As I was reconciling my HHonors statement today I noticed that my one night stay at a Hampton Inn last week earned me 4,361 HHonors points. That’s a whopping 44 HHonors points per dollar! How? First, my MyWay preferences are set for Points and Points (since I stay primarily at Hampton Inns, Points + Miles isn’t as attractive), so that earns an automatic 50% bonus on base points in addition to the 50% bonus for having Diamond status. Hilton awards an additional 500 points for booking at the Hilton site with my HHonors Amex. This is rounded out by the current Hilton promo which doubles the base points awarded. Here’s the breakdown from my statement:
| 2012 Q2 DOUBLE YOUR HHONORS – DBL PTS – Hampton Inn North Dallas Addison | 990 | ||
| Base Points – Hampton Inn North Dallas Addison | 990 | ||
| AMEX CO BRAND ONLINE BOOKING BONUS – Hampton Inn North Dallas Addison | 500 | ||
| DIAMOND VIP BONUS – 50% 2011 – Hampton Inn North Dallas Addison | 495 | ||
| 50% BONUS ON BASE POINTS – Hampton Inn North Dallas Addison | 495 |
That’s 3,470 points for the stay, but I also earn 9 points per dollar on my HHonors Surpass card. That’s an additional 891 HHonors points for a total of 4,361 points. Not bad for a one night, $99 rate!
How many of you are taking full advantage of all the hotel programs to seriously expand your award earnings? Are there other tricks that I’m missing?
I’m only a lowly Gold member, but I got almost 5700 points for my stay at a DoubleTree in North Carolina last week, between the Q2 promo, base points, bonus points, credit card, etc. I had an early meeting, so I took the 1k bonus points as the MyWay bonus rather than breakfast. All together I think it works out to 45.5 points per dollar! At that rate it’s almost 1:1 paid night to award night in a Category 1 hotel…too bad there aren’t many of those where I travel.
Chris, that’s a fantastic earn rate! The extra 1000 MyWay points for DT can certainly help make a difference!
[...] 49. On a $139 stay that’s 6,921 points – for one night. I posted recently about getting 44 points/dollar at a Hampton Inn; this was even better. The stay was at a Doubletree with a base rate of $139 (plus taxes). The [...]
Chris,
Im not sure how long you have had the Surpass card and if this applies to you but I also believe that one of the benefits is either within the first 18 or 24 months, for every HIlton night you pay for on the card of $100+/night, you get a 2,500 point bonus, up to 8 nights. I didnt know about that when I signed up but was told that by the rep when asking about all of the benefits. So if you haven’t accessed that you may want to check on it. That should be an easy 20K points if you make 8 stays in that time frame.