An email just came my way from Hilton HHonors corporate indicating the adjustments to hotel rewards on April 15, 2014 will be a small proportion of hotels affecting 39 properties. There will be 25 hotels moving up in reward category and 14 moving down. This is good news for 2014 considering that is less than 1% of hotels in Hilton brands globally.
Also, Hilton HHonors will move away from an annual reward category reassignment and adjust hotels periodically throughout the year, apparently with greater transparency.
Overall, good news I think.
Effective April 15, 2014, 25 of our hotels and resorts (0.6% of our properties) will be increasing hotel category, and 14 of our hotels and resorts (0.3% of our properties) will be decreasing hotel category. We’ve made these modifications based on periodic reviews of our hotel reward categories as new hotels join the program and market dynamics change. The Hilton HHonors Standard Room Rewards Point Pricing Tool will reflect these changes as of April 15.
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In addition, we will be shifting away from the cycle of annual reward category announcements. I believe that through transparency in our communications, we can develop a greater level of trust, which is critical to a healthy relationship with our members. To that end, we want to give members full visibility into any hotel category adjustments – including the introduction of new redemption hotels – so we will be sharing an updated list of adjusted hotels on HHonors.com on a periodic basis. HHonors members will be able to see which hotels are changing categories, as well as the category assignments for new hotels. This list, the Standard Room Rewards Update, can be found on the HHonors.com Using Points page under Standard Room Hotel Categories.
Mark Weinstein, Vice President HHonors and Parnerships
[from email I received today]
The seasonal reward pricing introduced in 2013 really makes annual adjustments unnecessary with Hilton HHonors, since hotels in the upper levels can adjust regularly each month across a 30,000 points spread.
Here is an article I wrote in January 2014 to help comprehend HHonor seasonal rewards: Hilton HHonors Seasonal Reward Rates Clarified.
