Earlier this week, Hilton Honors played their cards for how they look at the year 2021 for their loyalty programme members. The Hilton Honors programme will extend status all over again, through 2022, as a way to keep its band of loyalty club members to itself for another year going forward.

Hilton Honors extend status into 2022

Hilton Honors have been leading from the front during the pandemic, being very upfront about extensions for their members, and have done so again, for their 118 million Hilton Honors members worldwide. Hilton has notified the following customer-friendly moves in the past week:

• Extending status into March 2023: Hilton Honors status earned in 2019, valid for 2020, was extended for 2021, and has been extended for 2022.
• Rollover elite nights earned in 2021: With nights no longer required to retain your status for 2022, the nights stayed/earned in 2021 will be rolled over so that they give you a headstart into earning status for the 2023 membership year.
• Reduced requirements to earn elite status in 2022: Hilton Honors has been very flexible in getting people to earn back status with reduced requirements. For 2022, they announced requirements higher than 2021 but lower than 2019 (by 30%), which was the last membership year run regularly. In 2022, to retain elite tiers into 2023, you will need to dock as follows:
  •  Silver Tier: Seven nights, Three stays or 17,500 base points (as compared to Ten nights, Four stays or 25,000 points)
  • Gold: Twenty-Eight nights, Fourteen stays or 52,500 base points (as compared to Forty nights, Twenty stays or 75,000 points)
  • Diamond: Forty-Two nights, Twenty-One stays or 84,000 base points (as compared to Sixty nights, Forty stays or 120,000 points)
• Milestone Bonuses come quicker: For 2022, you get a 10,000 points milestone bonus at 30 nights and each additional ten nights thereafter. Not just that, you get a 30,000 points milestone bonus at 60 nights and the ability to gift Gold status at 40 nights, which can be upgraded to Diamond Status at 70 nights.
• Freeze points expiration to at least December 31, 2022. Hilton Honors points usually expire after 12 months of inactivity.

All of this clearly indicates what Hilton sees in their biggest market, which would be the USA itself, about how leisure travel would have tapered off by now, and how business travel may or may not return for the rest of the year. In this case, Hilton has fired the first shots and will win the loyalty of their customers who might want to not flock over to other programmes because of another free year in the programme with perks handed out to them.

This move, does however, put other loyalty programmes in a bit of a fix, as they might now have to consider the early possibility of considering 2021 as a gone year again, and hence, would have to extend status all over again into 2022 membership year for their members to keep their business.

Bottomline

Hilton Honors has extended status for their members for 2022, along with a reduced requirement for them to requalify for the 2023 membership year as well. In doing this, they hope to keep their flock of Hilton Honors members from leaving and pressure other programmes to decide what they would like to do.

What do you make of Hilton Honors move to retain customer loyalty for another year? Do you think other hotel chains will follow?

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