Hilton offering 3x (Triple) points on stays

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Hilton hotels. On one hand, they have a huge global footprint, and chances are that wherever you go, there’s a hotel that’s a member of the Hilton family of brands. On the other hand, I’ve found their elite benefits to be hit or miss and the point redemption values to be often way too high to make earning free stays a worthwhile endeavor.

The one thing that changes my mind, however, is when double or triple points promotions come along. If nothing else, it’s an easy way to rack up as many points as humanly possible in the hopes that we’ll earn enough to actually get a stay we want. Here you can see an example of a hotel in Seattle costing 40,000 and a hotel in Sandusky Ohio costing 40,000 as well.

Hampton Inn, Downtown Seattle

Hampton Inn, Downtown Seattle

Sandusky Ohio Hilton Property

Sandusky Ohio Hilton Property

Well, it turns out that for Q4 Hilton is offering triple points for hotel stays between October 1 and December 31st. The catch? You’ve got to book the hotel stay through the Hilton Hotels app. I don’t mind the app, in fact I find it to be quite useful. It’s actually one of the better hotel apps that I’ve seen. The room types are easy to see, the prices are clear, and overall it offers an easy user experience.

Hilton Luxor Pools

Hilton Luxor Pools

The part that sucks for me is that I use TopCashBack for my Hilton stays, as routinely I can earn between 5-7% cash back on all stays booked through them and then the Hilton website. If you haven’t signed up for TopCashBack yet, click through our referral link and we’ll both earn $10 after you make your first purchase. So, this begs the question that has nagged people for months and years before. Should I earn cash back, or points? Lets take a look at a couple of examples.

If you’re booking a 3 night hotel stay at $200/night, you’ve got a $600 hotel bill. At 5% cash back that’s a $30 return on your stay. Not too shabby, but it’s hardly anything to get excited over.

If I take that same hotel stay and now earn Hilton points for the stay, normally I‘d be earning 10 points per dollar for a total of 6000 points. Triple that in the promotion and we’re up to 18,000. If I choose “extra HHonors points†as my benefit, now I’ve got an extra 3,000 points to make the total for the stay 21,000 points. An average hotel in the Hilton chain requires 20,000-30,000 points for a free night, so this would get us pretty close.

If you take the $30 versus the 21,000 points, I think that anyone would agree that earning the 21,000 points wins out any day. In this case, the promotion works out. Of course, like all things in the miles and points world, you’ve got to look at your own personal situation and make a decision. But for us, this promotion wins out hands down.

What about you? Are you going to use the new App Triple points bonus with Hilton for your stays?

Author: Jon Nickel-D'Andrea

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