Hilton HHonors Category 2 hotels cost 10,000 points per night or 40,000 points for a 5-night stay for HHonors VIP elite. The cost of a category 2 hotel is 50% of the points required of a category 3 at 20,000 HHonors points per night or 80,000 points with 5th night free rewards.
Hilton HHonors is approaching 4,000 hotels worldwide. There are 35 category-1 hotels (<1%) and 134 category-2 hotels (3%).
There are ten hotel reward categories in Hilton HHonors. The cost of HHonors reward nights are based on hotel category. HHonors redesigned its hotel reward category system in early 2013.
The sweet spots of the HHonors Reward table are category 1 and 2, where if you can find a suitable hotel with reward space, then the cost of five nights at a 5,000 points category 1 hotel is the same 20,000 points cost for one reward night at a category 3 hotel. A category 2 hotel reward night at 10,000 points per reward night is half the cost of a category 3 reward night at 20,000 points.
The primary obstacle to getting great savings at category 1 and 2 hotels are the relatively small number of hotels in the two lowest reward categories.
Hilton HHonors Category 1 has 35 hotels worldwide, less than 1% of Hilton’s global portfolio. Only five of these hotels are in the USA. The 35 hotels in category 1 are listed in this Loyalty Traveler post: Where 35 HHonors Category 1 Hotels Are. These are highly discounted reward nights, but you have to be in one of the few locations like China, Egypt, Mexico, UK or Oman to find a hotel.
Hilton HHonors Category 2 has 134 hotels worldwide with 101 hotels in the USA. The hotels in the USA are concentrated in the southeastern states and Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico and scattered around midwestern states farm country of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.
- 24 states have Hilton HHonors category 2 hotels.
- Alabama, Georgia and Texas have double-digit, 10 or more, category 2 hotels.
- Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma have 5 or more HHonors category-2 hotels.
- Only 10 of 101 Hilton HHonors category-2 hotels in USA are not Hampton Inn brand.
One hotel that catches my attention on this list is Colorado Springs Airport.
Bakersfield, California is useful to me since that is the near the half-way point between my home in Monterey and Las Vegas for the 510-mile drive. Travelers driving between San Francisco or Sacramento and Las Vegas may find the two hotels in Bakersfield useful since they are half-way along the 560-mile drive.
Alabama and Arkansas are good places for the Hilton HHonors traveler.
Georgia along with Texas leads the states for most HHonors category-2 hotels with 14 including the DoubleTree Atlanta Airport. The farm belt land of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa offer several category-2 hotels. And two of the five Doubletree Hotels in the USA listed as Category 2 hotels are in Chicago suburbs.
Several of the Hampton Inn Category-2 hotels are near college towns. New Mexico and North Carolina have six hotels each if traveling around these states.
Hampton Inn Alamogordo, New Mexico is near White Sands National Monument. This desert park preserves part of the world’s largest gypsum sand dunefield, 15 minutes from Alamogordo. I experienced these massive white dunes several times when I was 11 years old and lived at White Sands Missile Range.
Santa Fe, New Mexico recently placed #2 in Top 10 Cities of the USA in Conde Nast Traveler’s Readers Choice 2013 awards. You might want to check out the natural beauty of New Mexico in some more rural parts of the state too and six Hilton HHonors category-2 hotels can help.
Texas and Oklahoma have 20% of the Category-2 hotels in the USA. Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina along with their neighboring states also offer many HHonors category-2 hotel options when touring these regions.
These are the 101 hotels in HHonors category 2 rewards for the USA as listed on HHonors October 18, 2013.
A separate post will cover the 33 international hotels with 13 hotels across four countries in Europe.
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