Another overnight Hilton price hike…all the way to 200K points per night

We’ve been loving Hilton Honors over the past year, primarily because of the addition of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) to its portfolio. There are now over 400 SLH properties bookable with Hilton points, and they can often be had at excellent prices when compared to cash rates.

In addition, free night certificates earned through the Hilton Aspire and Surpass cards can be used for SLH stays…and unlike every other hotel program’s free night certs, there’s no cap to the cost of the property that they can be used for.

Today, folks in a flyertalk thread noticed that many high-end Hilton properties have gone up in price overnight, the second such increase within the last six months. This again affected many desirable SLH properties as well.

As part of these changes, Hilton also has expanded its price ceiling all the way to 200,000 points per night.

Examples of hotels whose prices have increased

Here’s a list of some of the worst-offending rate increases that we’ve seen so far:

• Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi – previously 150K, now 200K
• Calala Island (SLH) – previously 150K, now 200K
• Riverview Ranch (SLH) – previously 150K, now 200K.
• Hermitage Bay (SLH) – previously 150K, now 190K
• Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal – previously 150K, now 190K
• Canaves Oia Suites (SLH) – previously 130K, now 190K
• South Bank (Turks and Caicos, SLH) – previously 130K, now 180K
• Eichardt’s Private Hotel (New Zealand – SLH) – previously 130K, now 180K

I’m sure that there are many more examples out there, so let us know in the comments what you find and we’ll add it to the list.

Quick Thoughts

OK, this is getting irritating. While we love what Hilton has done with SLH since their partnership, this is now the second time in six months that we’ve seen MASSIVE overnight prices increases on high-end properties with absolutely no notice from Hilton. In that time, the maximum amount that Hilton charges for a free night award has skyrocketed from 120K per night all the way to 200K.

One of the worst examples has been the uber-popular Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal. In mid-December last year, standard rooms cost 120,000 points/night. Then, in late-December, the price increased to 140K. Now, it’s all the way up to 190,000 points per night…a 50%+ increase in less than six months.

We peg the average value of Hilton Honors redemptions at ~0.005 per point, so 190K is still technically a good deal for a room that costs ~$2k/night…and the ability to use free night certificates remains unchanged. Even with these increases, the top-end of Hilton’s portfolio still offers good value on points and free night certificates become even more desirable.

However, this price hike double-tap has certainly taken some shine off Hilton Honors as a whole.

The last time that Hilton did this, we asked them about the no-notice aspect of the changes, as well as the increased use of of variable pricing. We received the following response:

Hilton Honors routinely monitors the program’s performance and recently conducted a series of business-as-usual changes to our standard room Point pricing for a number of hotels across the portfolio. As previously shared, while we won’t be sending updates for each and every shift, Hilton is fully committed to delivering the best value to our members and carefully considers any Point adjustments for Hilton properties.

At the time, we took this to mean “expect more in the future.” But, we didn’t expect it this soon or with these kinds of steep increases in what the maximum price for a Hilton award would be. That’s what’s especially disconcerting. Hiking the top rate from 120K to 200K in less than six months is extraordinary…and certainly seems to indicate that there’s no ceiling that Hilton would consider too high.

This recent change makes me believe that we’ll continue to see price increases creep throughout high-end Hilton Honors properties…and much more rapidly than we originally thought. I would have never believed a year ago that we’d see 200K Hilton awards. What could we have by this time next year? 250K? 300K?

Hilton has seemed to decide that it’s very comfortable with its points being worth around 0.5 cents each in most circumstances. However, we believed that it was also content to have the higher-end of its portfolio offer outsized value by comparison. That seems to have been misplaced hope.

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