Hilton Overhauls Its Loyalty Program — Skift Business Traveler

What to Know Now

Hilton launched an overhauled loyalty program this past week that added a handful of benefits and also turned its award points into more of a currency.

In terms of benefits, Honors (no longer HHonors) will soon allow points pooling among groups and will also let top-tier Diamond elites extend status on a limited basis.

As to the value of those Honors points, the situation is somewhat murkier. Among the upcoming changes, Honors plans to soon let members pay for rooms partially using points, effectively pinning a dollar value to each point. Starting in July, Hilton will also soon allow Honors members to pay for Amazon purchases with points, a unique functionality among hotel loyalty programs.

Where that gets murky is in how each point is valued. According to The Points Guy, partial payments with points will operate on a sliding scale, so 1,000 points at one hotel may be worth less than 1,000 at another. So far, there are also no details on how Honors points will translate to Amazon.

Still, Hilton gets credit for rolling out new benefits and listening to consumers. Hopefully consumers don’t get gouged along the way.

Social Quote of the Day

I’ve been Hilton Diamond since the tier was created, and Gold since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I’m ditching Hilton this year to go all in with Hyatt. Hilton has devalued their points so much that a half million or million points is chump-change as the points to book a room has gone through the roof.

– Michael McDonald @ The Points Guy

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Your Turn

Congratulations to Bill Kearney, the new editor-in-chief of American Way, the magazine for American Airlines. Mr. Kearney started with the magazine with February’s issue; read his welcome letter here.

Tips and Comments

Can be sent to gm[at]skift[dot]com or to @grantkmartin

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