Hilton App Bonus Award Stays
Hilton and Visa recently released a new promotion where you can earn 5,000 points per stay that is booked through the Hilton app and paid for with a Visa card. It isn’t the most lucrative promotion in the world but bonus points are bonus points. Normally promotions like this don’t actually work on award stays, but it seems this one does.
Apparently if you book your award stay through the Hilton app and charge some sort of incidental to your room, if the bill is paid for with a Visa then you will earn the bonus points. This was confirmed on Flyertalk by a Hilton rep.
Eligible reward stays count for the Visa Bonus provided the incidentals or other charges are paid for using a Visa card.
Maximizing
To maximize this deal you will want:
- 1 night stays
- Book into category 1 or 2 hotels
Since category 1 hotels are only 5,000 points per night you would earn 100% of your points back. (Factor in the cost of your incidental of course.) Alternatively, since category 2 properties cost just 10,000 points per night you would be getting a 50% rebate. Cash + points bookings count as well for the bonus.
Some Properties Excluded
According to the terms of the Hilton HHonors program, incidental charges at Hampton, Home2Suites and Homewood properties do not earn points and thus most likely wouldn’t trigger the bonus. This has not been confirmed either way in practice, but keep in mind most category 1 or 2 properties in the U.S. and Europe are from these brands. Elsewhere in the world there are very nice properties such as the Doubletree in Kuala Lumpur which is a steal at only 10,000 (5,000 with this deal) points per night.
Conclusion
This is a good deal if you have upcoming plans where there is a category 1 or 2 Hilton property. Even if you are staying at a higher tiered property on an award, it makes sense to book your stay through the app and pay with a Visa so you can claim the extra 5,000 bonus points.
HT: Inside Flyer UK
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So much hype about a promo that’s similar to at least two that HHONORS has run with AMEX cards! What’s more, anyone who knows the HHONORS program would know that they do not make a distinction between paid and award stays when it comes to earning promo points, making this hype by travel bloggers who ought to that much sillier. See comments by DCS to this post over at VFTW for two stacked AMEX promos that offered even more…
http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/11/18/get-free-hilton-category-1-hotel-night-5000-points-back-award-stay/#comment-4580027
The category 1 Hilton Garden Inn in Bali is over 20k points per night. Not all category 1’s are 5k points?
All category 1s are, but only for base level rooms. Perhaps there aren’t base level rooms for the night you are looking? It seems like that property is playing games with room availability since I’m having a hard time finding any available base rooms.