E-mail from the hotel side of the rewards program

I received this e-mail yesterday from Hilton Honors Rewards Program on the hotel side.



An important announcement from Hilton HHonors
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Dear Maria,

Thank you for making Hilton HHonors™ your guest loyalty program. With ten distinct hotel brands, you have endless ways to experience the benefits of being an HHonors member.

Over the past few years, we have expanded the benefits for our guests with Gold and Diamond status. They can now enjoy benefits such as complimentary space-available room upgrades, high-speed Internet access, breakfast, and up to a 50% bonus on all Base Points earned on every stay.

Periodically, we need to adapt our program based on industry trends. For the past ten years, we have not changed the qualifications for Gold and Diamond status. As of January 1, 2013, we will adjust the requirements to qualify for elite status in 2014. To qualify for Gold status, HHonors members must complete 20 stays, 40 nights, or attain 75,000 Base Points within the calendar year. To qualify for Diamond status in 2014, members must complete 30 stays, 60 nights, or attain 120,000 Base Points in 2013. All other tier level qualifications, as well as elite status received through Hilton HHonors credit cards and partners, will remain the same.

We thank you for your loyalty, and we look forward to seeing you at one of our 3,900 hotels and resorts in 2013.

Sincerely,


Jeffrey Diskin
Executive Vice President, Commercial Services
Hilton Worldwide






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I got the same email, and it will probably mean, that after quite few years at Diamond, I will slip to Gold in 2014. I'm guaranteed Gold via my HGVC elite status anyway, so I won't have to even do the 20 stays or 40 nights to maintain Gold.

Lately it's been somewhat difficult to do 28 stays or 60 nights to maintain Diamond at Hilton when I do 5 or 6 stays at HGVC for 30 to 35 nights per year. This year I had to book an unnecessary 1 night stay just to maintain Diamond for next year.

Other than dropping from 50% bonus points to 25% bonus points, I don't see much difference between Diamond and Gold anyway. The first few years of being Diamond I was getting upgraded all the time, but the last several years, upgrades have been few and far between.

Since Marriott counts timeshare stays getting elite night credits, I'll probably just concentrate on keeping my Marriott Platinum status.

Anytime I see a change in loyalty programs, they make me feel less important to the company that is changing it. The change always reduces the loyalty benefit I had before. This one confuses me, it doesn't appear to me to be a big $ saving to Hilton to do this change, so I expect it is step one of a multi-step program, where the next step will quote this change, and then make the other levels "in line" with this one, and there will be larger savings for them at that point.

Gold on Marriott and Hilton

I am Gold on both Marriott and Hilton, so I always book whoever has the best price for my dates. Now I will factor in all aspects of my nightly costs AND perks. We are constantly using hotels for airport stays, major cities with no timeshares in Europe, etc. I do have to say however, Marriott 70% of the time comes out ahead.
BTW, we spent 9 nights in Athens this past Sept. at the Marriott Ledra and it was SO NICE! We were given executive lounge access, and the 5-to 7 drinks and snacks was actuallly more like dinner! Then from 7 to 9 it was complimentary deserts! YUMMY! Buffet breakfast for breakfast. The food was fabulous! The rooms we beautiful, the staff delightful!

I wonder if this will change the requirements of obtaining Gold or Diamond status via spending on the HHonors-branded Amex or Visa? A lot of people (me included) owe their status level to CC spending vs. hotel stays.

Kurt

PigsDad said:

I wonder if this will change the requirements of obtaining Gold or Diamond status via spending on the HHonors-branded Amex or Visa?

Click to expand...

No. Read to the bottom of post #1...
"All other tier level qualifications, as well as elite status received through
Hilton HHonors credit cards and partners, will remain the same."

That's not to say it isn't within their gun-sights for next-time.

I hope they don't get like the exchange companies and have the rules constantly changing. It is GREAT being Gold with Hilton or Marriott. We are "on the road" about 8 months a year so we do use a mix of timeshares and hotels. Most of the time it's just DH and myself so hotels are more then fine for us. And we do love to be right IN major cities when we want to visit them, not on the outskirts.., although in Bavaria we want to be in specific little towns and "spots", not driving 2 hours from a timeshare to visit them. We go to Bavaria every summer for 3 to 4 weeks and have our favorite hotels in our favorite "heavens". None of those are Hilton OR Marriott. There are none of them in those "spots" anyway.
Don't get me wrong, we love the timeshare stays also and have stayed in a many jaw dropping ones, but the hotel stays are pretty sweet too!

I am HHonors Gold for life due to my HGVC Elite Plus status. I made Marriott Rewards Gold for the first time this month. I think the point devaluation is due to inflation. Despite the devaluation, I think HHonors remains an excellent customer loyalty rewards program. The big lesson is that there is very little point in hoarding points. I can only afford to take so much time off from work. Therefore, I redeemed a bunch of HHonors points this year to reward an excellent employee with a vacation at a relatively posh beach resort, when I learned where she was going with her family for her vacation this past summer. They were going to go anyway but the accomodations at The Hilton sure beat the Econo-Lodge.