If you’ve got a stash of Hilton Honors points or free night certificates from credit cards like the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card, you can use them to stay at any hotel in Hilton’s portfolio.
However, it can be a bit tricky to find standard room award availability at some of Hilton’s most popular properties. This is because each property categorizes a limited number of rooms as “standard.”
Points & Money slider
Hilton Honors is one of the few frequent guest loyalty programs that equips its members with a slider that allows them to customize the balance between using points and paying with cash. According to Hilton executive vice president of global loyalty, David Weinstein, this feature is designed to appeal to travelers who avoid booking travel due to costs and provide them with another way to purchase rooms.
This feature is particularly useful when searching for a hotel that’s out of reach due to high demand or a seasonality issue, and you want to know how many points it would take to book the hotel. It’s also helpful for those who have a limited amount of points but want to use them for a higher-value stay.
In addition to the Points & Money slider, Hilton Honors offers a number of other benefits that are helpful for finding hotels in a range of price points. These include the Points Explorer, Award calendar, and flexible dates.
Points Explorer
In order to help members understand what their points can buy, Hilton Honors stopped publishing an award chart in 2018. Instead they launched a tool called Points Explorer.
The Points Explorer is a great way to search for Hilton properties in your area based on your points budget and desired destination. It also gives you the minimum and maximum points per night required by each hotel.
While it’s not perfect, the Points Explorer can be a great starting point for a Hilton award booking. It will give you a range of hotels that meet your criteria, including location and price.
You’ll want to make sure to enter the correct dates and point values in order to get the most accurate results. Otherwise, you’ll be getting a lot of hotels that don’t fit your travel needs.
You’ll also want to keep in mind that Hilton Honors Silver, Gold and Diamond status members receive a fifth night free on award stays. That can push our value above 0.3p per point, depending on the hotel and the dates you choose to stay.
Award calendar
Hilton is one of the better hotel loyalty programs out there, but it can be a bit confusing to use. Despite this, it’s still possible to get good value out of Hilton Honors points.
If you’re flexible with your travel dates and want to find the best award night rates, you can use the hilton award search tool. This feature will let you search for award nights an entire month at a time, making it much easier to narrow down your options and find the lowest points cost.
However, it’s important to remember that Hilton doesn’t have an award chart, and award prices can vary widely based on your specific dates of travel and the hotel you choose. That means that it’s not always a great idea to use this feature if you’re looking for a specific hotel or property. Instead, it’s usually best to check out Points Explorer or other Hilton tools first. This will save you a lot of time and frustration.
Flexible dates
Hilton’s Points Explorer tool is a great way to search for award stays. It allows you to choose how many points per night you want and can also filter by hotel brand or location. It even lets you see a full month of dates at a time, which can be extremely helpful when trying to find availability at popular hotels.
When determining how many points you’ll need for an award stay, be sure to factor in the cost of upgrades and fees that may apply. Once you’ve figured out your price, use Points Explorer to find the hotel that meets your criteria and is within your budget.
Ultimately, the only downside to Points Explorer is that it can be frustrating when you need to search for specific awards, but thankfully there’s a solution. With a simple click, you can open the flexible dates calendar on Hilton’s website and thumb through months at a time with ease.