Earlier this year, we wrote about all the changes Hilton is introducing from April 2018. Effective from tomorrow, Tuesday, April 3, 2018, Hilton Honors goes live with their new changes. Here’s a quick recap of all those changes and a closer look at all the significant changes that are coming to the program.

To start with, let’s go through the good part of these programs changes. They have introduced a simple way to earn and boost the value for its points.

An Easier Way to Earn More Points

All the members will still earn points in an old-fashioned way, but they will enjoy the new elite-tier bonus rates.

• Silver members will end up getting 20% bonus points (previously 15% bonus)
• Gold members will earn 80% bonus points (prior 25%)
• Diamond members will enjoy 100% bonus points (50% bonus)

Milestone Bonuses

Members will earn 10,000 bonus points on every 10th night, after completing at least 40 nights in a year. Diamond members will enjoy a benefit of 30,000 bonus points after totaling 60 stays in a year. This is not a limited period offer, but an ongoing benefit, thus no registration is required.

Elite Rollover Nights

Every night you stay counts! Now Silver, Gold and Diamond members can rollover nights. For example, if you reach Silver after staying ten nights, but end the calendar year with 30 nights, 20 will roll over – giving you a jump-start on Gold status in the next year. 

A point to remember here is that only nights will roll over and not stays, and just for one year after. For instance, excess nights in 2018 roll over to 2019 and will expire after that. They will not carry forward to 2020 again.

Gifting Elite Status

Diamond members can now gift Gold status to their favorite travel companion by completing 60 or more nights in a year. When you stay for 100 nights or more, and the gift gets upgraded to Diamond status.

Earning Points & Miles discontinued

There is also some not-so-good part of the amendments. First, you will no longer earn airline miles and hotel points for staying at any Hilton properties. Up until now, members could choose to receive Points & Miles on their stays rather than just Points. The Points and Miles choice enabled you to earn airline miles with your preferred airline loyalty program simultaneously. The program is doing away with Points & Miles, and members can only receive Hilton Honors points for their stays effective now.

Hilton says that most members chose the Points and Points earning options anyways, and Points and miles was complication without too much use. Also, a majority of members would never make a preference at all.

Bottomline

In general, the changes are positive, mainly from the perspective that they simplify the loyalty program and the changes are towards creating stickiness to the brand. Some enhancements that they introduced in 2017 like the pooling of points with up to 10 people and the flexible cash and points scale to redeem nights are truly valuable and make the program more appealing. Hilton has been communicating the upcoming changes regularly so that members are aware of the new benefits of the revamped program.

What are your thoughts about the changes made to the Hilton Honors program?