• Membership with Priority Pass which provides airport lounge access
• Cruises booked through CruisesOnly
• Mobile roaming service through OneSimCard
• Meals purchased at restaurants participating in the Hilton Honors Dining program
• Room reservations for meetings and events
• Purchases made with Hilton Honors credit cards

You also receive bonus points based on your elite status. The following bonus points are in addition to the 10 base points awarded per dollar spent.

• Silver: 2 bonus points per dollar spent on stays
• Gold: 8 bonus points per dollar spent on stays
• Diamond: 10 bonus points per dollar spent on stays

That means if you have silver status you’ll earn 12 points per dollar each stay, 18 points per dollar with gold status, and 20 points per dollar with diamond status. If you stay at a Home2 Suites or Tru property, your bonus points will be half the amounts listed above.

Without a standard redemption chart available, the value of Hilton Honors points can be hard to determine. However, most travel sites agree one Hilton Honors point is worth about 0.5 cents, or half a penny a piece.

The amount of points required to redeem standard room rewards varies by hotel, room, booking and travel dates, with the number of points required for a stay starting as low as 5,000 points per night. Reward stays at many luxury resorts on the other hand can average much higher, at 95,000 points per night for a standard hotel room.

For added flexibility, Hilton allows members to redeem with points and money. For example, if a free night costs 80,000 points but you only have 40,000 points, you can use points and money to redeem for 40,000 points and then only pay 50% of the Honors Discount Rate. With this perk you can pay with any combination of points and money in increments of 1,000 points.

Hilton Honors points can also be redeemed for perks other than free hotel stays. These include the following options:

• Purchases on Amazon.com
• Car rentals and rental upgrades
• Special experiences such as private concerts, luxury weekends and VIP access to special events

Hilton Honors has more than 40 airline and rail partners, and points can be exchanged for miles or points in their partners’ loyalty programs as well. What’s more, Hilton Honors points can be donated to charity, gifted to someone else or pooled with family members.

While these other redemption options can be appealing, the value of Hilton Honor points used in this way can be significantly lower than what you would get by redeeming for reward nights. For instance, it takes 500 Hilton Honors points to buy a dollar’s worth of merchandise on Amazon. That gives you a per point value of 0.2 cents, less than half what you might get through a free night.

As you might expect, you’ll want to start at the Hilton Honors’ website. Once logged in, you’ll see your account overview page where you can redeem your points for a night at a hotel or perhaps something else, such as a car rental or other travel expense. Assuming you’re looking for a hotel, you’ll click on “Find a Hotel” and use the portal to search through your options. When you’re ready to finalize your booking, make sure you’ve selected “use points,” and if you have enough rewards you’re cost will be covered with rewards at checkout. If you don’t have enough points, or simply don’t want to redeem them all at once, you can pay with a combination of points and money.

If you’re looking to redeem the points for something else, you’ll do it elsewhere in the account. For example, you can navigate to the “Exchange” section and divert your Hilton points to brands that Hilton has teamed up with, such as airline partners. This gives you the flexiblity to use your rewards for more than just hotel stays.

As with most loyalty brands that have rewards programs, Hilton Honors is well worth it – if you love or merely like Hilton hotels.

You also need to do a fair amount of traveling, too. Because points expire after 15 months of account inactivity, if you go traveling once a decade, then, yeah, maybe signing up for Hilton Honors isn’t worth your time. But it’s free to sign up and become a member, so it isn’t as if this is much of a risk.

If you have a Hilton Honors credit card, then you absolutely should become a member. The easiest way to get points for your membership is when you spend money on your Hilton Honors credit card, and so if you somehow have the credit card and are staying at Hilton hotels but aren’t using the membership, you’re almost certainly missing out on the chance to get discounts and savings on your hotel rooms.